What Rental IQ does for you
Split kit fees across the gear you actually used
When a production pays you a $650 kit fee for a camera-op day, that money is nominally for your whole package. But on that specific shoot, you used your FX6, two lenses, shoulder rig, and a monitor. The other ten items in your kit did nothing. In Rental IQ, you log the shoot and pick which items were used. Each item earns its own day rate for that shoot, and per-item earnings surface naturally over the year.
- Log a shoot day with the items that were used
- Each item earns its own day rate for the days it was on set
- Per-item shoot day count and earnings
- Spot the lens or monitor that hasn't been used in 6+ months
Know the payback period for every purchase you're considering
You're thinking about a new lens. $4,200. Do you take the plunge? Rental IQ answers that with math: at your average kit fee rate, at your shoot day frequency, assuming this lens ends up in the used-items list on roughly X% of shoots, payback is Y months. That's the difference between buying gear on vibes and buying gear on numbers.
- Calculator for any proposed purchase at your real shoot rates
- Payback in months, tied to your actual shoot frequency
- Category comparisons (is this lens better ROI than a new gimbal?)
Build a clean tax trail for your kit
If you charge kit fees, you have Schedule C income (or reimbursable kit rental on a W-2). Either way, you can deduct depreciation, maintenance, insurance, and consumables. Rental IQ surfaces all of that: per-item depreciation based on purchase date, running totals of consumables and repairs, and a year-end summary of earnings by item. CSV export for your accountant is available on the Business plan.
Decide what to buy, what to keep, and what to sell
After a year of data, patterns become obvious. The 85mm prime you bought three years ago hasn't been on a shoot in eight months. The Ronin you thought was marginal has actually been on 60% of your shoots. The specialty lens you splurged on is in the "two times a year" bucket. Now the decisions are easy: sell the 85mm, upgrade your aging wireless kit (since your current one is on nearly every shoot), keep the specialty lens only if you love it.
What changes once you have the data
Before: You charge a $600 kit fee, work 14 shoot days a month, and bring in about $8,400/month in kit income. You own ~$55K of gear. You think everything is more or less earning.
After: Turns out 70% of your kit fee actually flows to six items: the camera body, a workhorse zoom, shoulder rig, monitor, and two wireless kits. The other 15 items in your case collectively account for 30%. Four of them haven't been used in over 6 months. You sell two for $3K and put it toward a second wireless receiver, which ends up on every multi-cam shoot you do.
That's the data-driven version of a working-crew kit: lean, earning, growing on purpose.
Frequently asked questions
Rental IQ is for rental business owners. Does it work for crew?
Yes. The crew use case is one we've built for explicitly. You log shoot days instead of rentals, pick which items were on set, and each item earns its own day rate for that shoot. All of the per-item analytics (payback, ROI, utilization, depreciation) work identically to how they work for rental owners.
Do I need to enter every single shoot?
Ideally, yes. A shoot day takes about 30 seconds to log (date, production, which items, kit fee). That daily habit is what makes the year-one analytics meaningful. Skipping shoots creates gaps that distort per-item data.
What if a production doesn't break out my kit fee separately?
Common. You log the kit fee portion of your day rate as your best estimate. Most working crew have a standard kit rate they use for deal memos. If the production rolled kit into day rate, use the standard figure.
Can I track different kit rates for different types of shoots?
Yes. Commercials at $750, docs at $500, narrative at $600: log each shoot with its actual fee. The analytics reflect your real income mix.
Does this help with union paperwork?
Indirectly. Union deal memos have kit rental sections that get ignored or lowballed by productions. Having a year of per-item data makes it much easier to defend a kit rental number to a production accountant or union rep.
Keep reading
Deeper guides on the topics most relevant to your situation.