How is everyone quoting rates? Are you giving the book rate or an out the door price?

I’m curious how everyone here determines their initial rental pricing. For me, I run every potential purchase through a spreadsheet before I buy. It calculates daily/weekly/4-week rates based on my projected cost to keep & fleet life expectancy, and shows how many rentals at each duration I’d need to hit my monthly return goals. Only after that do I check competitor pricing. The only time their numbers matter is if mine come out so far above theirs that it feels unreasonable, or if the utilization required is unrealistic. As a general rule, I don’t care what my competitors charge. Too many people in this business (and others) set prices based on “market rates” and then wonder why they can’t make money. I get that we are in a somewhat 'commoditized' market, but we can't simply assume the guy down the streets decisions will serve us well. If your numbers say you need to charge $150/day but the guy down the road is at $100/day, you’ve got two options: - Rent it at $150 and prove the value to your customer, or - Skip the purchase and move on to something that makes more sense to your business. For all we know, that guy down the road is just chasing fast cash and isn’t building a profitable business. Why chase him to the bottom?

For equipment like mini skids, mini excavators… what is your target dollar utilization?

Dropping new prompt for the community. This one is designed to compare your base rental rates to local market pricing and recommend adjustments to help capture more margin. Important note: I don’t see this as a sound method for setting your prices. It’s not meant to replace the hard work of creating your own pricing formula. Instead, it’s a tool for checking the prices you’ve already set against what’s happening in your market. My hope is that everyone here has a clear, repeatable formula for how they determine their rates. If you don’t, you’ll want to build that foundation first, then use this to sharpen and pressure-test your numbers. Enjoy: “I have uploaded my equipment rental pricing spreadsheet. Please benchmark my rates against other rental businesses within a __-mile radius of [Your City]. Use publicly available pricing from national chains (United, Sunbelt, Home Depot) and online rental marketplaces (DOZR, BigRentz, Rubbl, etc.) as anchors. Steps I’d like you to follow: 1. Organize my pricing by category (CTLs, mini excavators, mulchers, stump grinders, attachments, etc.). 2. For each category, compare my half-day, daily, weekend, weekly, and monthly rates against local low/median/high pricing bands. 3. Show the variance (as a % above/below market) and identify whether I’m positioned low, at market, or premium. 4. Provide tactical recommendations: where to raise, hold, or lower rates, and why (e.g., align week:day ratio, stay just under box store anchors, or maintain premium for specialty gear). 5. Summarize results in a clear table and an executive-style memo that I can share with my team.” You can use the below template if you do not have an existing pricing spreadsheet.

I polled my facebook audience recently and asked the if they would prefer a weekend discount or additional hours. There wasn’t a huge response but all responses were for extra hours. This has me thinking about possibly changing our weekend use policy. Currently we charge for a 1 day rental with the standard 8 hrs run time. Additional hours are pro-rated using the daily rate. I’m considering the idea of upping the weekend usage to 12 hours and upping the rate to equal 125% of daily. Essentially giving 2 hours for free or 4 hrs 50% off (which is how I would market it most likely.) How do you guys currently handle weekend rates and usage? Have you ever done something similar?