Start a Bike Rental Business for Fast Profits

Easy Startup with Fast Return of Your Money

Bikes rental businesses are fairly easy to start. Buy some equipment, put up a website, and use either drive by or web traffic to secure visitor rentals. Some people buy all the equipment and then let a family member, retiree, or student run the day to day rental side. Compared to many businesses, bike rentals have super low start up costs.

The return on investment (ROI) can be incredibly fast too, due to the low cost of equipment. For example a bike and rider accessories might cost about $300. If you rent it for $8 an hour, or $25 a day (these are very conservative numbers) you’ve quickly paid for your equipment and start to have cash in pocket. Many businesses take months or years to recoup capital expenses like equipment.

What Kind of Bike Rental Business Would Be Popular in Your Area?

There are several types of rentals; the easiest being beach cruisers, since they go everywhere and are easy to maintain. Second on the list would be a relatively low maintenance model of mountain bike. Beach bikes come in single and three speed, regular and tandem, and all kinds of sizes to fit your rider profile. Some rentals are independent bike rental stands or popups, and others combine an owner’s existing business like an rv park with rentals to offer an additional amenity. A third type rents space from another business; like renting bikes at the local ice cream shop, and the bike rental owner pays the ice cream shop for space or a commission.

Most Common Bike Rental Business Locations

Bike rental business in Florida courtesy Great Gear Delivered Bike Sales

Tips and Insights

Pick a Niche You Will Enjoy

Bike rentals can be easy and fun but you have to set up the business in a way that makes sense for you. Some rental operators man rental storefronts all day, and love the interaction with customers, sizing riders to bikes, and being the face of the business. Others operate in a drop and run kind of way; handling all rentals online, and doing pickup and delivery at the customer’s rental cottage or room. These are very different businesses and require different equipment. For example, you’ll need a truck or trailer if you are doing deliveries.

Check Out the Competition for Pricing and Quality

Do lots of research on pricing and availability before you decide to start a bike rental company. Check competitors rates, packages, how people get the bikes, what territory they cover, what the equipment looks like and the level of customer satisfaction demonstrated in online reviews. When you are figuring out if starting a new rental company in your area is a good idea look at the cost of equipment (startup kit example here) then divide that number by the income per rental to make a good guess of the time until you’ve returned your original investment. Usually bike rentals pay for themselves very quickly, like a couple of months; but anything less than a year is several times faster than typical businesses.

Get the Right Equipment But Don’t Overspend

Bike rentals are fairly low risk with beach cruisers or mountain bikes. A good quality cruiser, proven in the rental or hotel market is a good starting place. Don’t buy expensive bikes you’ll be worried about but instead buy high quality, wholesale priced, rental market equipment. Several single speed beach cruisers, a few three speeds for slower or less fit riders, and some safety related and family friendly accessories are really all you need. You can always expand later.

Do This FIRST if You are Even CONSIDERING a Rental Company

Have you thought of all the people who type “bike rentals in _____________” or “_____________ bike rentals” before visiting your town? Bet Google would say that’s a strong keyword phrase for area rental companies.

Grab Google Traffic for Bike Rentals and Make Money on Ads and Services

Make money with ads by charging local tourism focused businesses or necessity shops for display ads. Allow them to put a special offer on your site so visitors get something too. With a strong keyword website name like BikeRentalsOrlando.com or similar, you have a great chance of ranking high on search results and getting good exposure for your advertisers. Later, if you start a bike rental company, make your business the feature on your site and continue to sell ad space to others. Either way, owning Google’s rental traffic for your town is a good thing.

Secure Your Area’s Rental Traffic Domain Fast Before Someone Else Does

It’s super fast, VERY inexpensive, and easy to do. Here is lots of info on how to do it from our sister company, Great Gear Delivered. West Orange Trail Bikes and Blades in Orlando grabbed OrlandoBikeRental.com as their website url, and they are consistently in the top four results on Google search. Pretty cool, huh? Why not register your town today as a nice investment in possible future ad or listing revenue. Visit our info guide and get started with a simple Wix website plan and your new web address will be free.

How to Start a Bike Rental Company

There is a ton of information on our sister site; Great Gear Delivered about starting and running a bike rental, or bike promotion company. You can see pricing, ideas for making money with bikes, and all kinds of accessories and bikes hand-selected for the rental market. We have lots of customers who live near a campground, run a bed and breakfast, or have access to a beach location and started a small rental business with about 15 bikes.

Image of village bike rental company courtesy Great Gear Delivered Bike Sales