What is HotCrate?

HotCrate is a rental management tool built for small and medium rental businesses. It helps you track your gear, manage bookings, share your catalog with customers, and stay on top of pickups and returns each day.

Core concepts

Items are the individual pieces of gear you rent out. Each item has a name, quantity, daily rate, and photos. Items can be visible publicly, unlisted (only reachable by direct link), or private.

Bundles group items together into a single package with its own name and daily rate. Bundles are available on Pro.

Rentals are the bookings you create when a customer rents gear. Each rental tracks who is renting, which items, for what dates, and what stage of the rental lifecycle it is in.

Customers are the people who rent from you. HotCrate keeps a record of each customer's contact information and rental history.

Your catalog (at hotcrate.app/u/your-slug) is the public-facing page where customers browse your items. You can also embed the catalog on your own website.

The Crate is the cart-like widget inside your catalog and embed. Customers add items they want to rent and submit an inquiry directly to you.

How a rental flows

1. A customer submits an inquiry from your catalog, or you create a rental manually yourself.
2. The rental starts as pending. You review it and accept or reject it.
3. Once accepted, you prep the gear (prepped), send it out (picked up), and mark it returned when it comes back (returned).
4. My Day gives you a daily view of what is going out, coming back, and currently out - all in one place.

What is next?

• Initial setup - get your account configured and add your first items
• Account access - sign-in and who can access your account