Almost every rental booking platform on the market is rented, not bought. You pay every month, forever; the software runs on the vendor’s servers; your customers, orders and contracts live in their database; and several of them take a percentage of what your customers pay you.
Sales Igniter works the other way round. You buy it once, you get the complete source code, and it runs on a store you already own — as a WooCommerce plugin or a Magento 2 extension. No monthly fee. No commission. No per-user or per-location charge. Support and updates are $199/year for WooCommerce, $299/year for Magento 2, after the first year — and entirely optional.
Below is an honest comparison against each of the major rental platforms — including the situations where they are the better buy. Every pricing figure is cited from the vendor’s own pricing page with the date it was read.
Compare Sales Igniter with…
Seven detailed, sourced comparisons. Pick the platform you are evaluating.
Five years of ownership, side by side
Monthly pricing is easy to underestimate because each number is small. Here is the same decision expressed as a five-year total.
| Platform | Pricing | Five-year cost | Licence model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales Igniter for WooCommerce — Regular | $199 once + $299/yr support | $1,395 | Buy once, own it |
| Sales Igniter for WooCommerce — Pro | $299 once + $299/yr support | $1,495 | Buy once, own it |
| Booqable | $29–$149/mo + add-ons | $4,140 | Subscription |
| Checkfront | $99/mo + 3% of bookings | $5,940 + 3% | Subscription |
| EZRentOut | ~$59–$499/mo, per user | ~$23,940 | Subscription |
| Goodshuffle Pro | ~$39–$139/mo, per user | ~$10,680 | Subscription |
| Twice Commerce | Free–€5,000/mo + commission | ~€35,880 | Subscription |
| Point of Rental | No published pricing | Quote only | Subscription |
| Rentman | Subscription, per user | See comparison | Subscription |
Vendor list prices as published August 2026, read from each vendor’s own pricing page where one is available; EZRentOut and Goodshuffle Pro figures are indicative and drawn from third-party software directories. Excludes negotiated discounts, payment-gateway fees and tax. Sales Igniter five-year figures assume the optional support and updates renewal ($199/year for WooCommerce) is paid for years two to five ($199 or $299 up front — the checkout price with codes 150regular and 200pro applied — plus four renewals). Renewal is optional — if you never renew, the plugin keeps working indefinitely and the five-year cost is just the $199 or $299 purchase. Figures exclude web hosting, which you provide — typically $10–$40 a month. Pricing changes; check the vendor’s site before deciding.
What the hosted platforms have in common
Booqable, Checkfront, EZRentOut, Goodshuffle Pro, Twice Commerce, Point of Rental and Rentman differ in features. The structure of the deal does not.
You are renting, not buying
Stop paying and you stop trading. There is no version of the arrangement where you end up owning what you have been paying for.
The code is closed
If you need behaviour their roadmap does not cover, you wait — or you migrate. No developer you hire can change it.
Your data is on their servers
Customers, orders and contract history live in the vendor’s database. Leaving means an export and a rebuild.
The storefront is not your site
Bookings happen on their platform or through an embedded widget, so the SEO value goes to them rather than to your domain.
The WooCommerce plugins are a different case
WooCommerce Bookings, YITH, Tyche and RnB are plugins, not platforms. They install on your own site, their code is open under the GPL like ours, and your customers and orders stay in your own database — none of the four points above applies to them. The differences there are narrower and worth being precise about.
Booking plugin or rental system
They add a calendar and take a reservation. None of them documents a check-out and check-in step, serial-number tracking, maintenance holds or a day-by-day inventory report, which is the work a rental business does after the order.
Deposits and contracts
Refundable security deposits and signed rental agreements at checkout are not in any of the four; where a vendor sells a deposits plugin it is a partial payment, not a refundable hold.
Annual licence or one-time
WooCommerce Bookings, YITH and Tyche renew every year. RnB is a one-time purchase, and genuinely cheaper than we are. Sales Igniter is a one-time purchase with optional yearly support and updates.
Bundles, variations and composites
Camera kits and event packages are usually Bundle, Composite or Variable products. Support for renting those varies by plugin and tier; the WooCommerce rental plugin comparison chart shows which does what, row by row.
Sales Igniter is built to be the opposite of the hosted deal, and to be the rental system the booking plugins stop short of. Read more about the open source, self-hosted approach — including an honest account of what running it yourself actually asks of you.
The fairest test is to book something
Our live demo is a real store with real inventory. Pick your dates and watch availability, deposits and contract generation work end to end — no signup, no card, no sales call.
Not sure whether WooCommerce or Magento 2 suits you? Read the platform comparison, or talk to us and describe your inventory — we will tell you honestly whether we fit, and say so if we do not.