Have you tried renting a car on Turo? I’ve recently had a great Turo experience – I showed up to the parking lot where I was told that car was going to be, messaged the host, and they unlocked the car doors remotely. The car keys were inside the glove compartment. 

It was a seamless, no-contact experience where I didn’t even need to meet the host. Any money-making opportunity that doesn’t require a lot of hands on effort, obviously caught my attention. After all, I’m a huge fan of any money making hustle that can be as passive or automated as possible.

If I had a car rented on Turo, all I need to do is unlock the car remotely when a customer guest arrives. Is it really that easy? Is it worth buying a car just to rent it out on Turo? 

What is Turo?

Turo is an app where you can list your car for others to rent out. Think Airbnb, but with Cars. The concept is pretty simple. You have a car sitting around that’s not always being used; why not rent it out to make some money – or at the very least reduce your monthly costs for the car.

There are a lot of different cars available on the app from your humble Toyota Corolla to luxury Tesla and Porsche experiences. 

What Are the Top Earning Cars on Turo?

It is very likely that the car you own is available for rent on Turo. However, if you’re thinking about getting a car that maximizes the amount of money you can make on Turo, below are some charts from Turo’s data team that provide some great insights. 

Take note of the many factors involved in owning and renting a car – particularly around expenses. While the revenue coming in from Turo may look appealing, it’s important to think about the potential costs of car ownership: registration, maintenance, insurance, loan payments (if financed), and depreciation. All those costs need to be factored in when building up an idea of the “average monthly cost” for the car.

The net profit or take-home money from using Turo would then be:

(total revenue from Turo) – (Turo platform fee) – (car expenses) 

The data provided by the Turo team takes this into account when calculating their ranking for top earning cars. In particular, the car is high earning if on average the total earnings from Turos is higher than the estimated monthly payments for the car. Take the below data with a large grain of salt, however. Turo’s data is highly aggregated and have baked in many assumptions that may not reflect your situation or market.

Turo’s Top Earning Cars

The top earning cars on Turo are simple point A to point B cars that can be rented for around $30-45 a day. The Fiat 500 and Ford Fiesta are the two models that particularly stand out. According to Turo, these two cars are the most top earners across the app.

On the other hand, some guests are looking for a more premium experience in their ride, and not simply the best point A to point B solution. In that case, the most popular luxury cars include the Audi A3, Mercedes Benz CLA-class, and BMW 3 Series. 

Maybe it’s because there’s not enough data points on Turo, but I’ve found another very popular luxury car on Turo is Tesla. Many people want to capture the Tesla experience. Depending on the city, Tesla daily rates on Turo are higher than that of Audis, Mercedes, and BMWs. Moreover, they frequency that customers rent Tesla is pretty high. Perhaps the lower number of Tesla owners compared to the other listed luxury cars play a factor here.

How To Get Started?

It takes only a few minutes to get your car on the Turo.com platform and active for renting. It’s a pretty straight-forward process.

Think about your listing with your customer hat on. What would make someone choose your listing compared to another. Price? Convenience? Features?

Make sure to have a good description of your car and write about anything that might help your car stand out. For example, being very upfront about the availability of GPS, Satellite Radio, Remote Keys, MPG, Ski Racks, or any other features that might sway a customer would be great details to add in your description. 

Take great pictures. As you might know from personal experience, a picture is worth a thousand words and is what first attracts the customer to your listing. If the customer does not click on your listing, any amount of well-written detail in the description is pointless. 

When thinking about your car rental, note that Turo does take 25% of revenue from every rental. However, that fee covers insurance and the cost of marketing your car on the app. You still need to have your own insurance, but if a renter damages the car, Turo’s insurance will take over. 

In order to truly maximize your earning potential, you’ll have to do additional research on your local market, pricing, seasonal trends, and distinct customer profiles.

Bottom Line

Building a profitable hustle from renting your car is definitely an interesting endeavor. I am definitely interested in diving more into the specific details and logistics of renting on Turo. Renting on Turo as an opportunity definitely passes the sniff test.

However, like any business involving physical assets, there’s absolutely some more number-crunching required before trying to execute on this hustle. Financing and maintaining a car can be capital intensive. On the other hand, renting out your car, as opposed to simply only owning a car, can be considered building up money-generating assets. This hustle is potentially scalable if you figure a good system that can run itself.

While I don’t foresee the Turo market weakening any time soon as it disrupts the traditional car rental space, there may be potential unease from the expectations that come with a car that is maintained for customers as opposed to yourself.