The cheapest way to pay for bike rental software is the pricing model whose cost curve fits your takings, month by month. A flat subscription costs the same in January as in August. A commission is a percentage of each booking, so it rises and falls with your season. Many plans mix the two. Using three made-up plans, this guide shows where they cross: a commission-only plan wins below £1,000 of takings a month, a hybrid plan wins up to £1,800, and a flat fee wins above that. Your crossing points will differ, and finding them takes about ten minutes with your own figures.
It covers the main ways bike rental and tour booking software is priced, the break-even maths, what a seasonal year does to the answer, why card processing is a separate bill, what counts as commission, and the costs that sit outside the headline price. Examples are in pounds, with card fees for the UK, the euro area and the US, and the method works in any currency. RideLoop makes booking software for bike rental, tour and holiday operators, so we have an interest in this topic: the plans below are invented for the maths and are not ours, and you should run the same sums on every quote you get, including ours.
01The main ways bike rental software is priced
Nearly every price list is one of the models below or a mix of them. Whatever the label, each one boils down to two numbers: a fixed amount you pay whatever happens, and a rate that grows with your bookings.
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| Model | What you pay | Rises with your takings? | Tends to suit | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flat subscription | Same fee every month | No | Steady, high-volume operators | Paying full price in the off-season |
| Commission only | A percentage of each booking | Yes, in step | New or very seasonal operators | The rate that applies once you are busy |
| Hybrid | A smaller subscription plus a lower percentage | Partly | Operators in the middle | Two numbers to model, not one |
| Fixed fee per booking | A set amount, such as £1, per booking | Per booking, not per pound | Higher-priced tours and holidays | Small bookings, where the same fee is a bigger share |
| Tiered by size | Price steps up with bikes, bookings, users or locations | In steps | Growing operators | The step you cross mid-season |
A fixed fee per booking behaves very differently from a percentage. A £1 fee is 6.7% of a £15 hourly hire, 1.67% of a £60 day hire and 0.25% of a £400 multi-day tour. If your bookings are mostly small, a per-booking fee costs you more than it first appears to. If they are mostly large, it can be the cheapest option on the list.
Tiered plans deserve a second look at the thresholds. If a plan moves up a tier at 100 bookings a month and your July has 140, you are paying the higher tier for the months that matter most to you.
02The break-even maths
For any plan, the monthly cost is the fixed fee plus the rate multiplied by that month’s takings. Two plans cost the same where those two lines cross, and that crossing point is the break-even.
Here F is the fixed monthly fee, r is the rate as a decimal (6% is 0.06), T is the month’s takings through the software, and T* is the takings at which plans A and B cost the same. Takings means the booking value you process, not your profit.
To make it concrete, take three invented plans. They are not RideLoop’s plans or anyone else’s, and the numbers are chosen to keep the arithmetic easy to follow.
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| Plan | Fixed fee per month | Rate per booking value |
|---|---|---|
| A: flat subscription | £80 | 0% |
| B: commission only | £0 | 6% |
| C: hybrid | £35 | 2.5% |
Putting the plans into the formula gives three crossing points:
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| Compare | Working | Break-even takings per month |
|---|---|---|
| B against C | £35 ÷ (6% − 2.5%) | £1,000 |
| A against B | £80 ÷ 6% | £1,333 |
| A against C | (£80 − £35) ÷ 2.5% | £1,800 |
The A against B crossing at £1,333 turns out not to matter, because plan C is cheaper than both of them at that point. What matters is the cheapest plan at each level of takings: B below £1,000, C from £1,000 to £1,800, and A above £1,800. At £1,500 a month, for example, plan A costs £80, plan B £90 and plan C £72.50.
The lesson is that the commission-only plan is cheapest only while you are small. Its advantage is real, but it has a ceiling, and the ceiling is lower than most operators expect. The chart shows the three lines.
