A customer needs a van for Saturday. They open three tabs: a comparison site, a booking platform and the website of a rental company nearby. They look at one number, the day rate at the top, and click the lowest. Anyone who wants to set their car rental daily rate starts with an uncomfortable truth: that number is your advertisement, not your business model.
The advertised rate decides who clicks. What you earn from that customer is decided afterwards: by the rental length, the season, the customer group and whatever is added at booking and at check-out.
This is the second part of the series More revenue from the same fleet. In part 1 we laid out the five levers of your revenue. This part is about the first one: the price per day.
Two numbers, not one
Most rental companies carry one price in their head: the rate on the website. Yet there are two numbers you need to know.
- The advertised rate — the day rate the customer sees and compares. It has to be low enough to be chosen.
- The realised revenue per rented day — what a rented day actually earns on average, after season, rental length, customer rates and extras. That is the number from part 1.
The gap between the two is where your margin is made. A rental company that only watches the advertised rate never sees that gap. It competes on the number that earns the least and ignores the number that pays the bills.
The market largely sets your advertised rate. Your realised revenue is yours to steer.
The floor: what a rented day costs you
A low advertised rate is fine, as long as it doesn't drop below the cost of a rented day. That floor is higher than many owners think, because most costs keep running on the days the car stands still.
How high that floor sits in practice shows in Europcar's 2025 annual report, one of Europe's largest rental companies. That year Europcar ran an average fleet of 269,000 vehicles and rented out 75.2 million days. Divide its largest cost lines by those rented days and one rented day costs:
- the fleet itself (depreciation and leases): €1,079 million, about €14 per rented day;
- running the fleet, including insurance, commissions and franchise fees: €1,138 million, about €15;
- staff at head office and the branches: €538 million, about €7;
- other overhead: €251 million, about €3.
Together that is almost €40 per rented day. Rental revenue came to about €42 per rented day. So even a group with the buying power of 269,000 vehicles keeps only a few euros per rented day above its floor.
That floor is tied directly to utilisation. Europcar had its fleet on rent 76.6% of the time: almost 280 days per vehicle per year, against about €11,200 of costs per vehicle. With the same costs and utilisation ten points lower, each vehicle is rented some 243 days, and the floor rises to about €46 per rented day. Same car, same costs, a higher floor.
That is why a day rate can never be separated from your utilisation. Renting below the floor just to get a car out of the door means paying to rent it out.
Your own floor is different, because your purchasing, insurance and utilisation are not Europcar's. So work it out from your own yearly costs per vehicle, divided by the number of days the vehicle was actually rented.
The ceiling: what the market lets you charge
At the top, the market decides how far you can go. On a comparison site or a platform your price sits next to everyone else's, sorted from low to high. There is little room there. A few euros too high and you drop off the first screen.
Your own website is different. The customer compares less, because they have already found you. They look at availability, convenience and trust. A returning customer, or one booking through a business account, looks even less at the last euro.
So the ceiling is not one number. It differs per channel, per customer and per moment. How to weigh your channels against each other comes back in part 4 of the series.
Where the margin sits on top of the day rate
Between the floor and the ceiling lies the room in which you earn. You don't fill that room with one higher price, but with a price that moves.
Season and demand
A van on a Saturday in May is not the same as a van on a Tuesday in February. Yet many rental companies charge the same for both, because nobody has time to adjust the prices. A price that follows season and demand earns more on busy days without chasing customers away in quiet weeks.
Rental length
A weekend, a week and a month each call for a different price per day. A longer rental earns less per day, but also means fewer check-outs, check-ins and cleanings. A short rental in a busy week may earn more, because it ties up a car you could have rented to someone staying longer.
Customer group
A private customer who rents once a year, a regular business customer, a sales partner who sends customers your way: each deserves its own rate. An agreed contract price for a business customer who books all year can be lower and still earn more than a private customer in high season.
Extras
An extra driver, a lower excess, a mileage bundle. The advertised rate stays the same, the revenue of the rented day goes up. Extras get their own article in part 5 of the series.
