Most small bike rentals have somewhere between fifteen and thirty bikes, keep their bookings in a paper book and pin the price list by the door. When customers start asking to book online, a contact form appears on the website or the Google listing: name, phone, dates and a box that says "which bike?". The message arrives by email, and the owner checks the book and replies when there's a moment.
For most of the season that works. On a sunny holiday weekend or in August, with a line outside and the inbox filling up, the form, the book, the phone and the walk-in customers start getting in each other's way. This article explains how a contact form differs from an online booking, what bike rental software needs to do so bookings never overlap, and how to pick software you can set up and run yourself with twenty bikes.
Contact form or online booking for a bike rental
A contact form passes on a message. Everything that turns it into a booking you still do by hand: you check the book to see whether the bike is free, write the customer in and reply. That's where four problems come from, and every rental that takes bookings through a form knows them.
- The form doesn't know what's free. A customer can ask for an e-bike in size L for Saturday when both of yours are already taken. They only find out from your reply.
- Nothing is blocked until you reply. Two people who ask for the same bike for Saturday on Friday evening are both waiting, and the bike goes to whoever you answer first. If you answer both from your phone before checking the book, you have a double booking.
- The customer waits for your answer and keeps looking. Someone planning a trip in the evening writes to several rentals at once and takes the first one that confirms.
- A booking without payment is only a promise. A customer who hasn't paid anything changes plans easily, and the bike stands set aside all day for someone who doesn't come.
Some rentals go a step further and add a booking calendar to their website. That's better than a form, because the customer sees which dates are taken. But many simple calendars keep a separate calendar for every bike, so the customer picks a specific bike and you look after twenty calendars. And the calendar on the website doesn't know about the bike you rented to a walk-in customer this morning until you enter it there.
What bike rental software needs to do
Bike rental software doesn't have to do everything. To keep online bookings from overlapping, it needs a few things, and it can't do without any of them.
One stock count for online, phone and walk-in bookings
Take a spring holiday weekend. On Thursday evening a customer books an e-bike in size M online for Saturday and Sunday. On Friday afternoon a couple walks in and asks for two of the same e-bikes until Sunday. If the online booking sits in the inbox or a separate calendar and walk-in rentals go in the paper book, the person at the bike rack sees two free M e-bikes and hands out both. On Saturday morning the customer comes for a bike that isn't there.
Bike rental software should keep one stock count for every channel. An online booking, a booking taken by phone and a bike rented to a walk-in customer all come off the same number the moment they're made, and everyone who takes a booking sees the same answer.
Availability by model and frame size
A customer booking a bike doesn't need one particular bike. They need a trekking bike in size L or an e-bike in size M for their days. If you have four identical e-bikes in size M, that's one stock line with four bikes, and the software should check that at least one of them is free for the whole rental. Which bike goes out can be recorded at hand-out.
Software that ties a specific bike to the booking as soon as it's made goes wrong the same way a sheet with one row per bike does: it turns a customer away even when two shorter bookings would fit on one bike. We showed this with the Anna and Ben example in rental software or Excel.
The customer only sees free bikes and gets a confirmation straight away
The booking page should show the bikes that are free on the chosen dates, in the sizes still available, with the price for those days. The customer picks a bike, pays and gets a confirmation by email without waiting for you. If you'd rather approve every booking yourself, the software should let you, but the bike should be blocked from the moment of the request, and the customer should know how long you have to answer.
Payment at booking and clear cancellation rules
Paying online turns a request into a commitment. A customer who has paid either comes or cancels under the rules you set, so you know where you stand. The customer should know those rules before paying: until when they can cancel for free and how much they get back after that.
Opening hours, returns and late bikes
The software should accept pickups and returns only on days you're open, show which bikes are due back today and count a late bike as out until it comes back. Otherwise it will promise that bike to the next customer.
Hourly and daily rentals
A bike rental usually rents bikes both for a few hours and for a few days. Check which of these the software accepts online and which only in the shop, and whether they all come off the same stock count.
Simple software for a small bike rental
With twenty bikes you don't need software built for a chain of rentals in several towns. You need software you can set up yourself in an afternoon and that whoever hands out the bikes understands without training. On a demo, check five things.
- How long it takes to take a phone booking. Ask someone to take one in front of you: customer, bike, size, dates, price. If it takes longer than the call itself, you'll be back to the paper book by midseason.
- Whether today's view fits on a phone or tablet. Who picks up today, who returns, which bike is late. It's the screen you'll use most.
- Whether you can add your fleet and prices yourself. Models, sizes, number of bikes, and prices for an hour, a day or several days. With twenty bikes that's an afternoon's work.
- Whether you pay for features you won't use. Modules for chains, multiple warehouses or accounting integrations rarely help a single rental with twenty bikes.
- Whether there's an annual contract or a setup fee. A small rental should be able to cancel after the season if the software didn't work out.
How much bike rental software costs
Rental software is usually billed as a monthly subscription. Some programs also take a commission on online bookings, others charge for setup or for each extra module. When you compare, add up the whole season: the subscription, the commission on the bookings you expect and the setup. We compared the prices and features of five rental programs in the best rental software for 2026/27.
When to switch your bike rental to software
March or April is best. The bikes have been serviced, the shop is quiet, and there are a few weeks left before the spring holidays to add your fleet, your prices and your first bookings.
- Count your bikes by model and frame size, along with the helmets and other extras you rent.
- Write your prices as periods: an hour, a few hours, a day, a few days, and the price of each extra day.
- Label the bikes with a number or a barcode sticker, so you know which one went out with which customer.
- Enter the bookings you already have for the season before taking the first new one, and only then put the booking link in your Google listing, on your website and on Instagram.
- Put the paper book away. Two systems kept side by side bring back the double bookings the switch was meant to end.
How Rentouri does it
Rentouri is rental software for bike, ski and snowboard shops where online bookings and in-shop rentals come off one stock count, kept separately for each model and size.
Customers book on their own, and the bike leaves stock straight away. On your shop's page on rentouri.com they see the bikes that are free on their dates, in the sizes available, at your prices. They sign the rental agreement online and pay by card when they book or, if you offer free cancellation, on the day it ends. You put the link to that page in your Google listing, on your website or on Instagram.
Walk-ins and phone bookings go through the same stock. You add an in-shop or phone booking in two steps: customer and dates, then bikes. Hourly rentals you take in the shop; online, customers book bikes for whole days.
Today's view on your phone or tablet. You see who picks up and returns bikes today and which bike is late. At hand-out you scan the QR code from the customer's email and the tag on the bike, and a late bike blocks new bookings until it's back.
You set it up yourself. The Start plan costs €29 a month excluding VAT and covers up to 100 items. You add your bikes, sizes and prices yourself, in a panel that runs in the browser and on your phone. No contract, cancel anytime. The 10% commission applies only to bookings paid on rentouri.com; bookings in the shop and by phone carry none.