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| Plan | Fixed fee per month | Rate | Cost at £0 takings | Cost at £3,000 takings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A: flat | £80 | 0% | £80 | £80 |
| B: commission | £0 | 6% | £0 | £180 |
| C: hybrid | £35 | 2.5% | £35 | £110 |
| Break-even B and C | £1,000 takings | £60 each | ||
| Break-even A and C | £1,800 takings | £80 each |
03What a seasonal year does to the answer
Break-even points use a single month’s takings, but a bike business has twelve very different months. Take a seasonal operator who processes £33,500 through the software in a year: nothing in January and December, £7,600 in August. The chart prices that year on the same three plans.
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| Month | Takings | A: flat | B: commission | C: hybrid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | £0 | £80 | £0 | £35 |
| February | £300 | £80 | £18 | £42.50 |
| March | £1,200 | £80 | £72 | £65 |
| April | £2,600 | £80 | £156 | £100 |
| May | £4,200 | £80 | £252 | £140 |
| June | £4,800 | £80 | £288 | £155 |
| July | £7,000 | £80 | £420 | £210 |
| August | £7,600 | £80 | £456 | £225 |
| September | £3,600 | £80 | £216 | £125 |
| October | £1,800 | £80 | £108 | £80 |
| November | £400 | £80 | £24 | £45 |
| December | £0 | £80 | £0 | £35 |
| Year | £33,500 | £960 | £2,010 | £1,257.50 |
Commission-only is cheapest in four months: January, February, November and December. In every other month one of the other plans is cheaper or ties. Over the year the three plans total £960 for A, £2,010 for B and £1,257.50 for C, so the flat plan wins despite costing £80 in two months with no bookings at all. Here is the same comparison for three sizes of business.
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| Takings through the software in a year | A: £80 flat | B: 6% | C: £35 + 2.5% | Cheapest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £9,000 | £960 | £540 | £645 | B |
| £33,500 (the seasonal year above) | £960 | £2,010 | £1,257.50 | A |
| £90,000 | £960 | £5,400 | £2,670 | A |
The saving from commission-only is capped, and the extra cost is not. The most you can save against the flat plan is its £960 a year, and you only get all of it if you take no bookings at all. In the £9,000 year, commission-only beats the hybrid plan by £105 and the flat plan by £420. In the £33,500 year it loses by £752.50 and £1,050, and the gap widens with every extra booking.
Two cautions apply. First, these are invented plans, so only the method carries over. A plan with a lower rate or a higher fixed fee moves every crossing point. Second, check whether a plan can be paused or stepped down out of season. If it can, the flat plan’s winter months cost less than the chart shows, and you should price that in.
04Card processing is a separate bill
When a guest pays by card, the payment processor takes a fee. That fee is separate from your software price, and for a busy operator it can rival the software bill. It is also close to identical across plans, which makes it easy to forget when comparing quotes. The standard rates published by one widely used processor, Stripe, give a sense of the range. Other processors price differently, so treat the table as an example and check the current rates for whichever one you use.
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| Region | Standard card | Other cards | If currency conversion is needed | Dispute fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK | 1.5% + 20p | EEA cards 2.5% + 20p; international cards 3.15% + 20p | + 2% | £20 |
| Euro area (Ireland) | 1.5% + €0.25 | UK cards 2.5% + €0.25; international cards 3.15% + €0.25 | + 2% | €20 |
| US | 2.9% + 30¢ | International cards + 1.5% | + 1% | $15 |
On a £60 booking paid with a standard UK card, the fee is £0.90 plus 20p, or £1.10, which is about 1.83% of the booking. At an average booking of £60, the annual card fees for the three sizes of business above would be:
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| Takings in a year | Bookings at £60 | Card fees at 1.5% + 20p |
|---|---|---|
| £9,000 | 150 | £165 |
| £33,500 | about 558 | £614.17 |
| £90,000 | 1,500 | £1,650 |
Three things follow from this.
- Card fees are not returned on refunds. Stripe’s published pricing says the processing fees from the original transaction are not returned. Refunding a £100 booking therefore usually costs you the £1.70 fee you paid to take it, on top of the £100. The exception is a refund issued shortly after the charge, which can be processed as a reversal, and Stripe says it withholds no fee on a reversal. Cancelling an unused card hold, by contrast, costs nothing. Whether a given processor returns the fee varies, so ask.
