Renting over buying is the new trend of the millennium. Thanks to the booming global sharing economy, today, a cabin owner in the hills of India can share his or her property with a traveler from the US of A. The world is evolving and not just the vacation rentals are driving this change but businesses are renting a whole lot of other stuff, too. Not just the businesses but people are also sharing stuff among themselves. Thanks to the peer-to-peer (P2P) renting on the platforms such as Turo and Airbnb.

Take equipment rentals for instance. According to a statistic, the equipment rental market in the USA will grow to become a massive $ 59.4 billion market. With an annual growth rate of 6.1%, this market is going to accommodate a lot of equipment and supplies ranging from party supplies, construction equipment, carpenter tools, and gardening supplies to a lot more.

If you too can sense this scope, maybe it’s time to put some positive strain on your entrepreneurial mind and identify the most profitable rental business ideas you can kick-start this festive season. If you are worried about the hassles of software development for the business, this article will guide you with the easiest and cheapest way to develop cutting-edged rental marketplace solutions. We will talk about how to build a full-fledged rental marketplace suite from an Airbnb clone.

Why Airbnb clone?

Airbnb is the mother of all rental marketplace models. It gave the peer-to-peer business model a new viewpoint that inspired many other new start-ups, globally. The way Airbnb used to make money without even owning a single property of its own is inspiring. It stimulates ideas to solve real-world problems and make good money even with limited resources at disposal.

From the business model, revenue generations, benefits to owners, and seamless user experience to the travelers, to B2B collaborations like freelance photography, Airbnb’s business model is a perfect solution to start renting a lot more than just vacation houses. With a little tweak in an existing Airbnb clone script, an entrepreneurial mind can map an entirely new business idea without investing a fortune in the software suite development.

Transform your business with Peer-To-Peer Rentals on Airbnb’s model

The core business model of Airbnb is the peer-to-peer rental marketplace. It offers a platform where a peer can rent his/her property to another peer to make money. The marketplace works in the following way:

Workflow of Airbnb

The process flow on Airbnb is a simple cycle of six steps. Yet, the workflow is unique than any other rental business in the market. Here is how-

• Step 1: Listing – Sign up as host and list your property after providing the asked details. You are free to put a rental price of your own.
• Step 2: Approval- The Admin verifies the listing request and after a standard verification process, approves/disapproves your profile and listings.
• Step 3: Search- Guests looking for a place to stay in your area will see your listing based on their preferences and all other available options.
• Step 4: Booking– If interested, the guest will confirm the booking request with personal and other details such as check-in, checkout time. The guest makes the payment for the booking and the notification goes to the host.
• Step 5: Confirmation– The host approves/disapprove the booking request based on preferences and other factors.
• Step 6: Rating and Review– If approved, the guest checks-in at the specified schedule, stays, and checks out on the mentioned date. Now, both the host and the guest can rate each other.

Revenue Model of Airbnb

Airbnb makes money from a two-sided commission model. It charges a fee from both the guests and the hosts.

• Commission from the Hosts: 3% commission from the hosts on all the bookings they get.
• Transaction fee from the Guests: 6-12% transaction fee from the guests on every successful booking request placed by them.

The transaction fee is non-refundable, but the guest gets a refund if the host rejects the booking request or delists the property after confirming the request.

Start a Rental System with an Airbnb clone script

The same business model that Airbnb uses to connect the people with houses to the people who want to rent the same applies to all other kinds of stuff that people would want to rent for making money. The model has value propositions for both the B2B partners (hosts/renters) and the customers (guests).

You may ask why am I advocating an Airbnb clone and not suggesting getting your solution developed from scratch. For starters, I am not against development from scratch. There are certain limitations to both approaches. In fact, you should not use a clone script as it is. You should do some customizations on top to make your platform unique. It is just that a clone script saves a lot of time, money, and effort in some special scenarios.

General Comparison: Development from scratch Vs Ready-made Airbnb clone script

Check out the comparison below to understand the same. It will help you to identify the situations when one of the approaches outsmarts the other.

Cost Comparison: Development from scratch VS Ready-made Airbnb clone script

A P2P rental marketplace is a multi-platform project that requires a lot of development. When you go for a ready-made Airbnb clone, you skip the development of the basic features and focus on developments on top. Hence, ready-made scripts save you the cost of re-inventing the wheel.

However, if you are planning to develop on some already existing business models and there are no such requirements to formulate unique features, a ready-made script will save the cost as there is no point in starting from scratch when you can simply get those features ready-made.

1. Build your own platform from scratch

Considering the cost and customizability, you should build your suite from scratch if you are planning to code some entirely new features. Investing in R&D and development will let you enjoy an upper hand against existing businesses.

