Getting started with Rental Pilot
A short checklist to get your rental business live — set up your booking site, add your fleet, set your prices, connect Stripe, and share your booking link.
This is the quickest path from a new account to taking your first online booking. You can do it in any order, but this is roughly how most operators set up.
1. Sign in
Go to app.rentalpilot.io and sign in with the email and password you used to create your account. If you haven’t created one yet, choose Start free and follow the prompts.
Everything below lives in the operator app’s left-hand menu.
2. Brand your booking site
Open Settings → Booking site. This is the public page customers book through. Set your headline, subtitle, hero image and brand colour — there’s a live preview as you type, and you can set different copy per language. Your booking site stays on-brand without any design work.
3. Set up your locations
Most operators start from a single location, which is ready out of the box. If you run from more than one branch, open Settings → Locations to add them — each branch has its own fleet, business hours and tax, and holds the pick-up/drop-off points customers choose from. See Locations & pick-up points.
4. Add your fleet
Open Fleet → add a vehicle for each car: make, model, daily rate, location and any photos. Already have your fleet in a spreadsheet? Use Settings → Import to bring in your vehicles (and customers) from a CSV in one go.
5. Set your pricing
Open Settings → Pricing to set the rules that drive every quote and booking:
- Seasons — raise or lower rates for date ranges (e.g. high season)
- Length discounts — a lower rate for longer rentals
- Extras — add-ons like a child seat or GPS, charged per day or one-time
- Protection plans — optional insurance tiers the renter picks at checkout
- Tax — your local rate and what it’s called on the invoice
You don’t have to set all of these — defaults work fine to start.
6. Connect Stripe to get paid
Open Settings → Payments and connect your Stripe account so you can take card payments and deposit holds, paid straight into your own bank. See Connect Stripe to get paid for the full walkthrough — there are no API keys to copy.
7. Share your booking link
Once your fleet and prices are in, share your booking-site link with customers, add it to your website, or send a quote link to a specific customer. Bookings, the calendar and reports all update automatically as reservations come in.
Stuck on any step? Browse the rest of the help centre or contact us — we’re happy to help you get set up.