How a price is calculated

Renta calculates every price the same way, in the same order, every time. It starts with the item's base rate, then applies any discounts or surcharges you've set up, adds extras, subtracts a coupon, adds tax, and finally adds Renta's own fee on top. Nothing is calculated twice, and nothing is skipped.

Where to find it

The individual pieces are configured in different places: Pricing → Price rules (the Seasonal, Time-Based, Multi-Day / Hour and Bundle tabs, plus the Coupons tab), Fleet → [item] → Pricing (base rates and each item's own discounts), Pricing → Fees & policies (deposits, day counting, cancellation, and how fees and tax are displayed). This page explains the order they combine in. See Universal Rules and the other Pricing tabs for a tour.

How it works

The engine works through these steps, in this order, for each rented item:

• Base rate — picks the right rate (half-day, full-day, multi-day, weekly, or hourly) for the length of the rental. If the booking holds the same item on several separate days (see below), the rate is picked for the total number of days.
• Duration discount — if the rental is long enough to qualify, applies either a multi-day discount or a multi-hour discount (never both on the same booking).
• Day-of-week adjustment — applies any matching day-of-week rule (a surcharge or discount tied to the pickup day).
• Seasonal adjustment — applies any matching seasonal rule (a surcharge or discount tied to a date range).
• Bundle — applies a bundle discount rule when the booking qualifies for one. A bundle you list yourself is priced like any other item, with its own rates and the rules above.
• Add-ons — adds the price of anything extra the customer selected.
• Coupon — subtracts a discount code, if one was entered.
• Subtotal — everything above added together.
• Tax — calculated on the subtotal, using your tax rate.
• Total — subtotal plus tax. This is what your business actually earns.
• Renta's platform fee — added on top of the total (2.5% of the pre-tax subtotal — see Renta's 2.5% platform fee).
• Amount charged — total plus Renta's fee. This is what the customer's card is actually charged.
• Deposit — held separately and refunded later, per your deposit settings; it is not part of the price above.

Example

A jet ski's full-day rate is $200. The customer books on a Saturday, when a day-of-week rule adds a 10% surcharge (+$20), and it's during a seasonal 15% summer markup on the base rate (+$30). No duration discount applies (it's a one-day rental) and no bundle or add-ons are selected.

• Base rate: $200.00
• Day-of-week surcharge: +$20.00
• Seasonal surcharge: +$30.00
• Subtotal: $250.00
• Tax (say 8%): +$20.00
• Total (what the business earns): $270.00
• Renta's fee (2.5% of the $250 subtotal): +$6.25
• Amount charged to the customer's card: $276.25

Good to know

• Day-of-week and seasonal adjustments can both apply to the same booking at once — they are not mutually exclusive with each other, only with same-type rules of their own kind.
• A coupon is applied to the subtotal, after add-ons but before tax — so tax is calculated on the discounted amount, and Renta's fee is calculated on the discounted amount too.
• Renta's fee is never taxed and never affects what your business receives — see Renta's 2.5% platform fee.
• Whether the customer sees the fee and tax broken out, or baked into one price, depends on your fee display setting.
• Separate days of the same item cost the same as one rental of that many days. If one booking has the same item on days that are not back to back (for example Oct 14, Oct 15 and Oct 17), Renta prices it as one 3-day rental of that item: the weekly, multi-day or full-day rate for 3 days, and the multi-day discount rule for 3 days. This does not apply to items priced by the hour, to half-day lines, to packages, or to different items (a jet ski on Saturday and a trailer Friday to Sunday are priced separately).
• Evening-before pickup can remove one paid day when an item has "Night-before pickup isn't charged" ticked and the customer picks up inside your evening window. A template can also add a night-before fee, which coupons never discount. See Night-before pickup templates and Letting customers pick up equipment the evening before.
• Not part of this price: a late return fee is added later, when you finish the return, and the early pickup settings are not applied to prices yet.