How Much to Charge on Turo: A Host Profit Calculator, Worked

October 27, 2026 · Pricing a service business

To work out how much to charge on Turo, or any peer-to-peer car platform, add up what each booked day has to keep - its share of the car’s monthly fixed costs and your profit target, the guest miles at your cost per mile, and its share of the turnover - then divide by one minus the share your own host plan takes. In the illustrative car below, that is $66.38 a day. At its current $60.00 the car is $6.38 a day short of that, yet it still makes $163.84 a month after fixed costs: below the target, not a loss.

This post is not affiliated with or endorsed by Turo, and it states no platform’s plan percentages or fees. The 25% share in the example is a made-up entry standing in for whatever your own host plan says: copy yours from your host account. Every price, mile and booking figure belongs to one made-up car and is there to be replaced with your own.

The car host pricing formula

cost per mile  = tires / miles a set lasts + service / miles between
                 + repair reserve per mile
fixed a month  = (loss of value + insurance + registration + interest
                 + other) a year / 12
keep per day   = (fixed a month + profit target) / booked days
                 + miles per day x cost per mile
                 + turnover cost / trip days
daily price    = keep per day / (1 - your plan's share)

Step 1: what a guest mile costs you

The example host’s guests return the car with the fuel they took it with, so fuel is not in this figure. What is left is wear:

So 1,000 guest miles cost the host $77.00. The repair reserve is the biggest line, and it is your own number: what you put aside per mile for brakes and repairs. The car’s loss of value is not charged per mile here, because it is counted in step 2 and should be counted once.

Step 2: what the car costs a month, booked or not

Loss of value is 47% of the fixed costs, the biggest line. That is $11.61 for every calendar day, rented or not. Loan principal is not a cost here: paying it down buys back the car, and the car’s loss of value is already counted. The car affordability calculator works the same ownership costs for a car you only drive yourself.

Step 3: what one trip leaves you

This is the part a Turo fee calculator or estimate calculator answers: what reaches you from one booking. Here the share is applied to the whole trip price; if your plan treats some charges differently, enter the share that matches what you are actually paid.

The platform’s share is the biggest deduction, ahead of the turnover and the miles. The turnover counts your own time at $20.00 an hour, the example’s own pay rate, so the $86.14 is on top of paying yourself, not instead of it. Fixed costs are not taken off yet: one trip cannot carry a month of them.

Step 4: how much to charge per day

The example host wants $250.00 a month of profit before tax, and expects the car booked 60% of 30 days, so 18 booked days a month in 3-day trips.

The keep is shown to a tenth of a cent because the three lines, each rounded to the cent, add to $49.79, and $49.79 would divide to $66.39, a cent off. Carried unrounded ($49.787 to a tenth of a cent), it gives $66.38.

At $66.38 a day, a month of 18 booked days pays the fixed costs, the miles and every turnover, and leaves exactly the $250.00 target after the share. The example’s own $60.00 is $6.38 a day below it.

The fixed costs and profit line is the biggest of the three, and it is spread over the booked days. Fewer booked days raise that line, while the miles and turnover lines per booked day stay put.

Step 5: is the Turo business profitable?

Price needed and profit are different questions. At $60.00 a day, the month runs:

So the car makes $163.84 a month, $86.16 short of the target but a profit, and the host keeps $122.88 after the example’s 25% set-aside, on top of their pay for turnovers. That is the honest answer to “how much does a Turo business make”: the income figure that matters is this bottom line, after fixed costs, not the trip price or the payout.

Break-even comes first. $353.00 of fixed costs over $86.14 a trip is 4.10 trips’ net, so 5 whole trips, or 15 booked days, 50% of the month. Measured exactly, break-even is 41.0% of the month booked, and the example books 60%. Below that line the car loses money a month even though every single trip shows a profit. The break-even analysis formula post works the same idea for products.

The insight: a lower price that books more can net less

Say dropping to $50.00 a day lifts bookings from 60% to 75% of the month (the example’s guess; nothing here predicts how bookings respond to price).

After the share, the lower price takes in more: $843.75 against $810.00. But every extra booked day brings guest miles, and every extra trip a turnover, so the lower price nets $39.54 less before fixed costs. To match the higher price it would need 81.2% of the month booked. Fixed costs are the same under both prices, so they are left out of both sides: these are not monthly profits, and the comparison holds either way.

Adding a second car

Run steps 2 and 3 again for the second car with its own figures. The example’s second car has $300.00 of fixed costs a month and nets $80.00 a trip, so its break-even is 3.75 trips. At 4.5 trips a month it adds $60.00 of profit, less than the first car’s $163.84, for $223.84 between them. Its $400.00 of one-off setup is repaid in month 7. That assumes its trips are new bookings, not ones taken from the first car; if they would split your bookings, lower the first car’s booked share too.

How these were calculated

Cost per mile is tires over the miles a set lasts, plus a service over the miles between services, plus a repair reserve. Fixed costs a month are the loss of value ((price paid - expected resale) / years kept) plus insurance, registration, loan interest and other yearly costs, over 12. A trip’s net is the trip price, less the platform share you enter, less guest miles at the cost per mile, less supplies and your turnover minutes at your own rate. The daily price needed is ((fixed a month + target) / booked days + miles per day x cost per mile + turnover / trip days) / (1 - share). The month is trips x net per trip, less fixed costs, less a set-aside share you enter. Figures are carried from step to step as the spreadsheet shows them: money to the cent, cost per mile to a hundredth of a cent. Every figure was computed twice, once by the code behind the product below and once by an independent program that builds each trip day by day and the month trip by trip, and the two agree. All inputs are illustrative, not market prices, platform fees or booking rates. None of this is financial, legal or tax advice.

To run this on your own car, plan share and booking record, the pack below has eight linked calculators, from the cost per mile to the second car.