Competitor rate monitoring for car hire, by car type and pick-up day

Competitor rate monitoring means checking what every other brand at your airport charges for the same car type and pick-up day, then seeing where you sit. Rate Pulse does that for free. Pick your brand and a car type in Benchmark your rates and you see your typical daily rate against the market, day by day, for the next 14 days.

What you see

The summary gives you three lines:

• your typical rate and how far it sits above or below the market's typical rate
• how many pick-up days you're above market, and how many you're the cheapest brand
• the competitors most often cheaper than you, with the number of days

Under it, Day by day has one row per pick-up day: you, the market typical, the cheapest competitor and your rank, where 1 is the cheapest.

A worked example from Madrid

In the 7 Nov sweep, Sixt's typical compact rate at Madrid Barajas was €36 a day. The market typical was €31, so Sixt sat 18% above it. It was above market on 12 of 13 pick-up days and the cheapest on none. OK Mobility and Centauro were cheaper on all 13.

That isn't automatically a problem. Sixt has the top customer rating at the airport and its desk is in the terminal. The question the table answers is narrower: on which days is the gap biggest?

On Sun 8 Nov Sixt was 61% over market. On Mon 16 Nov it was 3% under, ranked 3 of 8. If you were Sixt's pricing manager, the 8 Nov gap is where you'd look first. The 16 Nov rate shows you can sit at market without breaking anything.

How to use it each week

1. Open your airport and pick your brand and main car type.
2. Note the days where you're more than 20% over market. Check whether a date in Dates to watch explains it.
3. Note the days you're cheapest. Ask whether you're leaving money on the table there.
4. Repeat for your second car type.

Prices are euros as the page shows them, converted from NZD. They're advertised rates on one booking site, not what anyone earned, and one 14-day snapshot in a November shoulder period. Read how we got the numbers before you match a price.

Questions