Worked example: €3 more per rented day
We continue with the rental company from part 1. This is a worked example, assuming 50 vehicles, an average revenue of €100 per rented day and 12,000 rented days a year.
Suppose the realised revenue per rented day rises from €100 to €103. The advertised rate stays the same. The difference comes from a higher price on busy Saturdays, a weekend rate that no longer falls back to the weekly rate by default, and fixed agreements with business customers who are now invoiced at the right rate.
€3 times 12,000 rented days is €36,000 a year. Without one extra vehicle, without one extra employee, and without the customer seeing a higher number on the comparison site.
Price and utilisation pull on each other
The temptation to lower the day rate when it's quiet is strong. Sometimes that is exactly right. But a lower price only pays when it fills days that would otherwise have stayed empty.
Worked example: lower the price by €10 for everyone, and at 12,000 rented days that costs €120,000 a year. To earn that back you need more than 1,300 extra rented days at €90. Give the same discount only in quiet weeks and on vehicles that stand still, fill 300 empty days at €90, and that brings in €27,000 without the customers who would have booked anyway paying less.
The principle: lower the price where it fills empty days, not everywhere. How to see those empty days coming is the subject of part 3.
How to measure this in your own business
Look at these four numbers every month, per vehicle category:
- Advertised rate against realised revenue per rented day. The bigger the gap, the more you earn on top of the day rate.
- Share of rentals at the bare base rate. No seasonal surcharge, no customer rate, no extra. If that share is high, you are leaving the room above the floor unused.
- Your floor per category. The yearly cost per vehicle divided by the number of rented days.
- Days sold below the floor. Every day below it costs you money, even if the car went out of the door.
When prices, bookings and invoices sit in one system, you don't have to gather those numbers by hand.
Letting the price move without a spreadsheet
A price that moves with season, rental length and customer group can't be kept up in a spreadsheet. That is why growing rental companies let their software do that work.
The Dynamic Pricing module in RentVisie adjusts the price automatically based on demand. It supports seasonal pricing, discount structures and customer segmentation, so you have one pricing environment for all your vehicles and customer groups. According to research by BOVAG, the Dutch automotive trade association, dynamic pricing brings an average of 8% more revenue. For the difference between dynamic pricing and rate management, read rate management and dynamic pricing in rentals.
With Advanced Pricelists you link your own rates to individual customers or whole customer groups: negotiated, volume and contract prices, with their own price periods and seasons per list. Regular business customers and sales partners get their agreed rate, and every customer is invoiced as agreed. Promotions such as an early-booking discount or a discount for longer rentals are also something you set up yourself in RentVisie.
Your day rate is your shop window. Make sure it gets chosen, and earn your margin on everything that comes after it. You'll find every part of the series on the page More revenue from the same fleet.
Frequently asked questions
How do I set the daily rate for my rental cars?
Start at the floor: a vehicle's yearly costs divided by the number of days it is rented. Then look at what comparison sites, platforms and your own website allow. Pick an advertised rate in between that is low enough to be chosen, and let the margin come from season, rental length, customer rates and extras.
What is the difference between the advertised rate and the realised revenue per day?
The advertised rate is the day rate the customer sees and compares. The realised revenue per rented day is what a rented day actually earns on average, after seasonal surcharges, rental length, customer rates and extras. The gap between the two is where your margin is made.
What does a rented day cost a car rental company?
That depends on your own costs and your utilisation. Add up depreciation, insurance, maintenance, cleaning and a share of overhead per vehicle per year, and divide by the number of rented days. Because those costs keep running on days the car stands still, the cost per rented day rises when utilisation falls. For comparison: at Europcar, fleet, staff and overhead together came to almost €40 per rented day in 2025.
Should I lower my day rate when it's quiet?
Only where a lower price fills days that would otherwise stay empty. A discount for everyone also costs you money on the bookings you already had. A targeted discount in quiet weeks or on vehicles that stand still earns more.
Book a call. Together we look at the gap between your advertised rate and what a rented day really earns you.
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