Multi-day rentals
Hire items out by the hour, half day, day, week or month, with combined pricing, extras, and per-item hire lengths.
Last updated 2 September 2026
Rentals span multiple days, with combined daily and weekly pricing, so a week-long hire is not seven times the day rate. Use them for demo bikes, tools, e-bikes, or anything a customer takes away and brings back.
Set up a rental
- 1Open Catalogue → Rentals, pick the Bikes & extras tab, and choose New item.
- 2Set the Daily rate and, if you offer them, a Weekly rate and a Monthly rate. A month is 30 days, not a calendar month.
- 3Add a Half-day rate or an Hourly rate if you hire in parts of a day. An item only offers a mode once its rate is set here and the mode is on under Rental settings → Booking windows.
- 4Under How long they can keep it, set Min hire length (days) and Max hire length (days), and an Offline time after each hire (hours) if a bike needs a clean or check before it goes out again.
- 5Save.
How pricing combines
- Velobook charges the cheapest combination of your rates for the span: a 38-day hire is a month plus a week plus a day if that beats the alternatives, and a six-day hire is never six times the day rate when the weekly rate is cheaper.
- Hourly hire can roll over to the day rate past a point you choose (Charge a day after, under Rental settings → Booking windows), always or only when the day works out cheaper.
Availability
- An item out on hire is not available for the same dates
- Unavailable days are greyed out for the customer
- The maximum hire length keeps long holds from blocking the calendar
While a customer is partway through paying, their bikes are held for about 30 minutes. An abandoned checkout clears within a few minutes of the hold expiring. A bike that reads unavailable with no booking behind it is usually this; check back shortly.
Same-day hires
Allow a same-day hire, out and back on the one date and priced as a full day, by turning on same-day return on the Rental settings tab. On the calendar the customer taps the pickup day once.
Extras
The Extras list on the same Bikes & extras tab holds what customers can add to a hire: trailers, baby seats, helmets. Each has a price (Per day or Flat per hire), its own photo, and a Stock (units owned) count, so you never hire out more child seats than you own.
- One per bike: the quantity follows the booking as bikes are added or removed; the customer does not set it. For anything charged per rider.
- Every booking gets it: added automatically, and the customer cannot take it off. For cover that only works if everyone has it, like a damage waiver.
- Where it shows: limit an extra to particular bikes. Hidden from customers keeps one for counter use only.
- What you ask the customer: questions on the extra. A child seat usually wants the child's age, height and weight.
Pick the word with the Rental wording control in the Words customers see card under Booking page. It re-words the whole customer rental flow and the rental emails and texts. Defaults to "hire".
Rentals can be paid online at booking, with an optional deposit, through your connected payment provider, or at the counter on collection. For higher-value kit, Velobook can hold a security amount on the card and record that you sighted ID at handover: both on the Rental settings tab, covered in rental settings: windows, delivery and security.
On Shopify, customers can start a hire from your own product pages and book the whole basket in one go: see hire from your Shopify product pages.