Rental Software Directory
Ultimate Rental Software Directory 2022
Free Rental Contract Templates
Free Car / Motorcycle / Bike Rental Agreement Contract
Free Hotel or Vacation Rental Agreement Contract
Free Equipment Rental Agreement Contract
How Much To Charge? Setting Up Rental Pricing
Free Rental Pricing and Profit Calculator
Boost Rental Profits: How Much Should I Charge For Renting Equipment, Cars, Boats, AV, etc.? – article coming soon
Rental Business Marketing
Marketing Groups
/r/marketing – Reddit group with approximately 411,000+ members not specific to rental / hire but you can find great ideas here
r/seo – Reddit group with approximately 195,00+ members, good tips
Emails – Writing Great Copy
Wordstream Email Copywriting Tips
Emails Marketing Tools
Used for sending mass emails, but much more as well. Email template design, conversion tracking, open rates, and follow-up (drip) campaigns.
Send In Blue – very competitive pricing compared to other platforms
Search Engine Optimization – How To
For rental businesses be sure to pay a lot of attention to “Local SEO” meaning searches that contain your ciy, state, or area name in them, such as “los angeles computer rental” as an example.
Backlinkgui – Backlink building isn’t fun but here are some high domain authority backlinks you can easily build with step-by-step instructions, this is the best backlink list we’ve found
Search Engine Optimization Tools
Semrush – starts around $120/month, is an industry standard very comprehensive
Ahrefs – another top industry standard starts at $99/month
Ubersuggest – free and paid plans starting at $12/month we like this one for starting off
Content Writing
Before writing content articles for your rental business website use traffic estimation tools to see if there is any traffic for the keywords you are targeting, or else it will be a waste of time. Here are some good guides. Also try picking up a few top rated books on Amazon on Marketing or Content Writing, the $10 – $30 you spend will be worth it with the ideas the books give you. Go for low-hanging fruit first.
Semrush Content Writing – nice articles on the subject
CoSchedule Content Writing Tips a lengthy good quality article on the subject
Content Marketing Institute – blog
WordStream – Conversational Writing – their blog has lots of other great articles on marketing
Rental Associations
American Rental Association – includes many affiliates such as the Rental Equipment Register
American Car Rental Association
Vacation Rental Management Association
International Technology Rental Association
Hire and Rental Industry Association – Australia
Hire Industry Association of New Zealand
Association of Progressive Rental Organizations – focused on the rent to own (rental-purchase) industry
Hire Association Europe – focused on plant, tool, and equipment hire
California Rental Association – Equipment and party rental industry focus
Rental Business Groups and Forums
Equipment Rental Group – Approximately 7,600+ members
Car Rental Industry Professionals Worldwide – Approximately 1,300+ members
Equipment Rental – Construction Equipment – Approximately 18,600+ members
Rental Industry Professional Association – Approximately 2,800+ members
Vacation Rental Professionals – Approximately 15,300+ members
Vacation Rental Management Association – Approximately 7,300+ members
Faceboook
Party Rental Business Owners Group – Approximately 4,500+ members
The Rental Forum – Equipment rental operators Approximately 1,800+ members
Bounce House and Rental Operators – Approximately 12,900+ members
Ultimate Car Rental Business Guide – Approximately 25,400+ members
Heavy Equipment Rentals – Approximately 4,000+ members
Vacation Rentals from Owners – Approximately 85,700+ members
Event Rental Owners Forum – Approximately 1,000+ members
/r/RentalInventory – Approximately 7,800+ members, seems more focused on property rental
/r/MagentoBooking – forum for our Sales Igniter rental software for announcements and news – just started :).
General Forums
Trade Shows
Starting A Rental Business
How To Start A Property Rental Business
How To Start A Car Rental Business
How To Start A Party Rental Business
Rental Business Ideas
100 Winning Ideas for a New Online Rental Business
Crazy Weird Rental Business Ideas – Skunks, cadavers, batmobiles, and other ideas are discussed
Rental E-commerce Shopping Carts – Online Rental Bookings
There are 3 main E-commerce shopping cart platforms that dominate the space:
Magento (Adobe) – Offering both an open source (free) community version and a paid cloud version (think more medium – enterprise level). They have been around for over 15 years and were previously owned by PayPal.
