Rental duration options
Rentshelf supports four duration patterns. Pick the one that matches how the product is sold in the real world.
Flexible date range: The customer picks a pickup date and return date from the calendar. Rentshelf calculates the billable days from the selected range.
Fixed day durations: The customer picks one of your packages, such as 3 days, 1 week or 1 month, then chooses a pickup date. Rentshelf calculates the return date.
Rent by hours: The customer picks a date and an hourly duration, such as 1 hour, 2 hours or Half day. This works well for appointments, studios, equipment sessions and services booked by slot.
Variant durations: Shopify variants represent the duration packages. Use this when you already sell durations as variants and want Rentshelf to keep the rental metadata, availability and booking flow around them.
This mode can be changed later from the Quickstart guide on the dashboard, or from the rental settings screen.
Comparison
Section titled “Comparison”| Flexible date range | Fixed day durations | Rent by hours | Variant durations | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How does a customer select a duration? | Picks pickup and return dates. | Picks a package, then a pickup date. | Picks a date and an hourly slot. | Picks a Shopify variant that represents the duration. |
| Can they pick any duration? | Yes, within min/max rules. | No, only your packages. | No, only your hourly options. | No, only configured variants. |
| Price display | Per-day, tiered or fixed pricing. | Package labels with package prices. | Hourly labels with optional prices. | Shopify variant price plus rental metadata. |
| Best for | Vehicles, decor, equipment and rentals with open-ended dates. | Camera kits, tools, venues and bundles with common packages. | Studios, services, appointments and hourly equipment use. | Stores already built around duration variants. |
| Availability | Blocks the full date range. | Blocks the calculated package range. | Blocks the selected slot or same-day rental window. | Blocks the range attached to the chosen variant. |
How they look on the storefront
Section titled “How they look on the storefront”Flexible date range
Section titled “Flexible date range”Two date fields with a calendar popup. The customer picks both dates. The picker shows duration, add-ons, deposits and total.
Fixed day durations
Section titled “Fixed day durations”A package selector shows your configured labels, for example 3 days, Weekend package or 1 week. The customer picks a package and a pickup date.
Rent by hours
Section titled “Rent by hours”An hourly selector shows labels such as 1 hour, 2 hours or Half day. Each option can have its own price, or use the product’s daily price as a fallback.
Variant durations
Section titled “Variant durations”The customer chooses a Shopify variant, and Rentshelf treats that variant as the duration package for quote, cart and booking metadata.
How they look in the cart
Section titled “How they look in the cart”All duration modes show rental metadata on the cart and order:
- Rental pickup - start date
- Rental return - end date
- Rental duration - number of days, package label or hourly label
- Rental quote - total price formatted in your currency
- Selected add-ons - comma-separated list, if any
- Due today - the booking deposit or full payment due at checkout
- Payment option - deposit or pay in full, when both are enabled
- Delivery method - pickup, courier, venue delivery or your custom option
For rental-connected cart lines, Rentshelf hides the product’s normal sale price in the cart and keeps the line total/subtotal aligned to the rental quote or due-today amount.
Days calculation for flexible date ranges
Section titled “Days calculation for flexible date ranges”In flexible date range mode, days are counted inclusively - a rental from Oct 3 to Oct 5 is 3 days, not 2 nights. This matches how rental businesses count days in practice and how customers expect pricing to work.
If the picker is configured with minDays: 1, you can even book single-day rentals (pickup and return on the same day).