Alternative to Trailer Rental Marketplaces
Explore the challenges of trailer rental marketplaces and discover independent solutions that offer better control, lower costs, and scalability.
Trailer rental marketplaces like Booqable and ShareFox make it easier to connect renters with trailer owners. But for businesses aiming to grow, these platforms can create challenges:
- Limited Customer Control: Platforms often own customer data and relationships, making it hard to build loyalty or repeat business.
- High Fees: Commissions or transaction fees reduce profits as your business grows.
- Scalability Issues: Many platforms aren’t built for multi-location businesses or larger operations.
- Customizability: Limited options for branding, pricing, and workflows hinder your ability to stand out.
- Reliability Concerns: Weak renter verification and inconsistent service can harm your reputation.
The solution? Independent tools like Lockii offer full control over your business. Lockii provides features like contactless rentals with digital locks, automated booking and payments, and GPS tracking, all while allowing you to maintain direct customer relationships. Unlike marketplaces, Lockii charges a flat $12/month per trailer, helping you keep more of your revenue while scaling efficiently.
If you’re serious about growing your rental business, switching to an independent platform ensures more control, lower costs, and better scalability.
I Started A Trailer Rental Business! HOW TO
sbb-itb-eb44693
1. Towlos
Towlos is a peer-to-peer platform that connects trailer owners with renters. It aims to offer a convenient alternative to traditional rental companies by emphasizing local availability and straightforward pricing, including a flat $10 transaction fee. While this setup might work well for individuals looking to make extra income from an unused trailer, it presents several challenges for those aiming to establish a serious rental business.
Customer Relationship Ownership
When you list on Towlos, you relinquish control over your customer relationships. The platform handles everything - bookings, payments, and communication - leaving you without direct access to your renters or their data.
This setup makes it nearly impossible to build brand loyalty or foster repeat business. You can’t send follow-up messages, create personalized promotions, or even identify your most valuable customers without going through Towlos. For anyone looking to create a recognizable brand or a loyal customer base, this lack of control is a significant obstacle.
Scalability
Towlos is better suited for casual, small-scale operations rather than entrepreneurs looking to grow a multi-location rental business. While you can list multiple trailers, the platform’s rules and fee structure are not designed to accommodate high-volume, professional operations.
Expanding to new locations or scaling up becomes a challenge because the platform’s infrastructure isn’t built for businesses with larger ambitions. You’re limited by Towlos’s geographic reach and standardized processes, which don’t align with the needs of a growing operation. For those with plans to grow beyond a side hustle, these limitations can be a dealbreaker.
Operational Flexibility
Towlos gives you basic control over availability and pricing, which is fine for occasional rentals. However, the platform locks you into standardized processes for booking management, customer verification, and payment handling. There’s no option to customize these workflows or integrate them with other tools you might use for your business.
Features that professional rental businesses often rely on - like embeddable booking widgets, automated identity verification, or integrations with other software - are absent. You’re essentially bound by Towlos’s terms and processes, which can change at any time, making it harder to adapt or streamline your operations.
Trust and Reliability
Towlos relies heavily on user reviews and community connections to build trust, but the reliability of each transaction depends on individual users. This means rental experiences can vary widely, leading to inconsistent outcomes.
While the platform may offer basic insurance or some dispute resolution options, it lacks the robust reliability and accountability of established rental companies. If something goes wrong - whether it’s a no-show renter, equipment damage, or a miscommunication - it’s your business reputation that takes the hit, even if the issue stems from the platform’s shortcomings.
Cost Efficiency
At first glance, the flat $10 fee seems reasonable for occasional rentals. However, as your rental volume increases, this fee structure can quickly eat into your profit margins.
You also have limited control over pricing strategies and face direct competition from other local listings on the same platform. This makes it harder to optimize revenue, adjust rates based on demand or seasonality, or align pricing with your business goals. For those trying to grow, the platform’s fee model becomes a barrier, reducing your ability to reinvest in your business or expand your fleet.
These challenges highlight why Towlos might not be the best choice for professionals looking to scale their rental operations. While it works for casual users, serious entrepreneurs may need to explore other options.
2. Booqable
Booqable is a rental software designed to help you create a branded storefront while managing inventory, bookings, and payments. While it offers a solid foundation for rental businesses, it does come with limitations that can make scaling more challenging for professional operators. Let’s break down its strengths and where it might fall short.
Customer Relationship Ownership
With Booqable, you can manage customer interactions directly through your branded storefront. It centralizes inquiries, bookings, and communications into one system, giving you control over the customer experience. However, because it’s a third-party platform, exporting and analyzing customer data can be restrictive. This limitation can make it harder to fully own and leverage customer relationships, which is especially important for businesses aiming to scale.