- Disputes cost money even when you win. The £20 fee for receiving a dispute is not returned, and the extra £20 fee for contesting one is returned only if you win.
- Currency matters. A guest paying in a currency you do not settle in can add 2% in the UK and euro area, or 1% in the US. If you sell tours to visitors from abroad, that is a real cost that sits entirely outside your software plan.
Is the commission on top of card fees?
This is the single most useful question to put to any commission-based quote. Some plans quote a percentage that already includes card processing. Others charge the percentage and pass card fees through on top, so that a 6% rate becomes roughly 7.8% on a £60 booking. Both are legitimate pricing, but they are not comparable until you know which one you are looking at. Ask for the all-in cost of a £60 booking and a £400 booking paid by a standard UK card, and compare that number rather than the headline rate.
05What counts as a commission
The word covers several different charges. You may see it called a commission, a platform fee, a service fee, a transaction fee, a booking fee or a revenue share. Treat the label as a prompt to ask what it is charged on, rather than as a description.
The first distinction is between two different services. A marketplace that sends you new customers charges for the lead, and a percentage can be fair payment for that. Booking software that runs your own website and your own customers is a tool, so a percentage there is a pricing choice rather than payment for a lead. Check which one you are looking at, because the same percentage means something different in each case.
The second is who pays. Some plans take the percentage from your takings. Others add a booking fee to the guest’s total, so the price on your site is higher than the price you set. Guests compare prices, so the second approach can cost you bookings without ever appearing on your invoice.
The questions below change the real cost of a percentage more than the rate does.
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| Ask | Why it changes the cost |
|---|---|
| What is the percentage applied to? | Booking value, deposits only, add-ons such as helmets and insurance, and tax can all be in or out of the base. |
| Is it charged on cancelled or refunded bookings? | If it is, a refund costs you the percentage as well as the card fee. |
| Does it apply to bookings you take yourself? | Phone, walk-in and repeat customers entered by your own staff may or may not be charged. |
| Is there a minimum per booking or per month? | A minimum turns a percentage plan into a hybrid plan at low volumes. |
| Does the rate fall as you grow? | A volume discount moves the break-even point, and it is worth knowing where the steps are. |
| Does it include card processing? | The answer decides whether the quote is comparable with the others, as the previous section shows. |
06Costs outside the headline price
The monthly fee and the rate are the visible part of the price. These items are the ones that tend to appear later, so ask about each before you sign.
Before you sign
VAT. Check whether the price is shown with or without it. HMRC says a VAT-registered business can reclaim VAT on items bought for use in the business, so for you an ex-VAT price may be the one that matters, but the Flat Rate Scheme has different rules. Ask your accountant which applies.
Set-up or onboarding fees. Some plans charge to load your fleet, tours or pricing, or to move data from another system.
Add-on modules. Waivers, e-signatures, text messages, gift vouchers, multi-language checkout and reporting are sometimes priced separately from the core plan.
Limits that trigger a higher tier. Count the bikes, tours, staff logins, locations and bookings you will have in your busiest month, not your average one.
Contract length and notice. An £80 monthly plan on an annual contract is a £960 commitment whether or not you trade. Month-to-month plans can be cancelled, which is worth money to a seasonal business.
Price changes. Ask how much notice you get before a price rises, and whether the rate you sign up at is held.
Payout timing. Money that reaches your bank a week later is a cost to a business with tight cash flow, even though no invoice shows it.
Getting your data out. Ask whether you can export customers, bookings and waivers in a usable format if you leave.
07How to compare quotes in ten minutes
None of these is unusual. The problem is only that a quote built around the monthly fee and the rate leaves them all out, and the real cost is the sum.
You need a spreadsheet with one row per month and a column per plan. The method works in any currency.
- Step 1: List your takings by month.Use last year’s figures if you have them. If you are starting out, write a low, a middle and a high estimate. Also note your average booking value, since card fees and per-booking fees depend on it.
- Step 2: Write each quote as two numbers.The fixed monthly fee F, and the rate r as a decimal. Fold in any minimum, set-up fee or add-on you know you will need, and decide whether the rate already includes card fees. If it does not, add card fees to every plan so that the comparison is fair.