WooCommerce – Another great open source (free) solution for small business built as a plugin for WordPress, does not have multi-inventory center or multi-store type features built-in though. Tons of plugins are available
Shopify – The most popular SaaS pay monthly type solution. Gets more expensive usually as you have to pay monthly for each and every addon you choose from their marketplace, you do not own the code it is all hosted on their servers
Each platform has advantages and disadvantages. There are also a myriad of other shopping carts but you probably won’t find the features you need for rentals in these platforms. After choosing your shopping cart system you still need to add a rental booking plugin or extension.
For a list of what Rental Booking Plugins are available for each platform please check our Rental Software Directory.
Programming & Web Development
Basically you have the choice to go local and search on google for web developers in your area, or use a freelance type marketplace. Make sure to check the feedback and references of the web developer you chose, as well as if they have any experience in the rental industry. Make sure the web developer you use is specializing in your chosen platform: If you use Magento make sure your web developer knows Magento in and out. if it’s WooCommerce / WordPress then find a developer specialized in that.
Make a CLEAR outline of all the work you need done written out and if possible sketched out using a free online sketch tool or even with pencil and paper.
Here are a few resources:
Upwork – the most popular freelancer platform
Freelancer – the second most popular freelancer platform, you will probably get more bids here but the freelancers we’ve found tend to get into a feeding frenzy and “bid without thinking” meaning they’ll later negotiate the real price they want to bid.
Rental Tech Consultants – specialty in rental software customization and development, an affiliate of Sales Igniter
Hubstaff Talent – great site to hire more permanent remote staff, no pay walls! We really like this site. You can contact freelancers directly
Guru.com – not as popular as the top 3 but still has a lot of developers
Fiverr.com – though made famous for low-cost (low quality?) freelancer services, it has now expanded and improved
Find A Designer for Ads, Web, Videos, etc.
The above mentioned freelancer finder websites Upwork and Freelancer.com have lots of designers to chose from. However not all designers will use those since they do charge fees. Here are some other resources to find good designers. Note that many of these will have a paywall to try and contact the designer, but you can usually get around it by just searching for the designer’s name or company and finding their contact information.
Canva – create your own design assets with templates and a photoshop like online designer tool
Behance – Designer portfolio site
Dribbble – Another designer portfolio site
99designs – Design content platform to post a price for your project and multiple designers will compete to provide you a design. Now they have expanded to having fixed priced services you can browse lots of designer’s portfolios.
How To Track Rental Inventory
Rental Inventory Tracking 101 – article coming soon
Understanding Quantity Based vs Serial Number (Barcode & RFID tag) tracking
Free Barcode and QR Code Generator [PDF Print Labels]
Below you’ll find some barcode and QR code generators. We plan on making our own with better PDF label support in the future, but this should get you started.
Online Barcode Generator – Can generate multiple barcodes at once, v4 generator has advanced layout features
Barcode Generator by Tec-IT – Code-128 and other formats, they also offer barcode generation software
Inventory Tracking Supplies
Before purchasing any tracking supplies such as barcode readers, RFID tags or QR code labels try to map out your rental asset tracking strategy. Make sure that your barcode reading equipment is compatible with your rental software solution, and that the asset tags that you order are durable enough to last through many rentals.
Label Printers
The top barcode label printer companies are listed below. Usually you’ll buy these printers from e-commerce retailers like Amazon, Staples, Walmart, Target, etc.
Zebra – most printers come with their ZSB label designer software, they also offer scanners
Dymo – very popular label and printer supplier, printers have the DYMO label writer software included for free
Brother
RFID, QR Code, Asset Tags, GPS Trackers
Strong Asset Tags – specializing in waterproof and durable asset tags (QR, Barcodes, etc.)
Fast RFID – offers consulting as well
Dipole RFID – no pricing listed
GPS and Track – focused on Car gps trackers
Tracki – GPS tracking solution