Scalability
Booqable supports growth by offering features like inventory tracking, booking management, and payment integration across multiple locations. However, scaling often requires upgrading to higher-tier subscriptions, and some processes - like pickups, returns, and customer support - still demand manual oversight. This lack of full automation can be a bottleneck for businesses that want to streamline operations and fully control the customer experience.
Operational Flexibility
The platform provides tools to handle daily operations efficiently. You can adjust rental rates, manage booking calendars, automate payments, and oversee different types of equipment - all from one dashboard. It even integrates with digital locks and payment processors for added functionality. However, achieving full automation often requires additional tools, which can complicate workflows and increase costs.
Trust and Reliability
Booqable’s real-time inventory tracking and integrated payment system help reduce errors and improve operational reliability. Still, the quality of service largely depends on how well you manage operations. If your business relies on external marketplaces for customer acquisition while using Booqable as a backend tool, trust issues similar to those on broader listing platforms may arise. These reliability concerns can directly affect customer satisfaction and retention.
Cost Efficiency
While automation can help lower labor costs, the platform’s recurring subscription fees and the need for extra integrations can add up quickly. For businesses aiming to grow rapidly, these ongoing costs - paired with the manual effort still required - might slow down how fast you can reinvest in scaling your operations. Balancing these expenses with growth goals is essential to maintaining profitability.
3. ShareFox
ShareFox is a peer-to-peer rental platform that bridges the gap between trailer owners and renters. It operates within the sharing economy, helping individual owners earn from underutilized equipment while offering businesses tools to manage their listings under their own brand. Let's take a closer look at how ShareFox handles customer relationships, scalability, and operational needs.
Customer Relationship Ownership
ShareFox functions as an intermediary, which means customer data is not fully accessible to businesses. While the platform allows businesses to manage their listings and maintain a branded experience, it doesn’t provide complete control over customer information.
This limitation can hinder efforts to build brand loyalty or encourage repeat customers. Without full data access, businesses are restricted in their ability to create tailored promotions or identify high-value clients independently of the platform.
Scalability
ShareFox includes helpful features like inventory management, booking calendars, and integrated payment systems, making it suitable for businesses looking to grow. However, for companies expanding across multiple locations or scaling quickly, the platform’s standard tools may fall short.
Growth can become difficult when you're tied to the platform’s infrastructure, which might not meet the demands of a larger or more complex operation.
Operational Flexibility
The platform provides essential rental management tools, including customizable booking processes that cater to different asset types and rental durations. However, businesses with unique workflows might find themselves needing extra integrations or manual adjustments to accommodate their needs.
Advanced features like automation or specialized integrations, often crucial for professional rental businesses, are not always available. This can lead to workarounds that add complexity to day-to-day operations.
Trust and Reliability
ShareFox prioritizes transparency and safety by requiring detailed listings with photos and condition descriptions, helping set clear expectations for renters. However, the overall reliability of the rental experience largely depends on how individual operators maintain their standards.
Inconsistent service quality between operators can impact customer satisfaction and, ultimately, your business reputation.
Cost Efficiency
ShareFox operates on a subscription or licensing model, which can be a more affordable option compared to building custom software. However, additional costs for integrations or other extras may arise as your business grows.
As rental volumes increase, these expenses can cut into profits, making it harder to reinvest in your business or expand your fleet effectively.
5. REPOWR
REPOWR is a rental management software used by various equipment rental businesses, including trailer rentals. While details about its features are somewhat limited, here’s a closer look at the key aspects of the platform.
Customer Relationship Ownership
There’s little public information on how REPOWR manages customer relationships and data. It’s important to confirm whether the platform allows direct control over customer data and how it supports customer management.
Scalability
Details about REPOWR's ability to handle multi-location operations or larger fleets are not well-documented. If you operate across multiple locations or manage an extensive inventory, it’s worth verifying whether the system can scale to meet your needs.
Operational Flexibility
REPOWR seems to cover the basics of rental management, but it’s unclear if it supports advanced functionalities like contactless or self-service options. If these features are crucial for your business, make sure to inquire about their availability.
Trust and Reliability
While REPOWR positions itself as a professional rental management solution, specifics about its reliability are scarce. For example, it’s unclear how well it handles booking conflicts or how robust its communication tools are. Customer reviews and testimonials could provide more insight into its performance.
