What the rental engine does
The rental engine lets you rent products for a date range instead of selling them outright. Customers pick the dates they need on the product page, you hold the units while they check out, and once they pay you have a confirmed rental to fulfil and get back at the end of the period. It’s built for any product where the same unit goes out and comes back — equipment, gear, furniture, tools, vehicles, instruments, and more. The app keeps track of how many units are available on every date, so two customers can’t book the same unit at the same time. Everything is managed under the Rentals hub in your Shopify admin:- Go to Shopify Admin → circuly Rental & Subscriptions → Rentals.
- Use the tabs across the top to move between areas: Overview, Inventory, Bookings, Rentals, Pricing, and Blackouts.
Explore the rental docs
Set up a rentable product
Add rental capacity, a pricing template, and the storefront calendar block
to a product.
Inventory model
How rental stock is tracked and why availability is calculated per date.
Pricing templates
Build the price tiers that decide what a customer pays for a date range.
Blackouts & holidays
Close off dates when products can’t be rented or returned.
The booking flow
Follow a rental from the storefront calendar through checkout to a confirmed
rental.
Cancellations & refunds
Cancel a booking or rental, release the units, and handle refunds.
Troubleshooting
Fix the most common issues with availability, calendars, and bookings.
Key concepts
A few terms appear throughout the rental docs. Here’s what each one means.A Booking is the hold before payment; a Rental is the confirmed
agreement after payment. Every paid rental starts life as a booking.
How a rental moves through your store
1
Customer picks a date range
On the product page, the customer chooses their start and end dates in the
rental calendar block. The calendar only offers dates that have units
available.
2
A booking holds the units
Adding the rental to the cart creates a Booking that holds the chosen
units for those dates, so no one else can book the same units while the
customer is checking out.
3
Customer checks out and pays
The customer completes checkout in Shopify and pays for the rental like any
other order.
4
The booking becomes a confirmed rental
Once the order is paid, the booking converts into a confirmed Rental,
visible under the Rentals tab.
5
You fulfil the rental
Hand over or ship the units to the customer for the rental period.
6
The rental ends
At the end of the date range the rental ends and the units return to your
capacity — ready to rent again. A rental can also be cancelled or returned
early.
Inventory
Each rental product has its own rental capacity — how many units can be out on rental at
the same time. Depending on how your store is set up, your Shopify sellable stock may also
count toward what customers can rent.