Free activity hire booking software — hourly slots, stock levels & deposits
Take bookings for bikes, kayaks, paddleboards and equipment by the hour or the day. Availability counts against the stock you actually hold, deposits are held on the card, and waivers are signed before anyone reaches the desk. Free to start, live in minutes.
No credit card required · 1% per booking · No monthly fee
Everything a UK hire operation needs — built in
Hire is not a pitch booking with a different name. Availability is stock, slots are hours, and half the job is getting the queue through the desk on the first sunny morning of the season.
Stock-level availability
Availability is counted against how many of each item you actually hold, by size. Ten adult bikes can be hired ten times in the same hour and never eleven, and anything marked out for repair comes straight out of the count.
Hourly & half-day slots
Set your slot length and opening hours per day. Only slots that finish before closing are offered, and a turnaround gap between hires gives you time to check equipment back over.
Refundable deposits
Hold a deposit against the card at booking and release it automatically when the equipment is checked back in, or deduct for damage with the guest emailed an explanation. No cash float and no held driving licences.
QR collection & return
The hire desk scans the guest's QR code to see their items, sizes and slot in large format. One tap marks the hire out, another checks it back in and releases the deposit. The queue at ten on a sunny morning stops being the problem it was.
Maintenance & out-of-service items
Mark an item out of service and it stops being bookable immediately without you having to edit a stock count. Log what was done and when, so a bike with a recurring fault is visible rather than folklore.
Hire added to a stay booking
If you also run pitches or units, guests can add hire to their stay when they book and again from the guest portal during it. It appears on the same confirmation and the same bill.
Digital waivers
Your waiver is presented and signed as part of the booking, before anyone arrives, and stored against the hire with a timestamp. Age and height minimums are enforced in the booking form rather than at the desk.
Mobile-first booking
Hire is usually booked the night before or on the walk down to the water. Slots, sizes, waiver, payment and the QR confirmation all work on a phone, with nothing to download.
Utilisation & revenue reports
Which items earn, which sit in the rack, and what each hour of the day is worth across the season. Revenue by item type for any date range, exportable to CSV for your accounts.
How HolidayPitches works for a hire fleet
From counting the fleet to releasing the deposit — designed for the hire desk, not adapted from a room booking system.
- 1
Set up your fleet by item type and size
Create an item type per thing you hire — adult bike, child bike, e-bike, kayak, paddleboard, wetsuit — with how many of each size you hold, your hourly and daily rate, any deposit, and the minimum age or height if there is one.
- 2
Choose slot lengths and opening hours
Hourly, two-hourly, half day or full day, with opening hours per day of the week and a turnaround gap between hires so equipment can be checked over. Seasonal opening dates mean the boards stop being bookable in November on their own.
- 3
Guests book, pay and sign the waiver online
Availability counts down against your stock level, so nothing is over-booked. The guest pays by card through Stripe, a refundable deposit is held if you use one, and your waiver is signed before they arrive rather than on a clipboard at the counter.
- 4
Collection and return by QR
The guest scans their QR code at the hire desk; their items, sizes and slot appear on screen and one tap marks the hire out. Scanning again on return checks the equipment back in and releases the deposit automatically.
Anything you hire out, by the hour or the day
Create an item type for each thing in your fleet, with sizes, stock counts, deposits and age limits. The booking engine handles the counting.
Free to set up — 1% per booking, no monthly fee
No setup fee, no monthly subscription, no long-term contract. HolidayPitches takes 1% on every booking — online bookings collected via Stripe automatically, walk-ups at the hire desk tracked in the system and invoiced to you monthly. Run hire alongside a campsite, holiday park or marina and each business type adds 1%, capped at 4%.
No costs to register; no monthly subscription; no minimum term
Collected automatically via Stripe at the time of booking
1% per business type you run, never more than 4% in total
Questions from hire operators
How does availability work if I have twelve bikes, not twelve pitches?
Hire availability is a stock count rather than a named unit. You record how many of each item type and size you hold and the booking engine counts down as slots are taken, so twelve adult bikes can be hired twelve times in the same hour and never thirteen. Marking an item out of service removes it from the count immediately.
Can I hire by the hour and still close at five?
Yes. Set your slot length and your opening hours for each day of the week, and the engine only offers slots that finish before closing. A turnaround gap between hires gives you time to check equipment back in, and seasonal opening dates take items off sale out of season without you remembering to.
Do guests sign a waiver before they arrive?
Yes — your waiver is presented as part of the booking and signed digitally, stored against the hire with a timestamp. Minimum age and height limits are enforced in the booking form, so the conversation about whether a nine-year-old can take an e-bike happens before the family has driven over.
How are deposits handled?
A refundable deposit is held against the card at booking rather than taken as cash. Scanning the equipment back in on return releases it automatically. If something is damaged you record a deduction and only that part is charged, with the guest emailed an explanation.
Can campsite guests add hire to their stay?
Yes — if you also run pitches or units on HolidayPitches, hire appears as an add-on when guests book their stay and again in the guest portal during it. It goes on the same confirmation and the same bill, which is how most hire actually gets sold on a park.
Ready to take hire bookings online?
Hourly slots, stock-level availability, deposits, waivers and QR collection — free to start for UK hire fleets and activity centres.