What a rental costs: the five rules behind the price

1. The figure shown is a total, not a daily rate

This is the most common misreading. When a page quotes a rate for seven days, that is the price of all seven days, not the price of one day inside a week. There is nothing to multiply. Every duration, from one to sixty-two days, has its own band, and the calendar on the page shows the total as soon as both your dates are in.

2. Days are counted inclusively, weekends included

Days billed = last day − first day + 1. Friday to Sunday is three days, not two. A single-day rental carries the same start and end date. Saturday and Sunday count as ordinary days: there is no weekend rate and no free Sunday.

The same rule governs the return. The last day of the rental is the day the return parcel must be dropped off, not the day after. A weekend ending on Sunday therefore means dropping the parcel off on Sunday — and many pickup points are closed that day.

3. The taper applies to the whole duration

Bands do not stack in slices: the total duration, and nothing else, decides which band applies. Going from ten days to eleven puts you on the eleven-day band; you never pay ten days plus one day at full price.

The same holds once the rental is under way. Up to 72 hours before it starts, you can move your dates or extend from your customer account, subject to availability: the new total is the band for the new duration.

4. The extra day collapses after the third

The taper is not linear, and that is where the real decision about dates is made. Four things are worth knowing before you pick your slot.

The second day is free on three devices. On the GoPro HERO 11 Black, the Insta360 X4 and the Fujifilm instax WIDE Evo, the one-day band and the two-day band carry exactly the same amount. If you are torn between Saturday alone and the whole weekend on those three, there is nothing to weigh up.

The third day is the last expensive day. From the fourth to the seventh, each additional day comes to less than a quarter of what a single stand-alone day costs — and less than a tenth on the GoPro HERO 11 and the instax, barely more on the HERO 12 and the Insta360 X4. Over a full week, a day therefore works out at between 20% and 35% of that same day taken on its own, depending on the device — DJ gear, covered below, is the exception.

Past the week, it keeps going. Between the eighth and the fourteenth day, each additional day still costs less than a fifth of a stand-alone day: from 2% to 18.2% depending on the device. That is why most of our customers instinctively book around a week rather than around a weekend: we have published the durations actually chosen across a summer of orders.

DJ gear is the one exception. From the fourth day on, every additional day there costs the same amount to within a cent: the taper stops dead. And the rental caps out at seven days. It is the only part of the catalogue where renting long brings no pricing advantage.

5. What is added, what is already in, what is not a cost

Three optional items can be added to the rate on the page:

• Collection and return. Click & Collect in Lyon 3 is free both ways. By Chronopost, a pickup point costs €6 out and €6 back; home delivery the day before costs €20 before 6 p.m., €22 before 1 p.m. and €25 before 10 a.m.
• Optional accessories. Selfie stick, ND filters, dive housing, spare battery, mounts: these are charged once for the whole rental, not per day. A selfie stick taken for twelve days costs the same as one taken for two. The detail sits on the device page.
• instax film, which is a consumable: it is charged by the pack, not by the day.

Two things, by contrast, are already included and will not be billed again. Damage and theft insurance first: it is built into the rate for all equipment (cameras, drones and sound equipment). The kit second: an Insta360 X5 ships with its battery, a twin charger, a 1 TB SanDisk microSD card, a hard carrying case, a 25 W fast charger and a 1.10 m invisible selfie stick. A DJI Mini 5 Pro ships with three batteries, the triple charging hub, the screen remote, the same 1 TB card, the bag and spare propellers. That is what is actually in the box, not a list of selling points.

What about the deposit?

It is not a cost. It is a sum held for the length of the rental and returned in full: €100, €150, €200 or €250 depending on the device, €400 for the RCF pair + SUB 15-AX subwoofer pack, never more. Adding it to the rental price when comparing two rental companies is the most common mistake — we set out the full schedule in our article on the deposit.

Three families, three regimes

Family	Maximum duration	Damage and theft insurance	Collection and return
Cameras (GoPro, Insta360, Osmo Pocket, instax)	62 days	included in the rate	Lyon 3 or Chronopost
Drones (DJI Mini 4 Pro, Mini 5 Pro)	62 days	included in the rate	Lyon 3 or Chronopost
DJ gear (Pioneer XDJ-RX3, Technics SL-1210 MK2)	7 days	included in the rate; €200 security deposit left at handover and returned when the gear comes back	Lyon 3 only, handed over in person

Where to read the number

On the device page, and nowhere else: it is the only place that shows today’s rate, band by band, for the dates you enter. A price list copied into an article ages within weeks; the page does not. The DJI Mini 4 Pro and the pair of Technics SL-1210 MK2 read exactly like the rest: enter two dates and the total appears.

Choose my dates and book