A rental website is a booking site with a catalogue attached, not a brochure with a contact form. The template question is really a flow question: can a customer pick dates, see what is free, book it with a deposit and sign the agreement on their phone? This guide lists what the site needs, then the two ways rental businesses get there.
The pages
- Home. What you rent, where, and the way to start a booking above the fold.
- Catalogue. Every item with photos, the price by day or by period, and availability for the dates the customer picked. Categories for browsing, search for the customer who knows what they want.
- Item page. Photos, description, price tiers, add-ons, the dates and the button. For dresses, the sizes free on those dates; for equipment, the serial class.
- Packages. The bundles you sell most, bookable as one.
- Booking and checkout. Dates, delivery or pickup, the agreement, the deposit, the confirmation.
- About, contact, policies, reviews. Real reviews, on your own domain.
The flow, in the customer's order
- Dates first. Nothing is more annoying than falling for an item that is not free.
- What is free on those dates, by size or by unit.
- Add to the order, with add-ons and delivery.
- Sign the agreement and, if needed, the waiver.
- Pay the deposit or the whole amount; get a confirmation with the dates and the address.
What to check in a template or builder
- A real date picker tied to real availability, with turnaround and closed days respected.
- Deposits and card holds at checkout, not "pay in store".
- E-signature on the agreement inside the flow.
- Deep links per item, so an Instagram post lands on a bookable item.
- Mobile first. Most rental bookings start on a phone.
- Your domain and your brand, with the rental system inside it rather than a redirect to someone else's page.
- Search engines can read the catalogue (server-rendered pages, one URL per item).
The two ways rental businesses get there
Keep your website, add the booking. Your existing WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or Shopify site keeps its pages; the catalogue and the booking flow are embedded in it and run against your live calendar. This is the fastest route when the site already exists. The WordPress rental plugin guide shows how it works there and on the other builders.
Start from a hosted storefront. A ready storefront on your own domain, with the catalogue, the booking flow, the policies and the reviews, styled to your brand. This is the route when there is no site yet or the old one is not worth keeping.
Share Marketplace does both: embeds for any site builder and a hosted storefront, with the same live availability, deposits, e-signed agreements and reviews behind each. See online storefront and embeds.