Written by an owner, from his own receipts
Rent the RV. Not the fees.
Open any RV listing you are looking at right now, copy four numbers off its price breakdown, and see what you are actually paying for, and how much of it never reaches the RV or its owner.
Straight off the checkout screen
Copy the four numbers exactly as they appear.
Pick your dates on the listing, open the price breakdown, and type what you see. No maths. I will do the rest and show you where each dollar goes.
Additional fees is prep, cleaning and add-ons, everything the owner charges on top of the nightly rate. The cover charge usually shows as a trip total; divide it by the number of days it covers, which is normally your nights plus one.
One trip, all the way through
35%added on top of the owner's price. $569.25 of your trip money that never reaches the RV or the person who owns it.
And on the other side of the same booking
Of the $2,216.25 you hand over, $1,276.43 reaches the person who owns the RV. 58c on the dollar. The rest is the platform’s, on both sides of the same trip.
Now here is the part worth sitting with
On RVmigo the owner sets the price and keeps all of it. We take 0% of the booking, so they do not have to price around a commission. Drag the slider: even if they charged more per night than they do on the big platforms, what would you pay?
The owner could raise their nightly rate by as much as +37.6%, to $260.16 a night, and this trip would still cost you no more than it does today. That is the size of the wedge you have both been paying for.
You would pay $569.25 less for the same trip in the same RV, and they would still earn $370.58 more than they do today. That is not a discount either of you paid for. It is the middle disappearing.
Be clear-eyed about that number. $164.70 of it is a service fee that simply is not charged here. The other $404.55 is a cover charge you are no longer buying, which is a different thing, and worth reading the next section about.
The fastest way to get that money back
Bring your owner with you.
You already know an owner. Maybe you have rented the same rig twice. That relationship is worth more than any listing page, and right now a platform is charging both of you for it.
Send them this. It takes ten minutes to list, running the rental costs them nothing, and the next trip you take together is the one above, at the green number. I will even build the listing for them if they ask.
Hey, I've been looking at the price breakdown on your listing. For a 8-night trip I'd pay $2,216.25, but only $1,647.00 of that is even yours to begin with. The rest is their service fee and the cover charge they sell me at checkout. And after their cut off your side, you're keeping about $1,276.43. There's a site called RVmigo that takes 0% of the booking. You set the price, you keep all of it, we deal direct. Everything you need to run the rental is free. Would you put the rig on there so we can book that way next time? rvmigo.com/list-your-rv
The numbers above update with your own. Copy it after you have put your trip in.
The other half of the bill
You were not buying cover. You were buying a second opinion.
$405 That is the biggest line on your bill after the RV itself, and it is the one nobody explains.
I have claimed twice as an owner. Both times, the renter's own personal insurance is what ended up paying. I am telling you what happened to me, not how anyone's policy is written, because I have not read yours and I have not read theirs.
That is my rig, my carrier and my state. Every owner's is different, and mine is not evidence about anyone else's. Ask yours.
Ask these before you rent through anyone, us included
- Is the coverage primary or excess?
- If something happens, whose insurer is approached first?
- What is the deductible, and who decides it?
- Who do you call at nine on a Sunday, and how long does a claim take?
We cannot answer those about another company's product and we will not pretend to. What we can tell you is what we do: we do not sell a policy, the owner's own policy is the policy, and none of that changes what we charge, which is nothing on the booking.
And here is what you give up, straight. No roadside assistance bundled into your booking, and no damage waiver capping what you owe if something goes wrong. Those are real, and it is on you to arrange them or accept the risk. What you get instead is that you are renting from a person rather than a checkout page. Ask the owner what they carry and what you would be on the hook for, before you book, and get it in writing.
So what am I actually giving up?
A middleman. That is the honest answer, and it cuts both ways. There is no support desk to escalate to, no dispute team, no automatic package at checkout. There is an owner, a phone number, and a written agreement between the two of you. We are small and new. There are not thousands of rigs on here and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
Why is it cheaper here? What is the trick?
There is not one. The big platforms take a cut from the owner and a service fee from you, on the same booking. The owner prices their rig knowing a large slice of it disappears, so their rate already carries that weight before you ever see it. We take 0% of the booking, permanently. Payment is between you and the owner; we record it and never touch it. Later we will charge owners a small monthly fee. That is the whole business model.
Where do these numbers come from?
My own bookings. I rent my rig out on a major platform and I have every receipt, both sides of them, what the renter paid and what landed in my account. Across 13 trips, renters paid 29% more than I asked for, before tax. That platform publishes an owner service fee of 20 to 25%, and you cannot see which rate your owner is on, so this page uses the middle of their published band, 22.5%, for every calculation. Mine is 25%, the top of it. If your owner is on 25% too, they are keeping even less than this page shows.
What if my owner will not move?
Then book them where they are. A good owner is worth more than a good price, and I would rather you had a trip that works. But ask once. Most owners have never added up what the platform takes from their side and yours on the same booking, and the number surprises them.
Founding renters
Bring an owner over, and I will do the work.
If you send an owner my way, I will build their listing for them, walk them through what cover they need, and make sure your dates are on their calendar before they have finished their coffee. No fee to them, no fee to you.
There are already a handful of rigs on the map. I would rather grow it one real relationship at a time than pretend there are thousands.
Running a rental is free. 0% of every booking, permanently.
How to read this page. Tax is left out of both sides. The owner's price is whatever they choose to charge here; they may price higher or lower than they do elsewhere, and that is their call, not ours. RVmigo records bookings between people, never takes custody of your money, and is never a party to your rental agreement. Cover, condition and terms are between you and the owner. Ask, and get it in writing. Service fee shown at 10%; owner service fee at the 22.5% midpoint of a published 20-25% band.