Cost Efficiency
REPOWR typically operates on a subscription-based pricing model, which could eliminate the need for per-transaction fees. To ensure it aligns with your budget, review the subscription costs and evaluate whether it offers good value for your business.
Given these gaps in publicly available information, it’s essential to thoroughly evaluate REPOWR's features and limitations to determine if it’s the right fit for your rental management needs.
6. Lockii
Lockii offers a fresh approach to trailer rental businesses by empowering you to build and control your own operation, rather than competing on a crowded marketplace. It’s designed to give you full ownership of your business and customer relationships.
Customer Relationship Ownership
With Lockii, you’re in charge of every interaction with your customers. The platform integrates directly into your website using booking widgets, ensuring renters engage with your brand from start to finish - no middleman taking a cut or controlling how you communicate.
You also gain valuable access to customer data, including booking trends and rental histories. This information stays with you, allowing you to refine pricing, streamline inventory, and make smarter business decisions. Features like a customer portal, automated SMS and email updates, and "find my order" pages ensure smooth, direct communication with renters.
Unlike marketplaces - where customer interactions can be fleeting - Lockii helps you build long-term relationships. You can create loyalty programs, run promotions, and gather feedback to refine your services. These tools lay the groundwork for scaling your business effectively.
Scalability
Lockii is designed for businesses aiming to grow beyond a single location. The platform supports unlimited locations without requiring significant increases in overhead. Adding new rental sites is simple and doesn’t demand heavy investments in real estate or additional staff.
Its multi-location support includes features like GPS tracking, hire-end photos, and maintenance management, all integrated into a central audit log. This allows you to monitor trailers and orders across locations from one backend system. Combined with Lockii’s automated operations, expanding your business becomes a smooth process.
Operational Flexibility
Lockii’s contactless self-hire technology changes the game for trailer rentals. Customers can pick up their rentals anytime, thanks to IglooHome-powered digital locks, eliminating the need for staff during pick-up and drop-off. This significantly reduces labor costs.
The platform automates 95% of bookings, handling identity verification, SMS and email scheduling, and payment processing behind the scenes. Features like hire-end quizzes and automated photo documentation reduce manual inspections, while self-service booking extensions keep everything centralized. If franchising is in your plans, Lockii simplifies the process, making it easy to replicate your business model across new operators and locations while maintaining quality and profitability.
Trust and Reliability
Trust is essential in a rental business, and Lockii delivers with robust tools. Automated identity verification ensures secure bookings, while real-time GPS tracking monitors your trailers and provides alerts for any unexpected changes, helping you address issues quickly.
The platform also captures hire-end photos and accompanying forms for every rental, creating a detailed audit log that tracks trailer condition over time. This documentation increases accountability and reduces disputes. By managing the entire rental experience through your branded platform, you establish reliable and transparent service standards that boost customer confidence.
Cost Efficiency
Marketplaces typically take a hefty 15–30% commission per rental. Lockii, on the other hand, operates on a simple subscription model - just $12 per month per locked item, with no extra transaction fees.
For a trailer rental business generating $10,000 in monthly revenue, marketplace commissions could cost you $1,500 to $3,000 every month. With Lockii’s predictable pricing, you keep more of your earnings. Plus, the savings from reduced labor costs through contactless self-hire and automation make it an ideal option for those looking to turn a side hustle into a thriving full-time business.
Comparison Table
Here's a detailed comparison of popular platforms to help you decide which one fits your trailer rental business needs.
| Platform | Type | Pricing Model | Customer Ownership | Multi-Location Support | Automation Level | Transaction Fees | Scalability | Branding Control |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Towlos | Peer-to-peer marketplace | $10 flat fee per transaction | No – the platform controls the customer relationship | Limited to individual listings | Minimal | $10 per rental | Low – designed for a side hustle | None – marketplace branding |
| Booqable | Rental software | Subscription-based | Partial – software tool only | Basic support | Moderate – booking & inventory | Varies by plan | Moderate – requires manual scaling | Partial – limited customization |
| ShareFox | Vehicle rental marketplace | Commission-based | No – the platform controls the customer relationship | Limited to individual listings | Minimal | Commission-based | Low – marketplace dependent | None – marketplace branding |
| Reservety | Rental software | Subscription-based | Partial – software tool only | Basic support with map integration | Moderate – quotes & inventory | Varies by plan | Moderate – manual processes remain | Partial – limited customization |
| REPOWR | Rental software | Subscription-based | Partial – software tool only | Basic support | Moderate – inventory tracking | Varies by plan | Moderate – may require additional staff growth | Partial – limited customization |
| Lockii | Contactless rental platform | $12/month per locked item | Complete – full control over customer relationships | Built-in unlimited locations | 95% automated | None | High – no extra staff needed for expansion | Complete – fully customizable |
Key Takeaways
Platforms like Towlos and ShareFox operate as marketplaces, which means they control customer interactions. While these options might work for side hustles, they can limit scalability and branding opportunities. On the other hand, rental software platforms like Booqable provide more control but still require manual handling for tasks like pickups, returns, and customer support. Expanding operations with these tools often means duplicating processes and hiring additional staff.
