Translation: It pays for itself

Can anybody give me a translation for this: It pays for itself.

The situation is installing solar panels. It costs to install them but you eventually earn it back.

Thanks in advance.

My first guess would be something like 長期的には甲斐がある. Not sure if this would work in terms of cost efficiency, but it would probably get the point across.

Something like this perhaps?
自分に払います!

Or maybe in keigo:
ご自分にお払いになります!

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Would that work since 払う is transitive? But yeah thats sort of the literal translation. To pay off I think is usually 割に合う or 甲斐がある.

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Apparently the expression in Japanese is 元が取れる
Source

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That makes sense when you think about it, but I would have never guessed that in 1000 years. Interesting.

Me neither.
Interestingly, I just asked a native about it, and they replied “yeah, it’s a common expression”.
I guess my business sense just sucks too much and I never came accross something that pays for itself in Japan.

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I think so. The direct object would be the payments, would it not?

I think @Nath might be more accurate in terms of capturing the phrase however.

If you slap 意味 onto the end of English idiomatic expressions, you’ll generally find Japanese resources written by natives trying to explain it to natives who are learning the English version.

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I thought this was going to be a thread about how much money you can earn as a translator, my bad

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Thank you. She couldn’t come up with it but my wife confirmed that this was the phrase. The salesman seemed to understand what I was trying to say with my その機械が自分で払ったらいいけど but it didn’t sit right with me.

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