answer:According to this article an average MRI machine costs approximately $2 million to buy and install and $800,000 per year to run. I couldn’t find anything with the price of a CT machine. I know from experience that when your MRI machine breaks in the hospital, it causes a lot of issues. Just shutting the equipment down and restarting it can take a lot of time. As far as typical life, I am not sure, but I do know that the machines have evolved over the years and hospitals would be updating their equipment as they could afford to do it. How many scans done per hour depends on the scan being done. I’ve had patients have an MRI done in as little as 15 minutes and others that have taken an hour or more. Is it profitable? I’m not sure. I imagine it depends on how many scans they do and how much they are actually reimbursed for those scans.