Lockii, however, stands out for its highly automated setup. It handles nearly every aspect of the rental process, including identity verification, automated communication, GPS tracking, and payment processing. Customers can access trailers 24/7 using digital locks, and returns are seamlessly documented with photos and GPS confirmation. This high level of automation keeps operations efficient, eliminating the need for extra staff.
Cost-wise, Lockii offers predictability with its $12/month per locked item pricing. Unlike platforms charging per transaction (like Towlos' $10 per rental), this flat rate ensures expenses remain steady as you scale. Plus, Lockii’s ability to support unlimited locations with minimal overhead means you can grow your business without worrying about operational bottlenecks. Its system handles 95% of bookings automatically, allowing you to focus on expanding your brand and maintaining direct customer relationships.
Conclusion
Building a thriving rental business takes more than just listing your trailers on a marketplace. While platforms like Towlos and ShareFox might help generate occasional income, they come with significant limitations. These platforms not only take a percentage of every transaction, but they also restrict how you can grow and present your brand.
Let’s break it down: with an 18% commission, earning $50,000 in monthly revenue means losing $9,000 every month. Over three years, that adds up to more than $300,000 - money that could have been reinvested into expanding your business, upgrading equipment, or marketing. In contrast, subscription-based independent solutions offer flat, predictable costs, no matter how much you earn.
Beyond the financial impact, relying on marketplaces creates other challenges. These platforms control key aspects of your business, from commission rates to algorithms and policies, which can change without warning. Worse, the customers you gain through these platforms don’t belong to you - the marketplace owns those relationships. Independent solutions, on the other hand, allow you to maintain control and stability.
Take Lockii as an example. By automating 95% of bookings through contactless self-hire, it enables businesses to operate 24/7 across multiple locations without needing more staff. With a flat rate of $12 per month per locked item, your costs remain steady as you grow, and most importantly, you keep 100% of your revenue. This approach has allowed companies to expand to 10 or more locations, thanks to automation that eliminates operational bottlenecks.
The path you choose will shape your business’s future. If your goal is to make extra income from idle assets, marketplaces might suffice. But if you’re serious about building a scalable, sustainable rental business with your own brand, direct customer relationships, and room for strategic growth, switching to an independent solution is the way forward. Those who make this shift early gain long-term advantages in customer loyalty, operational efficiency, and profitability - advantages that marketplaces simply can’t deliver.
FAQs
Why is Lockii a better choice than traditional trailer rental marketplaces?
Using Lockii puts you in charge of your customer relationships and the entire rental process, helping you build a thriving business rather than just a side project. Unlike traditional rental platforms that can sometimes fall short on reliability and trust, Lockii offers a professional and efficient solution tailored to your rental needs.
With tools like 24/7 contactless pickups, automated returns, and identity verification, Lockii takes the hassle out of rentals for both you and your customers. It’s built to help you manage multiple locations, cut down on labor costs, and expand your business with ease - all while delivering a smooth experience that keeps customers coming back for more.
How does Lockii's pricing compare to the commission fees charged by trailer rental marketplaces?
Lockii has a simple pricing approach aimed at helping rental businesses thrive without the burden of hefty commission fees. Unlike many marketplaces that take a cut from every transaction, Lockii offers an all-in-one software solution with straightforward, predictable costs.
With Lockii, you keep 100% of your earnings while enjoying features like 24/7 contactless rentals, automated customer communication, and tools designed to manage multiple locations effortlessly. It’s a solution that lets you grow your business and maintain control over your profits - no need to hand over a share to third-party platforms.
What features does Lockii provide to help streamline and grow a trailer rental business?
Lockii takes the hassle out of trailer rental management by offering contactless 24/7 pickups and returns. Through digital locks, automated identity verification, and GPS tracking, customers can handle the entire process online - booking, extending rentals, and making payments - without needing assistance from staff.
The platform also streamlines operations with automated SMS and email notifications, detailed reporting, and audit logs. Plus, it includes tools for cross-selling and managing multiple locations. These features not only free up time for businesses but also improve the customer experience and make it easier to grow while keeping overhead costs low.