Cost components for development from scratch

If you are planning to build a rental marketplace platform like Airbnb from the beginning, the cost factors will depend on the following aspects:

• Time
• Platforms: Web and Mobile
• Cost of APIs and web services
• Salary for the development team

We can classify the entire development process into five phases:

Following is the most basic team composition for a project like rental marketplace platform:

• Android developers
• iOS developers
• Website designers
• Graphic designers
• Front-end programmers
• Back-end programmers
• Server Administrator
• Software Testers
• Technical Writer
• SEO experts

Breakdown of Cost and Time estimation

Overall, the turnaround time for the entire project may reach up to 2700 hours. These are just the fundamental elements and features. The overall cost of the project, with added discounts from vendors, at a development cost as low as $50/hour would be something like this:

• $50,000+ for Basic Website
• $80,000+ for Android app
• $70,000+ for iOS app

2. Using an open-source Airbnb clone script

If you are using an open-source Airbnb clone script, you get all the fundamental features as ready-made. However, if you still want some unique features, you can customize the source code. You can also revamp the ready-made UI if you don’t want to use the stock theme. You can customize a script to accommodate unique features for starting other kinds of rental businesses as well.

Cost estimation of development from an Airbnb clone script

A standard Airbnb clone script will constitute a suite of websites and mobile apps. As per my knowledge, many vendors offer this complete suite for somewhere around $2000. Besides that, many of them also offer free installation and deployment support with a warranty of 1-year.

As per the cost of customization (if any) is concerned, you would be paying exactly in the same way as the development from scratch functions. That is, you would be paying extra for the customizations, which will, of course, be much lesser than developing the entire suite from scratch.

We can implement Airbnb’s model into other rental businesses

As discussed earlier, we can use the same business model (with little customization) to build many other types of rental marketplace platforms. If you purchase an Airbnb script, you can adapt it to implement a lot more than vacation rental houses. Identify your local business opportunities and accommodate the existing affordable solution into distinctive arcades, products, and services such as –

• Party Venue Rentals
• Vehicle Rentals
• Boat Rentals
• Book Rentals
• Costume Rentals
• Appliance Rentals
• Storage Space Rentals
• Co-working Space Rental
• Pickup Truck Rentals
• Camping Supplies Rental
• Hiking Supplies Rental
• Furniture Rentals
• Portable Toilet Rental
• Vanity Vans Rental
• Ski Supplies Rental
• Gym Equipment Rentals

Tips to find a good Airbnb clone script

There are N numbers of vendors selling Airbnb clone scripts. However, not all of them are good enough. Here are tips to help you identify the good ones. You must look for the following aspects:

1.      Competent features

Look for two types of features into any clone script you come across:

• Similar to Airbnb: Look for the fundamental features that make a clone script as competent as the original Airbnb platform.
• Unique Features: Additionally, look for some unique features that make the script better than even the original platform.

Though most of the clone scripts offer similar features to original platforms, some good scripts in the market also offer unique additional features. This uniqueness would be anything from innovative functionalities to extra revenue channels. For example, Airbnb uses commission from host and guest to make money, which is an essential feature for any Airbnb clone script. However, it is beneficial if a script also offers additional monetization channels such as Ads, Premium membership subscriptions, Property listing fees, etc.

2.      Customizability

You cannot achieve decent customizability without the source code access. Therefore, the script must be open-source. However, even the source code access would not be helpful if the vendors have not used standard coding practices and frameworks. So choose a script with open-source code, good tech stack, and popular development frameworks on both front and back-end.

3.      Scalability

Scalability depends on multiple aspects. You have to consider the technology stack, support for different web servers, and feasibility with popular media server APIs, CDN services, and payment solutions, etc. You must clarify every aspect of these considerations before purchasing a script. Ensure that the script consists of a modern tech stack that can handle customizations, scalability, and load as per future needs.

4.      Business Models

Though an Airbnb clone script works on a peer-to-peer marketplace model, it won’t hurt if a clone script also accommodates the B2C business model. It’s not an essential requirement, but having the B2C model will let you offer rentals from your own inventory as well. Maybe, you would want to purchase a fleet of cars, bikes, or anything in the future. It’s better to stay prepared for the opportunities.

5.      Revenue Streams

While the fundamental revenue stream of an Airbnb clone is through commissions, it won’t hurt either to have some additional revenue channels like below ones on the platform. You may choose to activate or deactivate respective revenue channels as current business prospects: –

• Host registration fee: One-time fee from renters to sign up on the platform.
• Property listing fee: One-time fee from renters when they list a new property.
• Property verification fee: One-time fee from renters to arrange a physical inspection.
• Property photography fee: One-time fee from renters to arrange photographers.
• Promoted listing fee: Ads-like feature to promote certain listings under sponsored categories.
• Advertisement: Integrated popular Ad networks to make money by showing ads to users.

6.      Some fundamental considerations

Besides these, make sure the script also offers cutting-edge experiences for managing the following fundamental fronts:

• Easier to understand listing options and UI for owners
• Proper categorization and advanced Search filters
• A powerful Admin Panel with analytics
• A powerful Feedback and Review management system
• Secure Payments with SSL certification

I hope this article answered your queries about affordable ways to build a rental marketplace. Feel free to share your views in the comments. Cheers!

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