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Equipment hire

The hire diary, with the counting done

A real Clay site — built from a Google listing

Ladders, sanders, PA stacks, camera bodies, party gear. Say how many of each you own and the days fill themselves.

Takes less than a minute · no sign-up or credit card required

A hire shop runs on a diary and a memory. Six ladders, four of them out, one due back Monday and one that somebody has had for eleven days. It works, right up to the Saturday two people are promised the same sander, and then it is a phone call you have to make.

Clay hires from your own page. Every thing on the list carries a rate per day, per week and per month, and a number — how many you have. The days fill as the kit goes out, and a day is only full when the last one is gone. The site itself is free; taking hires on it is the paid plan, at €49 a month.

20different things on one hire list
200of any one of them the count will hold
3rates per thing: day, week, month
€49a month, ex VAT, for the plan that takes hires
This week
MTWTFSS
1 day €181 week €604 of 6 out
The counting

How many you have

Each thing on the list has a count on it rather than a yes or a no. Six ladders means six can be out at once, and the seventh request for those days is refused before it turns into a conversation at the counter.

A hire booked from Monday to Friday blocks every day it covers, not the Monday it starts on. That is the whole difference between a form that emails you and a diary that knows what is in the yard.

Nobody names a ladder, though. It is a count, not a numbered asset: the site will tell you four of six are out on Thursday and it will never tell you which four.

Six of a thing, or two hundred
Every day a hire covers is blocked
The seventh request is refused, not queued
The rates

A day, a week, a month

Three rates per thing, because that is how the trade prices. Ten days comes out as a week plus three days — the cheapest whole-period combination it can build, never rounded up to a fortnight because a fortnight is tidier arithmetic.

The bill shows its working. One week, three days, what each line comes to, and then the total — instead of a number the customer has to take on trust before they have even given you their name.

Not by the hour, though. The engine prices in days, weeks and months only, so a two-hour PA hire has to be sold as a day or agreed on the phone.

What comes back Monday

Shortest, longest, and shut

You set the shortest hire and the longest, and minus one for no limit is a real answer rather than a number you have to invent. The days you are closed are weekdays; the fortnight in August is a set of dates you block on a calendar.

Every booking lands in the Bookings tab with the dates, the note and when it was taken. One that came in over the phone you write in yourself, and it is a real booking — same list, blocking the same days for everybody else.

Your own calendar can read it: subscribe Google, Apple or Outlook to a live feed and new hires appear there on their own. It only runs one way. Nothing written in your calendar blocks a day on the site, so a van booked out for a job is a date you block by hand.

What you get

How many you have, per thing
Rates by the day, the week and the month
A hire blocks every day it covers
Shortest and longest hire, or no limit at all
Blocked dates for the fortnight you are shut
Phone bookings written in by you, on the same list

What you get

A count, not a switch

Say how many you have. The day goes full when the last one is out, and not one booking before.

Day, week and month rates

Ten days quotes as a week plus three days, the cheapest way round, with the working printed under it.

Both of you get the email

Theirs comes from you and replies to you. Yours carries the name, the phone number and whatever they typed in the note.

Found by the name on the van

Your Google photographs, rating, opening hours and map, on a page that opens on one bar of signal.

Questions

Can I hire things out by the hour?

No. The engine prices in days, weeks and months, so a two-hour PA hire has to go out as a day. If your trade really is lengths of time rather than whole days, appointment booking is the other shape and it is built around slots.

Does the site take the money or the deposit?

No. Nothing is charged on the page at all, and a deposit is not even a field on a hire — it exists only on a restaurant table booking. You take the card, the cash or the driving licence at the counter, the way you already do.

Is it free?

The site is free and stays free at your own clay.site address. Taking hires on it is not: booking is on the paid plan at €49 a month, ex VAT, and a free site draws the form but the server will not accept the booking. The photographs, the hours, the reviews and the map are there either way.

How many different things can I put on the list?

Twenty rows, and up to two hundred of any one of them. That covers a shop's ladders, sanders, mixers and breakers. It does not cover a plant yard with two hundred lines in it — for a list that long, put the kit in the shop as a priced catalogue of up to a hundred products and take the hire by phone.

Do customers need an account to book?

Yes, and it is the one thing on this page that costs you bookings: an email and a password of at least six characters before the hire is confirmed. There is no guest checkout. What they get for it is a page of their own hires, and a cancel button that disappears inside whatever notice you set.

Real sites, made with Clay

Open one. It is the live site in a frame, not a screenshot — so what you see is what it looks like right now.

Read next

RentalsOnline bookingPlumbers, electricians & tradesScooter rentalBranchesEmail sign-ups

Put the yard on a page

Search the shop's name. A hire shop's Google listing already says it hires by the day, so the page comes back set up that way and you put your own numbers into it.

Takes less than a minute · no sign-up or credit card required