Rate Pulse for car hire marketing teams

Most car hire marketing runs without a view of the market. You plan a promo, pick the dates, and find out later that every competitor was already cheap that week. Rate Pulse shows you what every brand at your airport charges for each pick-up day in the next 14 days, so you can put the message and the money on the days where your price is a real advantage.

What you're up against

• You can't see your position. Pricing sets the rates. You get told "we're competitive" and have to build a campaign on it.
• Promos land on the wrong days. A discount in a week when the whole market is cheap wins nothing. The same spend on a dear weekend can win bookings.
• Events sneak up. A concert or a long weekend lifts demand, and you hear about it after the cars are gone.

The views that help

Your position, in a few lines. Pick your brand and car type. The summary tells you your typical rate against the market, how many days you're the cheapest brand, the two days you sit furthest under the market, and the day the market peaks.

Day by day. Under the summary, each pick-up day shows your rate, the market's, the cheapest competitor and your rank.

Dates to watch. The events and holidays in the same 14 days, each with a source.

Every brand, ranked by customers. If your price isn't the story, your rating might be. See where you rank on value, car condition and pick-up speed.

A worked example

Say you market a mid-priced brand at Auckland Airport, and your compact rate is NZ$125 a day for the next fortnight.

In the Rate Pulse sweep of 13 Nov 2026, the typical compact rate at Auckland Airport was NZ$199 for a Sat 14 Nov pick-up and NZ$122 for a Tue 17 Nov pick-up.

So on the Saturday you were 37% under the market. On the Tuesday you were level with it.

A price-led ad for midweek pick-ups says nothing, because everyone is at that price. The same ad for weekend pick-ups has a real gap behind it. The market sat between NZ$172 and NZ$177 for pick-ups from Sat 21 Nov to Tue 24 Nov, so the next weekend is the one to push.

Then check Dates to watch. Two arena concerts were listed in Auckland for 19 and 20 Nov. Visitors arriving for those are booking now, which is another reason to spend ahead of that weekend and not after it.

That's one 14-day snapshot, so look again before you brief a campaign. It refreshes daily.

Where to go next

Open Auckland Airport or pick your airport, choose your brand and read the summary. For the pricing side, read how to price car hire for events. When you want a view built around your own brand, we can help.

Questions