The Next Unit: Rental Equipment Payback Calculator

Is the next unit worth buying? Here's the number of weekends it takes.

Every unit in a rental business is the same bet: it costs this much, it rents for that much, and somewhere between a busy season and a slow one it either pays for itself or sits in the yard. This workbook prices one unit the honest way and grades the purchase before you order it.

One rental, after everything. Price, minus the crew hours to load, deliver, set up and collect, the fuel, the cleaning. The sample bounce house leaves $128 of a $185 rental.

One season, after owning it. Insurance, storage and repairs whether it rents or not; depreciation because it wears out. Cash thrown off, profit, payback in seasons, break-even rentals, return on the purchase, profit over the unit's life.

Seven levels of demand. The same unit at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 and 28 rentals a season, each with profit, payback and a Status — so you can see the row below your guess, which is the season you should be able to survive.

The dashboard grades it — payback against your own bar, break-even against expected rentals, return, contribution margin, crew cost, owning costs, cash against your floor, utilization — HEALTHY, WATCH or ALERT, with a chart of profit at every demand level. One portrait page.

Built for

Party and inflatable rental · tent and event rental · tool and equipment rental · trailers and dumpsters · photo booths · anyone who grows one unit at a time.

What you get

One .xlsx file, four tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ins, no subscription. A realistic sample is loaded so you see every color of the grading before you type over it. Copy the workbook per unit type.