Generally most instrument vendors scale the service contract with the cost of the instrument, often around (very roughly) 10% of list price per year. So in a se

Generally most instrument vendors scale the service contract with the cost of the instrument, often around (very roughly) 10% of list price per year. So in a sense a cheaper instrument gets cheaper service. I'm not sure if you'll be sitting down longer (that often depends on how annoying or important you are) or just that parts are going to be cheaper and fewer things that can break. Some stuff is very reliable and you never really get your monies worth from the service contract and some stuff (like electron microscopes) break often.