Turo is a service that a lot of you might have heard of. But for those unaware, it’s a car rental service that works pretty much like Airbnb does for homes and properties. Turo allows you to list your car on its platform, although there are a few requirements that the car must match before being listed. Needless to say, if everything goes according to plan, you should be able to churn out decent amount of money from Turo. But how do you get about this business? Well, let’s have a look.
How to Make Money with Turo
While it may sound like a lengthy complicated process, Turo barely takes a few minutes to setup. Before you start, there are a few requirements that you need to keep in mind.
- Legally registered in the United States
- No more than 12 years old
- Fewer than 130,000 miles
- Clean title
- Never been declared a total loss
- Fair market value of up to $150,000 USD
- Must maintain Turo safety and maintenance requirements
While there are no restrictions on vehicle types, there some exclusions. Vehicles like cargo vans, RVs, box trucks, limousines, off-road vehicles, motorcycles etc cannot be rented on the platform. Also, by the looks of it, Turo is available almost everywhere in the U.S. except New York.
Once you have the Turo app setup and running, it’s time to list your vehicle. Now that you know the exclusions and the kind of vehicles that are allowed on the platform, let’s get to the owner requirements. Every time you list your car on Turo, it’s important to attach a few details to further educate the customer.
These details include:
- The license plate number, make, model, and year of your car.
- One or more photos of your car. It makes sense to detail the interior as well as the exterior portion of the car in your pictures.
- A brief description of your vehicle.
It can also help to mention if your car has any special requirements especially with regards to fuel. It also won’t hurt to mention features of your car that are otherwise unrecognizable from the pictures (ex: heated seats, music system, etc). It is also important to remember that Turo cannot use vehicles that are already running on platforms like Uber or Lyft. You can bypass this requirement by getting prior permission from Turo’s Legal Department.
Types of cars
While you would think that almost every car would be listed in the same fashion on Turo, that’s not the case. Turo has a Deluxe and Super Deluxe listing of cars for premium vehicles. Owners with this tag can receive a security deposit from the customer before renting it out. There are some additional security checks and renter requirements before a customer can rent out a Deluxe or Super Deluxe vehicle on Turo.
While almost any car will be popular on a given day, customers mostly prefer mid or large size SUVs along with luxury sports cars. So you’re likely to make plenty of money if you have either of these as a spare car.
How safe is your car?
One of the primary concerns users have when they rent out their vehicle is with regards to its safety. However, Turo has a comprehensive coverage plan for all its vehicles. While the coverage plans differ from each other, almost every plan provides liability protection up to $1,000,000. This should cover any damages that are incurred to your car, although we hope it doesn’t come to that.
Turo also has your back if someone leaves your car in a messier condition than it was. For cleaning, Turo can offer up to $250 depending on the severity of the mess made in your car. Minor scuffs inside your car that can be wiped with a cleaner are not covered by Turo, however. Overall, when you’re renting out your car on Turo, there’s really nothing to worry about, as long as you catch the issue in time.
In some cases, customers don’t notice changes or damages made to their car after several days of usage. Whether this is due to laziness or just oversight, it is recommended to avoid such situations. Turo will likely deny requests for coverage if you make it several days after the vehicle was returned. Keeping this in mind, it makes sense to inspect your car before and after the renter uses it to have a good idea of the damages (if any) made to the car.
How much money can you earn?
While Turo is one of the best options to earn some money out of your spare car, you will still have fees or a cut to pay out of each rental. The company claims that the owners receive 75% of the trip price, delivery fees, and additional mileage charges. Thankfully, Turo also offers some great insight on how to increase your earnings. One of the best examples of this is by offering delivery of your car to the renter, thus saving them some crucial time. It might also help to use the Automatic Pricing feature on Turo to help your vehicle get the fare that it deserves.
It is also important to keep in mind that if you’re earning money on Turo, you need to report your earnings by filling out the 1099 form. While the money you earn with Turo won’t make you rich overnight, it can be a steady source of side income when you have a spare car at home. Bear in mind, that tire upkeep, oil changes and other vehicle related costs are still borne by the owner, so Turo makes sense only if you are planning to rent out your car often.
Your location also plays an important part in how much money you earn, as you can only make money when there are people renting out your car more often. So your earnings might differ significantly based on where you live.
Why Turo?
Well, how often do you come across a service that lets you conveniently rent out your car within a matter of minutes? It’s also worth considering that there is no other service out there that offers the same kind of versatility as Turo. From a renter’s perspective, Turo makes sense because you would end up paying significantly more if you went to a car rental company around you. This is because these massive car rental companies have to pay for all the cars as well as their various outlets, employ staff and so on. This means the customer bears the brunt of all those overages.
But with Turo, you can rent cars for as low as $50 at times, making this a win-win for all involved. For owners, however, it can be slightly tougher to make money on Turo, especially if they live in a remote part of the U.S. But as far as car rental services go, Turo is definitely the best option available in the market, and we cannot recommend it highly enough.
What’s even better is that Turo is available in the form of an app to Android as well as iOS users, thus making it reachable to millions of users around the world.
Setting the right price
If you’ve used Turo before, you would have noticed how some owners mention exorbitant prices for their cars. For example, a slightly older Honda sedan is sometimes sold for up to $80 a day, while the price that’s appropriate for a vehicle like that is $40-50. Keeping this in mind, it’s imperative that customers choose the right price. This will also encourage customers to rent the vehicle with you again, thus helping you increase your earnings on the platform.
Limitations of the platform
While Turo is available widely in the U.S., its reach outside the country has been relatively minimal as of now. However, major cities of Europe have Turo support, so the company is growing quite steadily. As we’ve touched on above, just being in the U.S. isn’t enough to earn money on Turo. It is also important to have your listings in cities where people are seeking to rent out more and more cars.
Availability of your vehicle is also a very important concern here as not everyone has two cars at home. For those with just one car that has to be used by themselves and up on Turo, the earnings will be significantly lower since you cannot operate your car everyday on Turo.
So while you will certainly make enough money to keep up with the vehicle’s wear and tear and other expenses like insurance, tire replacement etc, you are certainly not going to be rich overnight using Turo. But with that being said, there are people who have employed a whole fleet of cars on Turo and make decent enough money in a month. So the way it works is, if you have a car that can be listed on Turo full-time, your expenses are likely to increase manifold.
Do you have your personal experiences about Turo to share with us? Be sure to let us know.