- Step 3: Calculate each month.Cost is F plus r times that month’s takings. Add the twelve months for an annual total.
- Step 4: Find the break-even points.Use the formula from earlier for each pair of plans, then see where your own takings sit relative to them.
- Step 5: Stress-test the answer.Run the sheet again with takings 30% lower and 30% higher. A plan that is cheapest only if the season goes well is a bet, and a percentage plan is the cheaper way to be wrong about a bad year.
- Step 6: Add the items outside the headline price.Contract length, VAT and add-ons often decide a close call.
08Frequently asked questions
If two plans finish within a few pounds of each other, pick on the things that do not show up in the sums: how easily you can leave, how clearly the plan is explained, and whether the features you need are included. Then run the same sheet again next winter, once you have a full season of real numbers.
Is a subscription or a commission cheaper for bike rental software?
It depends on your takings. A percentage plan is cheapest while you are small, because you pay little when you take little. A flat or hybrid plan becomes cheaper once your takings are high enough to spread the fixed fee. The break-even formula above finds the crossing point for any two plans, and a seasonal business should run it month by month.
Can I get bike rental software with no monthly fee?
Some plans have no monthly fee and charge a percentage of each booking instead. That is the commission-only model, plan B in the examples. It carries little risk in a slow year, and it costs the most in a busy one, so check what the percentage does once you are at your peak. The same applies if you are looking for booking software with no subscription.
Can I get bike rental software with no commission?
Yes, flat-fee plans do not take a percentage of bookings. Card processing fees still apply, because they are charged by the payment processor and not by the software.
How much does bike rental software cost?
There is no single figure, because the answer depends on your takings and your plan. In the invented examples above, a year costs between £540 and £5,400. That range comes entirely from the plan and the size of the business, which is why the sums are worth doing with your own numbers. The same goes for tour booking software cost, where bookings are fewer but larger.
Does the price of the software change for electric bike hire or mountain bike rental?
The software price does not usually depend on the type of bike. Your average booking does, and that changes which plan is cheapest. Electric bike hire booking software and mountain bike rental booking software both tend to handle larger bookings than hourly city hire, so a percentage costs more in pounds per booking, while a fixed per-booking fee weighs less.
Is pay-per-booking software a good fit for tours?
Often, yes. A fixed fee per booking takes a smaller share of a £400 multi-day tour than of a £15 hourly hire. Pay-per-booking software for tours works best when most of your bookings are high-value, so check your average before you commit.
What is low-commission booking software, and is commission-free possible?
A low-commission booking platform usually charges a fixed monthly fee in return for a lower percentage, like plan C in the examples. It costs less per booking and more per month, so it pays off once your takings pass the break-even point. Commission-free software is the flat-fee model, plan A: no percentage at all, although card fees still apply. The same logic holds for bicycle hire booking software and cycle rental booking software. Whether the business calls itself hire or rental makes no difference to the maths, and only your takings and your average booking do.
Does bike rental storefront software cost extra?
The storefront is the page where guests choose dates and book. In most plans it is part of the core product, but check for limits on branding, custom domains, languages and the number of bikes or tours you can list.
What happens to my costs if I have a bad season?
A flat fee stays the same, so a poor season makes it a larger share of your takings. A percentage falls with your takings. This is the real reason to consider commission-only if you are new or unsure of demand.
09Where to go next
For the wider picture of what to look for, read Bike Rental Software: The UK Buyer's Guide. If you already have a shortlist, How to Choose Bike Rental Software: 12 Questions to Ask Before You Sign covers the questions to put to each provider. When you are ready to run the sums on our plans, the RideLoop pricing page shows what is on offer today, and we would like you to run the same sheet on it as on everyone else.
Facts and figures were checked on 2 November 2026. The three plans in this article are invented for the arithmetic and are not RideLoop’s or any other provider’s. Card fees are examples from one processor’s published rates, and they change. This article is not legal, tax or financial advice, so confirm anything that affects your contracts or VAT with your own adviser.
Bruno Mota
Founder and CEO, Motacycles Ltd
Bruno runs Motacycles, a bike shop and workshop, and builds RideLoop on the same counter. More about the team