We're thrilled to announce the public launch of Equipment Rental System — our first free WordPress plugin, now submitted to WordPress.org for review. It's a complete, end-to-end rental booking solution built specifically for businesses that rent out equipment: construction machinery, forklifts, generators, tools, vehicles, party supplies, and more. If your business has ever struggled with WhatsApp bookings, paper agreements, and chasing deposits over the phone, this plugin was built for you.
The problem we kept seeing
Equipment rental businesses are everywhere — and almost all of them are still running their bookings the old way. A customer calls or texts to check availability. Someone sends a PDF agreement by email. The customer prints it, signs it, scans it, and sends it back (or doesn't). Deposits are collected in cash or via a bank transfer with a note saying "rental deposit March." Orders live in a spreadsheet that only one person understands.
When a client came to us needing a proper digital booking system, we looked at what already existed. The options were either expensive SaaS rental platforms with monthly fees that didn't make sense for a small business, overly complex WooCommerce setups that weren't designed for this workflow, or generic booking plugins that had no concept of rental agreements, e-signatures, or deposit collection tied to a specific order.
So we built exactly what was needed — and then decided to open-source it so every equipment rental business with a WordPress site could use it for free.
What the plugin does
Equipment Rental System handles the complete rental workflow from first click to signed agreement, in four guided steps that work on any device.
Step 1 — Equipment Selection
The customer starts by choosing from your configured equipment catalogue. You can define two types of equipment categories: propane/gas/diesel powered (e.g. forklifts, generators, compressors) and electric (e.g. electric pallet jacks, scissor lifts). Each category can have its own image, multiple capacity options, and per-unit pricing for three duration types — day, week, and month.
Customers can also select optional add-ons at this stage — things like a Battery Charger, Safety Kit, Extended Warranty, or any other extras you configure. Each add-on has its own price. A fuel surcharge, configurable per fuel type, is also calculated automatically. The total is shown in real time as the customer makes selections, so there are no surprises at checkout.
Step 2 — Customer Information
The second step collects everything needed to populate the rental agreement: full name, company name, email address, phone number, and delivery or pickup address. All of this flows directly into the agreement text — no manual data entry on your end.
Step 3 — Stripe Deposit Payment
Before the booking is confirmed, the customer pays a deposit via Stripe. The deposit amount is fully configurable from your admin panel. Stripe's hosted card form handles PCI compliance, so no card data ever touches your server. Both test mode and live mode are supported — you can run end-to-end test bookings before going live without processing any real charges.
Step 4 — Rental Agreement & E-Signature
The final step presents the customer with your rental agreement, pre-filled with all of their booking details. The agreement text is fully customisable from the WordPress admin panel, and supports dynamic placeholders that are replaced automatically:
- {company_name} — Your business name
- {customer_name} — Customer's full name
- {customer_company} — Customer's company
- {rental_date} — Date of the booking
- {equipment_details} — Selected equipment summary
- {duration_type} — day / week / month
- {total_price} — Total rental price
- {deposit_amount} — Deposit paid
- {order_number} — Unique order reference
The customer signs directly in the browser using a digital signature pad. The moment they submit, a PDF of the signed agreement is generated on the server and emailed to both the customer and your admin address — with a direct download link. No paper. No scanning. No chasing.
The admin side: full order management
Every booking creates an order in the WordPress admin dashboard under Equipment Rental → Orders. You get a searchable, filterable list of all orders with customer name, equipment selected, rental duration, deposit paid, and order date. Click into any order to see the full details and download the signed PDF agreement.
Bulk delete is supported for clearing out old or test orders. All order data is stored in a custom database table — clean, separate from WordPress's post system, and preserved if you deactivate the plugin. Nothing is deleted until you choose to uninstall and confirm the data removal.
Key features at a glance
- Multi-step mobile-friendly booking form with real-time pricing
- Propane/gas/diesel and electric equipment categories
- Per-duration pricing: day, week, and month
- Optional add-ons with individual pricing
- Fuel surcharge per fuel type
- Configurable deposit amount
- Stripe payment integration — test and live mode
- Digital e-signature capture in the browser
- Automatic PDF generation of the signed rental agreement
- PDF stored in /wp-content/uploads/ers-agreements/
- Email notification to customer with PDF download link
- Admin notification email on every booking
- Full order management dashboard in WordPress admin
- Search, filter, and view all orders
- Individual order detail pages with PDF download
- Bulk delete orders
- Equipment image upload per category
- Customisable agreement text with dynamic placeholders
- No WooCommerce dependency
- GPLv2 open source licence
How to install and get started
Once the plugin is approved on WordPress.org, installation takes about two minutes. Search for Equipment Rental System in the WordPress plugin directory, install, and activate. A new Equipment Rental menu appears in your admin sidebar.
From there, three settings pages cover everything you need to configure:
- Equipment Rental → Settings — Stripe API keys (publishable and secret), company name, admin email, and Stripe test/live mode toggle
- Equipment Rental → Pricing & Add-ons — Equipment categories, images, capacities, per-duration pricing, add-ons, fuel surcharge, and deposit amount
- Equipment Rental → Agreement Text — Your full rental agreement with placeholder reference
Once configured, add the shortcode [equipment_rental_system] to any WordPress page or post. Publish it, and the booking form is live. Before going live with real payments, run a complete test booking using Stripe's test card 4242 4242 4242 4242 to verify the full flow end to end.
What it doesn't do (yet)
We want to be honest about the current scope. Version 1.0.0 is focused on the core booking and agreement flow. A few things that are commonly requested but not in this release:
- Calendar-based availability management — bookings are accepted without checking equipment availability dates
- Full payment collection — the plugin handles deposit only; final payment is collected offline or via a separate flow
- Customer login / booking history — customers currently receive a PDF by email but there is no self-service portal
- Multi-currency support — currently processes in your Stripe account's default currency
These are on our roadmap. We'll be releasing updates based on real-world feedback from users. If one of these is critical for your business, get in touch — we'd love to hear from you.
Who is this for?
The plugin is built to be generic and configurable, so it works for a wide range of rental businesses. We've tested it mentally against:
- Heavy equipment and construction machinery rental
- Forklift and material handling equipment
- Generator and power equipment rental
- Tool and hardware rental shops
- Vehicle and trailer rental
- Party and event equipment hire
- AV and production equipment rental
If your business rents physical equipment and you want online bookings, deposit collection, and signed agreements — this plugin is built for you.
Free and open source
Equipment Rental System is completely free. No premium tier, no licence key, no monthly fee. The full source code is published under the GPLv2 licence. You're free to use it, modify it, and distribute it. We built it to solve a real problem, and we're giving it away because we believe good tools should be accessible to businesses of all sizes.
If you use the plugin and find it useful, the best thing you can do is leave a review on WordPress.org and tell other rental businesses about it. That feedback directly shapes how we prioritise future development.
Download it
The plugin is available on WordPress.org. You can also find the full feature documentation on our plugin page. Install it, configure it, and if anything doesn't work the way you expect — reach out. We read every message.
