In this article
Most rate cards start from replacement value
The common starting point in this trade is a percentage of what the item costs to replace today. Somewhere between two and five percent of replacement value per day is the range you will hear quoted most often, with the exact figure depending on category, how fast the gear dates, and what your market will carry.
The logic is straightforward. The rate has to cover the capital eventually, plus maintenance, storage, insurance, the cost of the person who preps it, and the days it sits on the shelf. A percentage of replacement value is a rough proxy for all of that in one number.
It is a starting point, not an answer. Nothing about the method tells you what a competitor two miles away charges, and the market sets the ceiling regardless of your spreadsheet.
Utilisation is the number that decides whether the rate works
A rate that assumes an item goes out two hundred days a year and an item that actually goes out forty are different businesses. Before defending a rate, find out how often the thing actually moves.
This is where most rate cards quietly fail. They are built once from a formula, and nobody ever checks the formula against what the gear did. An item renting at a healthy rate forty days a year may be losing money against the shelf space, and an item at a soft rate going out constantly may be the most profitable thing you own.
Week and month rates taper, and the taper is a decision
The taper exists because handling cost does not scale with duration. Prep, checkout, return and inspection happen once whether the gear is out for a day or a fortnight. The tapered rate is you passing back the handling you did not have to repeat.
Pick the multiples deliberately rather than copying someone else, because they encode how much you value a long booking against keeping the item available for short turnarounds.
| Duration | Common approach | What it is really pricing |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day | Full day rate. | One prep, one checkout, one return, one turnaround. |
| 2 to 3 days | Day rate times days, sometimes with a small discount. | Still one prep and one return, so the marginal cost of extra days is low. |
| Week | Commonly three to four times the day rate. | One handling cycle spread over more revenue days. |
| Month | Commonly eight to twelve times the day rate. | Long-term capital use with very little handling. |
Price packages, not parts
A comms kit, a small PA package or a lighting bar should go onto a quote as one line at one rate. Clients read packages, and pricing them as a pile of components invites a line-by-line negotiation you did not want to have.
It also protects the margin on the unglamorous items. Nobody argues about cable and stands inside a package. Listed separately, they are the first things a client asks you to remove, and they are usually the ones you cannot actually take out.
Decide what the rate does not include
The most common quoting mistake in this trade is a rate card that quietly absorbs labor. It looks competitive and it loses money on every crewed job.
- Labor: prep, operator, load in and out. Usually separate lines against separate rates.
- Transport and delivery, especially when the client wants a specific window.
- Consumables: tape, batteries, gel, anything that does not come back.
- Damage waiver or the client insurance requirement, if you have one.
- Subrental at cost plus a handling margin, when the job needs gear you do not own.
Review it on a schedule, not when someone complains
Replacement values move, gear dates, and a rate card written three years ago is pricing a market that no longer exists. Once a year, take the twenty items you rent most and check the rate against current replacement cost and against what the item actually did.
A rolling review by category beats an annual full rebuild. Full rebuilds get postponed; a department a month gets done.
Keep the rate where the quote is built
A rate card in a spreadsheet is a rate card someone will forget to apply. When rates and replacement values live on the inventory item, every quote prices itself from them and a change propagates without anyone retyping.
Flightcase stores the rental rate and the replacement value on each item, prices cases and kits as single lines, and exports a rate card as a PDF or CSV when a client or an insurer asks for one.
FAQ
What percentage of replacement value should a day rate be?
Should week rates be a fixed multiple of the day rate?
Should I publish my rate card?
How do I price gear I had to subrent?
Put this into the system you actually run on
Rates, replacement values, deposits and subrental costs are only useful when they live where the quote is built. Start free, or bring a real job to a walkthrough.