The best camera rental software tracks every body, lens and battery by serial number, checks availability item by item, and screens renters before expensive gear leaves the building. Which tool fits depends on how you rent: counter-driven rental houses need point of sale, ID checks and deposits, while production and AV companies running crewed jobs need project planning, crew scheduling and logistics.
This guide compares seven tools that serve camera, lighting, grip and production rentals: Ribbe, Booqable, Rentman, Current RMS, Flex Rental Solutions, HireHop and Cheqroom. Competitor details come from each vendor's own website, reviewed in October 2026, and prices are shown only where the vendor publishes them.
A camera package can be a dozen separate items, each with its own serial number, and one missing battery plate or lens cap is a problem when the next customer is waiting. Before you look at any vendor, write down what your counter actually needs. For most rental houses the list looks like this:
Serialized tracking. Every body, lens, monitor and light has its own record and rental history, so you know who had it last.
Per-item availability. The calendar should block the exact lens promised to a production, not just a count of lenses.
Kits and packages. Rent a camera package or lighting kit at one price without adding up line items at the counter.
Scan-out and scan-in. Barcode or QR scanning so what leaves matches the order and what comes back is checked against it.
Renter screening. ID capture, deposits held on card, and a way to flag renters you do not want back.
Production accounts. Rentals on account, PO numbers on the paperwork, and quotes the producer can approve.
Repair and inspection history. A record of what was damaged, by which rental, and what has been serviced since.
Online booking. Customers can see and reserve gear from your website.
No single tool is the best at every line on that list. The useful question is which one matches the way your shop rents most of its gear.
Built mainly for
Notable features (per vendor site)
Listed starting price
Counter-driven rental houses that also take online bookings
Serialized tracking, ID scanner, card pre-auth deposits, PO numbers, online quotes, rental POS, repair shop
Starter, Pro and Multi-Location plans; transaction-based with a monthly minimum
Small and mid-size rental shops that want an online store
Serial number tracking, kits and bundles, buffer times, website builder, barcode scanning, e-signatures
From $29/month billed yearly
AV, event production and broadcast companies
Equipment planning, crew scheduling, QR and barcode tracking, multi-warehouse, quotes and invoices
Modular: platform from €39/month plus per-user modules (EUR view)
AV, production, event and party rental
Proposals and quotes, barcode tracking, containers, labor scheduling, CRM, invoicing
$84.50/month first user, $52.50 each additional user
Flex Rental Solutions
Larger event, staging, lighting and AV operators
RFID scanning, pull sheets, crew scheduling, trucking and manifests, maintenance tracking
From $510/month, unlimited users
AV and event, broadcast and production, and construction hire
Real-time availability and shortfalls, barcode/QR/NFC/RFID scanning, sub-hire, driver app
Free Starter plan; Professional $64/month first user, $32 each additional
Teams that manage and lend their own equipment
Reservations, QR check-out, barcode and RFID, maintenance work orders, audit trails
Prices are as listed on each vendor's site in October 2026 and can change. HireHop notes that its USD figures are approximate conversions and that it bills in GBP.
black and gray DSLR camera
Ribbe is rental software with a built-in point of sale, made for rental businesses where customers come to a counter as well as book online. For camera rental houses, Ribbe tracks every SKU and serial number in real time, and staff scan gear in and out with a barcode scanner or the camera on a phone or tablet. Each item keeps its own history of rentals, inspections, maintenance and damage. Package pricing lets you rent a camera or lighting kit at one price.
Where Ribbe stands out is renter screening at the counter. Its ID scanner reads a driver's license or passport, fills in the customer record and attaches the renter's photo to the contract. Fraud checks flag repeat no-shows and previously banned renters, and deposits are held as card pre-authorizations and released on return through integrated payments. Production companies can rent on account with PO numbers on the rental, quotes can be approved online, and sales sync to QuickBooks.
Customers can reserve gear through a booking widget or branded booking site with live availability per item. Gear that needs attention goes to the repair shop tools with work orders, parts and labor. Ribbe runs on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. See the camera and production rental page for the full workflow.
Best fit: camera, lighting, grip and audio rental houses with a busy counter, walk-in renters to screen, and production accounts. If most of your revenue comes from crewed event production with labor scheduling and truck manifests, the AV-focused tools below are built around that work.
Booqable is rental software with a dedicated camera rental page. Its site lists real-time availability, serial number tracking for high-value gear, custom kits and bundles that group bodies, lenses and accessories, and buffer times between rentals. It also offers a no-code website builder, integrations with WordPress and Shopify, a ready-made booking page, barcode scanning, a mobile point of sale app for iOS and Android, quotes and digital contracts with e-signatures, and automated security deposits. A 14-day free trial is offered.
Best fit: smaller camera rental shops that want an online store and booking page running quickly, with clear published plans.
Rentman describes itself as rental business management software for the AV industry and lists AV and event production, equipment rental, and media and broadcasting among the businesses it serves. Its features include equipment availability planning, crew scheduling with drag-and-drop assignment, QR and barcode equipment tracking, inventory across multiple warehouses, quotes and invoices, digital packing lists and crew time tracking. It lists integrations with QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zapier and Stripe, and offers a 30-day free trial.
Best fit: production and AV companies that rent gear as part of crewed projects and need crew planning in the same system.
