Charging for delivery by the mile (distance-based delivery fees)

If you bring gear to the customer, you can charge for the distance. You set a price per mile, say how many miles are free, and optionally cap how far you will go. Renta then works out the delivery fee for each customer from their address and adds it to the booking.

Where to find it

Go to Settings → Checkout steps (or Checkout in the left sidebar), open the Client view tab, and add a Delivery Calculator step under Checkout Steps. Click the step to edit it. The full page is described in Designing your checkout steps.

How it works

The settings

• Starting point - your shop or warehouse address. Distance is measured from here.
• Fee - Distance-based (the mileage fee in this article) or Flat rate (the same fee every time).
• Rate (USD per mile) - what each billable mile costs.
• Free miles - miles you do not charge for.
• Max delivery distance (miles, optional) - the farthest you will deliver. Leave it empty for no limit. It also applies to a flat-rate step.
• Allow customer to pick round-trip (otherwise one-way only) - lets the customer choose One way or Round trip.
• Delivery required to complete booking - makes delivery compulsory.

How the fee is worked out 1. Renta measures the driving distance from your starting point to the customer's Delivery address. 2. It subtracts your Free miles. If the distance is inside the free miles, the fee is $0. 3. A Round trip doubles the billable miles. A One way delivery does not. 4. It multiplies the billable miles by your Rate (USD per mile) and rounds to the cent.

For example: the customer is 25 miles away, you give 10 free miles at $3.50 a mile, and they pick a round trip. Billable miles are (25 - 10) x 2 = 30, so the fee is 30 x $3.50 = $105.

What the customer sees They type a Delivery address and pick it from the suggestions. Renta shows the Total distance, Free miles, Billable miles, Rate, Drive time and Delivery fee. The fee is added to the booking as a delivery charge, and the delivery shows up as runs on your Dispatch board. A round trip creates a drop-off and a collection. See Coordinating deliveries and pickups for the day.

The maximum distance If the address is farther than your Max delivery distance, the customer sees "Sorry, we only deliver within N miles of our shop." and cannot add delivery. The limit is checked against the one-way driving distance. It is not checked when Renta can only estimate the distance.

How the distance is found Renta uses a map service to get the real driving distance. If the service cannot give an answer at the moment, the customer is asked to try again ("We couldn't confirm your delivery distance - please try again in a moment.") rather than being charged a guessed number. Where the map lookup is not available, the distance is only a rough estimate, and a Manual distance (miles) box may be offered.

Booking for a customer yourself On Bookings → New booking, the delivery calculator has Free miles, Rate / mile, One way or Round trip, and a Delivery address box. Press Calculate Distance, then add the delivery. It is added as a custom charge on the booking. Save as my delivery rules copies the rate and free miles you typed onto every Delivery step in your checkout.

Example

You deliver paddleboards from your shop in Apple Valley. You set Distance-based, Rate (USD per mile) $2.00, Free miles 5, Max delivery distance 30, and allow round trips. A customer 12 miles away picks a one-way delivery, so 7 billable miles x $2.00 = $14. A customer 40 miles away is told you only deliver within 30 miles.

Good to know

• No minimum fee. A delivery inside your free miles costs $0 and the customer cannot add it. There is no setting for a minimum charge.
• Flat rate. With Flat rate, distance does not change the price. The customer still enters an address, and you can still cap the distance.
• Round trip changes the runs, not only the price. In flat-rate mode a round trip does not change the fee, but it does tell Renta to schedule a collection run.
• Publish your changes with Publish changes so customers see the new settings.