Auth + capture, not full charge
Staff place the hold at pickup and capture only what is owed; the rest of the hold is released.
Payments & Deposits
Charge at checkout. Hold at pickup. Release on return.
Customers pay by card at checkout and the card is saved, so staff place the damage hold at pickup without re-keying it. A clean return releases the hold, at check-in or by the daily job soon after the rental ends.
Payments & Deposits at a glance
Damage charges with evidence
Staff record damage with photos and a description and capture only that amount from the hold. The customer is sent a notice with the amount and the reason, and the return screen tells staff when it could not be sent.
Every payment on record
Each booking lists its payments, refunds and failed attempts, and Payment Reports totals what came in by payment method and card reader for today or the last week, month or year. QuickBooks sync is not available.
Capabilities
Everything you actually use, every day.
Deposit per item
Set a deposit on each item, or a fixed or percentage default for the business.
Release on a clean return
Checking in a clean return can release the hold on the spot; otherwise a daily job releases it about two days after the rental ends.
Partial captures
Damaged a fender? Capture for that amount and release the rest.
Failed payments flagged
A failed card payment shows as Failed on the booking’s Transactions tab, and a return charge whose card fails stays on the booking as still owed. To follow up, staff send the customer a single-use payment link from the booking and see whether it was emailed or is ready to copy. Charges are not retried automatically.
Refunds to the card
Managers send full or partial refunds back to the original card through Stripe, with a reason.
Tax rates per location
Each location carries its own tax rates, such as state and county, added together on taxable bookings there. Tourism and lodging taxes get no special handling.
How we compare
How the tools compare.
We respect every product on this list, and most of them taught us what to build. Here is what each one offers, and where GoGo Engine is still behind.
| Capability | GoGo Engine | Booqable | EZRentOut | Quipli | Spreadsheets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory across multiple locations | Yes | Paid add-on | Multi-Store | Yes | No |
| Customer portal | Yes | Customer accounts | Yes | Yes | No |
| Deposit hold + release on return | Yes | Yes | Up to 7 days | Held for the full rental | No |
| Public REST API + signed webhooks | Yes | API in beta; v4 signed | API; webhooks not listed | Not confirmed | No |
| Seasonal pricing rules | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | No |
| Accounting sync (QuickBooks, Xero) | Not available | Xero | Yes | QuickBooks Online | No |
| Built-in customer SMS + email | Yes | Email; SMS via Zapier | Email alerts | Yes | No |
Checked against each vendor’s own website and documentation in October 2026. A feature we could not find there says “Not confirmed”. See methodology →
Keep exploring
Pairs well with.
Questions
The things people ask first.
There is no self-serve import today. Locations, items, rates and rules are set up in the dashboard, with templates and duplicates to speed it up.
On top of your flat monthly subscription, we collect a small platform fee on the booking GMV that flows through GoGo Engine. 1.5% on Operator, 1.0% on Studio, 0.5% on Fleet, negotiated on Enterprise. There are no per-booking fees, no Stripe markups, and we never touch the released portion of damage deposits. As you grow into a higher tier, the platform fee rate drops. We’re aligned with your scale.
Because we believe in skin in the game. A flat-only model means we get paid the same whether you do $10k or $10M in bookings, which doesn’t reward us for making your business grow. The platform fee aligns our work with your outcomes. If your bookings go up, ours do too. If they don’t, we’re motivated to fix that.
They may. Booking pages, the customer portal and emails carry your business name. Emails are sent from GoGo Engine’s sending address, and booking pages show a small “Powered by GoGo Engine” line. Widgets can hide that badge.
The hold is released when your team checks the unit back in clean. If there’s damage, staff photograph it and add the charge in the return wizard, and you capture only that amount from the hold. The customer is sent a notice with the amount and the reason, and if they have no email on file or it fails to send, the return screen tells your team so they can tell the customer themselves. You don’t pay Stripe fees on the released portion.
Payments run on Stripe, and email and SMS go out through Resend and Twilio. QuickBooks, Slack, Mailchimp and other integrations are not available. The public REST API and signed webhooks can feed your own tools; API keys are not self-serve today.
Connections to the app use HTTPS, and row-level security in the database limits each signed-in user to their own business’s data. Data lives in a managed Postgres database on Supabase. The security page has the details.
There is no app to install and no offline mode. GoGo Engine runs in the browser: booking pages and the customer portal fit a phone screen, and staff can photograph a return with the phone’s camera in the return wizard.
Live chat with humans on every plan, with escalation to a named CSM on Enterprise. We answer fast because we are a small team and operators ourselves. We know what waiting on a vendor feels like.