Current RMS calls itself an all-in-one cloud solution for the AV, production, event and party rental industries. Its site lists branded online proposals and quotes, barcode tracking with flight cases and containers, labor scheduling for people, vehicles, rooms and locations, CRM and activity tracking, and invoicing. It lists integrations with Xero, QuickBooks, Adobe Sign and Mailchimp, plus an open API, and offers a free trial with no credit card required.
Best fit: production rental companies whose work is quote-driven and that want CRM and proposals at the center of the system.
Flex positions itself as an operating system for event operators in production, staging, lighting and AV, and its site says it is aimed at companies managing large inventories across multiple locations with growing teams. Listed features include inventory tagging and RFID scanning, kits and containers, pick lists and pull sheets, maintenance and repair tracking, quotes and proposals, contracts with e-signatures, crew scheduling, trucking and manifest management, deposits and payment schedules, and a QuickBooks integration. Flex states it offers a 30-day free trial.
Best fit: larger production rental operations with warehouse crews, trucking and multiple locations. Flex's own site says a one- or two-person shop may not be ready for it yet.
HireHop is cloud-based equipment rental software with industry pages for AV and event rental, broadcast and production, and construction equipment. Its site lists real-time availability with shortfall tracking, customizable quotes, contracts and manifests, live scanning that supports barcode, QR, NFC and RFID, route planning with a driver app, reporting on asset utilization and ROI, and sub-hire and purchase order management. It offers a free Starter plan for one user with limited functionality.
Best fit: production and broadcast hire companies, especially multi-depot operations, and shops that want to start on a free single-user plan.
Cheqroom describes itself as an asset operations platform covering booking, usage, maintenance and logistics. It lists media and entertainment among its industries, with the aim of keeping cameras, lenses and lighting rigs production-ready, alongside higher education, technology, construction, manufacturing and government. Features include reservations, QR check-in and check-out, barcode and RFID identification, maintenance scheduling and work orders, issue flagging, mobile audits and audit trails.
Best fit: production companies, studios and universities that check equipment out to their own staff or students, rather than renting to paying customers.
Often, yes. "Production rental software" usually means a system built around jobs: a quote becomes a project, the project needs crew, the gear gets pulled and trucked to a venue, and the invoice follows. Rentman, Current RMS, Flex and HireHop are organized that way, which is why they list crew scheduling, manifests and pull sheets.
"Camera rental software" is more often about the counter. A freelancer walks in on Friday to pick up a lens kit for the weekend. You need to scan the license, take a deposit, sign the agreement, scan the serials out and do it all again on Monday when the kit comes back. That is where point of sale, ID verification and card pre-authorization matter most, and where Ribbe is aimed.
Plenty of businesses do both. If you are a rental house that occasionally supports a production, look hardest at counter workflow. If you are a production company that also dry-hires gear, look hardest at project and crew planning. For general equipment rental needs such as delivery, meter billing and contractor accounts, see Ribbe's equipment rental software page.
six black zoom lenses
Run every demo against the same real orders from last month. These questions separate the tools quickly:
Can it show the history of one specific lens? Ask to see every rental, damage note and repair for a single serial number.
How does a kit work? Check whether a package price and its contents stay linked when one item in the kit is swapped.
What happens at the counter with a new renter? Watch the full flow: ID, deposit, agreement, scan-out.
How are deposits held? A card pre-authorization released on return is different from charging and refunding.
Can a production rent on account? Look for PO numbers, quotes and accounting sync.
Does online availability match the shelf? An online booking should block the same item the counter sees.
Can you bring your data? Ask how inventory and customers are imported. Ribbe, for example, migrates data from a CSV or Excel export in most cases.
Then compare total cost at your volume, not just the starting price. Per-user pricing, transaction-based pricing and flat plans each favor a different kind of shop.
a group of people standing around a camera set up
It depends on how you rent. For rental houses with a busy counter and walk-in renters to screen, Ribbe combines serialized tracking, an ID scanner, card deposits and a rental point of sale. Booqable suits small shops that want an online store fast. Rentman, Current RMS, Flex and HireHop suit production companies that plan crews and projects. Cheqroom suits teams lending gear internally.
HireHop lists a free Starter plan for one user with limited functionality, as shown on its site in October 2026. Most other tools in this comparison offer free trials rather than free plans. Booqable, Rentman, Current RMS, Flex and Ribbe all advertise a trial.
Yes, and it should. Ribbe, Booqable, Rentman and the production-focused tools all list serialized or barcode-based tracking. The difference is how much history each item keeps. Ribbe stores rentals, inspections, maintenance and damage on each serial number.
Rental software charges customers: it handles pricing, payments, deposits and agreements. Equipment checkout or asset management software, such as Cheqroom, is built for organizations lending their own gear to staff or students, so it focuses on reservations, custody and maintenance rather than billing.
Published prices in October 2026 range from a free single-user plan (HireHop Starter) to $29/month (Booqable, billed yearly), $84.50/month for a first user (Current RMS) and $510/month (Flex). Ribbe offers Starter, Pro and Multi-Location plans with no required upfront software costs and transaction-based pricing with a monthly minimum. Current details are on the pricing page.
Run your rental house from one system Track every serial number, screen renters at the counter, hold deposits on card and take bookings online with Ribbe. Start a free trial