Car Rental Business

If you love cars or just think that starting a rental company is something you would enjoy, you are in luck because it is easier than ever to start a car rental business and you can make a ton of money if you run it right. In this section we will go over the steps it takes to start your business, the different platforms you can host your vehicles on, and how to scale your business to a fleet of cars that can make you great money.

The first step to building a car rental business of course is to find a car that you can rent. You can start out with your personal car or an extra car you have. If you have some extra money, you can also check out Turo’s list of best cars for return on investment for rentals. Right now, the Fiat 500 has the best ROI followed by the Chrysler Voyager and the Kia Rio. You can check out the full list yourself by searching top earning cars on Turo which is the main platform we will use to host our vehicles. Once you pick out a car you want to buy, I recommend opening an account with a credit union and using that credit union to get the loan for your car. Credit unions typically don’t charge any points on your loan and will offer the lowest interest rates, which will save you a fortune as you start scaling to more cars. You can even find a cheap car on Facebook marketplace if you or a friend have the ability to inspect the car before buying. You can still use a loan from your credit union even if the car is not from a dealership, so take advantage of this. Once you have your car you can also make some cheap modifications that give it some personality and style, you can smoke the headlights, add a nice grill cover, hydro dip your wheels, really anything that sets your car apart from your competition. Don’t go crazy with this but you can catch the attention of more renters and even charge a little more because of the style you added.

Now that you have a car to rent, it is time to post it on different platforms to rent it out on. A few platforms that you should sign up for free on and post your car to are Turo, Getaround, carhire.com, hyrecar.com, Lyft Rentals, and Uber Rent. Turo is the main platform that I recommend using because it has the most users and will get you the best results. People can use just Turo as their rental platform and can still make 100s of thousands of dollars a year on there alone. However, if you set up an account on all these platforms you will have a much better chance of booking all the days you can for your car. You just have to make sure that you are updating the platforms each day so that you are marking off days that are already booked so you don’t double book the same car for a day. Also make sure you take great pictures of your car with good lighting. Check out some top performing cars in your area on Turo to get an even better idea of what pictures you should be taking. You can also check high performing posts of the same car you have to get an idea of a good description for your post. You should paint your car as the perfect reliable solution for your customers and use your description to give it some personality. Most importantly, however, will be the price you are charging and the model of car you are posting. Go to the consumer side of the Turo App and search for your car in your area and other areas if you need to, in order to see what people are charging and what price points are getting a lot of bookings for your vehicle. You can see the days that cars are already booked up by trying to book them and that will show you the potential for your vehicle. Choose a price point either matching high performing posts or undercutting them by a couple of dollars a day. As you build up some great reviews and customers you can always raise it a little bit later.

Once you start renting your first car you can start taking the money you are making and putting it towards down payments on new vehicles. You should start an LLC for your car rental business once you are about to purchase a second car. Depending on your credit and the credit of your business, overtime you will be able to purchase cars for little to no money down. You will also be able to get some better rates for your insurance once you have a fleet of cars you are renting out under your LLC.

If you are running a successful car rental business you can expect to make about double your monthly expenses on each of your vehicles, this means that if between, gas, maintenance, insurance, and payment, you are paying $800 per month on a car you should be bringing in about $1,600 per month total on that car. With numbers like these, you can make well over 6 figures once you start scaling to the double digits in cars on your roster. At some point you can also build a website that people can book from directly to avoid the fees from Turo and other platforms. Each time you rent a car to someone new you can give them a card with a coupon for renting from your site directly next time they need a car. This can save them a little money, show them the other cars you offer on your site, and make you more money in the process. You can check out our section on building a professional site to learn more and our sections on marketing if you wish to put some content out on social media about your car rental business. The nice thing about these rental platforms though, is that they sort of take care of the marketing for you as long as your pictures are good, your description is done well, and your price is set correctly. If you follow these steps, you will be running a very profitable car rental business in no time!