How Rental Pricing and Discounts Work in Sparkforge

By Sparkforge Support Team ·Last reviewed May 3, 2026

Sparkforge rentals support base price plus advanced rules: seasonal, day-of-week, hour-of-day, duration, and quantity discounts. Rules apply in a fixed stacking order so totals stay predictable across the booking site and admin-created bookings.

Rental pricing in Sparkforge adapts to dates, durations, and quantity. Each listing or variant carries its own base price, optional security deposit, and a stack of advanced rules.

Where to configure pricing

  1. Go to Calendar Settings > Rentals.
  2. Click the pencil icon next to the listing you want to edit.
  3. Open the Inventory & Pricing tab.

If variants are enabled, each variant has its own pricing tab and rules.

The three pricing layers

1. Base price

The default rate for the listing’s booking unit — hour, day, week, or month. A $50/hour rate on a 4-hour booking gives a pre-adjustment subtotal of $200.

2. Security deposit (optional)

Enable deposits under Global Settings > Payment Settings. Deposits show separately on the invoice and don’t affect base price. A $0 deposit is hidden at checkout.

3. Advanced pricing rules

Toggle on each rule type you want to use, then configure ranges and adjustments.

Advanced rule types

Seasonal pricing

Choose Percentage to shift the base rate up or down across a date range, or Flat to replace the base rate entirely. A flat $150 with a $100 base charges $150 per unit — not $250.

Day-of-week pricing

Apply a percentage adjustment per day. Saturday +10%, Sunday -15%. Useful for weekend demand swings.

Hour-of-day pricing

Surge specific time bands (e.g., 6–10 PM at +20%). Only applies when the booking unit is Hourly. Day, week, and month listings ignore this rule.

Duration discounts

Tiered reductions for longer rentals. Define thresholds like 3, 7, and 30 days. The highest tier reached wins. A 14-day booking with a 7-day tier at 10% gets 10% off; a 40-day booking with a 30-day tier at 20% gets 20% off.

Quantity discounts

Tiered reductions for multiple units. Requires inventory enabled on the listing. Same carry-forward logic as duration discounts.

Stacking order

Rules evaluate in this sequence:

  1. Base price (always)
  2. Seasonal pricing (if date matches)
  3. Day-of-week pricing (per booking day)
  4. Hour-of-day pricing (hourly listings only)
  5. Duration discounts (after time-based rules)
  6. Quantity discounts (per-unit reduction at checkout)

How rules apply across billing units

Pricing checks the start time of each billed unit and locks the matching rule for that whole unit. A daily booking that starts at 11:30 PM Tuesday with a Tuesday +10% rule charges +10% for the full first day, then base from Wednesday onward.

Time-based billing for day, week, and month

Sparkforge measures elapsed time, not calendar dates. A daily rental from Oct 18 at 2:00 PM to Oct 19 at 2:05 PM bills for two full days. Any minute past 7 days starts a new weekly cycle; past 30 days starts a new monthly cycle.

Calculation examples

Daily listing with seasonal and duration rules

  • Base: $100/day × 7 days = $700
  • Seasonal +20% (June–Aug): $700 × 1.2 = $840
  • Duration -10% for 6+ days: $840 × 0.9 = $756

Hourly listing with day and hour adjustments

  • Base: $25/hour × 3 hours = $75
  • Saturday +10%: $75 × 1.10 = $82.50
  • 6–9 PM +15%: $82.50 × 1.15 = $94.88

Equipment with quantity discount

  • Base: $50/day × 5 units = $250
  • Quantity -5% for 5+ units: $250 × 0.95 = $237.50

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I set multiple discounts for the same duration?
Only the highest applicable discount applies per rule type. Tiers don’t stack against each other inside the same rule.
What happens when multiple rules overlap?
Rules evaluate in the fixed stacking order — base, seasonal, day, hour, duration, quantity — adjusting the running total at each step.
Do rules apply to variants individually?
Yes. Each variant has its own pricing tab and runs its own rules independently.
Can I set hour-of-day pricing on daily or weekly listings?
No. Hour-of-day adjustments only apply when the booking unit is set to Hourly.
Are admin-created bookings priced the same as customer bookings?
Yes. The same pricing logic runs whether the booking comes from the public booking site or an admin creates it inside the app.

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