Offering Car and Bike Rentals to Your Guests

Vanio Rentals turns the vehicles, bikes, and gear you already own into a second revenue stream. List them once, and guests book them on your direct booking website the same way they book your properties — with live pricing, a signed rental agreement, and automatic security deposit handling built in.

This guide covers setting up a rental and putting it on your website. For the guest's side of the journey, see How Guests Book and Pick Up a Rental. For day-to-day management, see Running Rentals Day to Day.

What you can rent out

Rentals live under Rentables in your dashboard sidebar. Four categories are supported:

• Vehicles — cars and EVs, anything that needs a driver's license
• Bikes — e-bikes and regular bikes, with frame size, helmet, and lock details
• Watercraft — kayaks, paddleboards, jet skis
• Equipment — ski gear, camping kits, anything else guests would rent for their stay

Each item gets its own photos, pricing, calendar, agreement, and booking history.

Add a rental

1. Open Rentables and click Add rentable.
2. Choose the type — Vehicle, Bike, Watercraft, or Equipment.
3. Name it the way guests should see it (for example, "Compact SUV — All-Wheel Drive") and add a short description: features, condition, what's included.
4. Set the default daily price and currency.

For vehicles, you also record the details that feed the rental agreement and booking rules: make, model, and year, trim and color, license plate and VIN, seat count, transmission, fuel type or EV, driving range, and the minimum driver age. For bikes: bike type, frame size, and whether a helmet and lock are included.

Everything can be changed later from the rental's Settings tab.

Photos

Upload photos in the Photos tab — exterior from several angles, the interior, and any details guests will care about. Good photos do the selling on your rentals page, exactly like they do for your listings.

Pricing

The Pricing tab controls what guests pay:

• Default daily price — the base rate, for example $150/day
• Weekend price — an optional different rate for Saturdays and Sundays, for example $180/day
• Weekly discount — percentage off when the rental is 7 days or longer
• Monthly discount — percentage off when the rental is 28 days or longer
• Cleaning fee — added once per booking
• Security deposit — the refundable hold placed at pickup (see below)

Guests always see the full breakdown before they pay: nightly rates, discounts, cleaning fee, taxes, and the deposit listed separately.

Per-day calendar overrides

The Calendar tab gives you day-level control. Click any day to set a custom price or block it — leave the price blank to inherit your default, set available units to 0 to block the date. Use overrides for peak weekends, holidays, or maintenance days.

Security deposit

Set the deposit amount in Pricing. Guests see it clearly at checkout, but it is not charged when they book — their card is saved securely at checkout, and the hold is placed automatically at pickup. After the guest returns the rental and completes the dropoff inspection, the hold is released. If there is damage, you can keep part or all of it — see Running Rentals Day to Day.

Vehicle policies

In Settings, vehicles get three policy controls:

• Mileage cap per day — a daily kilometre allowance; leave it blank for unlimited. The rental agreement spells out the per-kilometre overage charge.
• Fuel / charge return policy — choose from four options to match your vehicle type and business needs:
  • Return full — guest returns with a full tank or 100% charge
  • Return at the same level as delivery — guest returns at the same fuel or charge level as pickup
  • Return at pickup charge level (EV) — for electric vehicles, guest returns charged at or above the pickup level
  • No requirement — no fuel or charge expectations
• Minimum driver age — enforced during checkout.

For electric vehicles like Teslas, the "Return at pickup charge level" policy is designed specifically for EV rentals where you want guests to return the vehicle with adequate charge for the next booking.

Pickup and return times

Also in Settings — the defaults are 10:00 pickup and 18:00 return. These times appear on the rental's page, inside the rental agreement, and in the automated reminder messages guests receive.

The rental agreement

Every booking includes a digitally signed rental agreement. Vanio ships a professional default that covers payment and deposit mechanics, cancellation and no-show terms, the mileage allowance and overage, EV charging expectations, late returns, driver eligibility, and insurance responsibilities.

The Agreement tab shows the active template with sample values filled in, so you see exactly what guests will read. Click Customize to adapt it to your business — your version replaces the default for all future bookings, and you can reset to the default at any time. Guests sign at checkout, and the signed copy is stored with the booking for both sides.

The default template is a starting point, not legal advice — have a lawyer review the terms for your jurisdiction.

Put rentals on your website

Rentals appear on your direct booking website at yoursite.com/rentals. You control what shows in Websites → your site → Marketplace:

• Enable or disable each category (Cars, Bikes, Watercraft, Equipment)
• Write custom hero copy for each section
• Set the display order

Guests staying at your properties see rentals offered in their city or attached to their specific property — and you can promote rentals automatically inside your guest messages too (see how).

Visibility controls

Two switches in Settings decide who can book:

• Active — turn it off to take the rental off your website without deleting anything
• Friends only — keeps the rental off the public listings so only invited friends and family can book; ideal for a soft launch before opening it to all guests

Set a monthly revenue target

Give each rental a monthly revenue target in Settings. The rental's Overview tab tracks progress against it, and the Rentables home page rolls every target into a fleet-wide goal — so you always know whether each asset is paying for itself.

Next steps

• How Guests Book and Pick Up a Rental — the full guest journey, from quote to deposit release
• Running Rentals Day to Day — bookings, condition photos, deposits, and upselling