Is Turo Still The Best Car Sharing Platform in 2026?

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]In this video, I'm going to be breaking down the differences between Turo, Wheelbase, and Ride.Auto, which is the newest kid on the block. I'm going to be talking about who these platforms are for and in what instances you should look at exploring these different platforms versus which ones you should completely avoid them. But, before we dive into that, I'm excited to announce that my course, The Car Sharing Masterclass, has a Memorial Day sale going on right now. And you can use the code Memorial Day 177 to get $177 off between now and 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on May 26th. The Car Sharing Masterclass is a full-fledged A- to Z guide teaching you everything that you need to know about starting and scaling a car sharing fleet, whether that be through Turo, Wheelbase, and direct rentals, new platforms that get released now or in the future, co-hosting via Cash Cars, whatever avenue you can think about growth, we have covered it. Not only that, but the course also teaches you how to do things like how to buy your first car, how to choose the right car at a below market value price, how to create systems and processes to make your business as semi-passive as possible, how to navigate damage claims, guest communication, and everything in between. Not only that, but whenever you buy the Car Sharing Masterclass, your one-time membership payment gives you access to over 10 hours of course content, our private online communities, private monthly Zoom calls, and access to all current and future iterations of the course. And we are so incredibly confident with the quality of education that you'll receive that we offer a robust, no questions asked, 30-day money-back guarantee. So, use the code Memorial Day 177 today to get $177 off before our Memorial Day sale ends on May 26th. The link is down in the description below. So, let's first dive into Turo. Who should be listing their cars on Turo? And to be honest, in my opinion, I think most people should. In fact, I think unless you've been banned from the platform, I kind of think everybody should. Now, I will dive into exactly what this means here in a second. But, now that Turo has gotten rid of their exclusivity clause, in my opinion, there's really no reason to not list your cars on Turo. Turo provides a ton of benefits for hosts of all sizes, from lead generation to support, a robust app and website. Sure, Turo has her downsides, as do all platforms that I'm talking about in this video. But, generally, I think every car rental host from one car fleets to large 400 car fleets and everything in between should be renting on Turo in some way, shape, or form. Maybe it's not for 100% of your bookings, but depending on your size and maybe for many. Now, I want to go a bit more granular here because saying that simply everybody should be renting on Turo isn't exactly helpful. And so, I think that there are people in particular that should be renting on Turo over these other platforms. And the first one that I want to talk about is new hosts. Now, this may be a hot take, maybe it's not, but I'm a strong believer that people who are new hosts should absolutely not be skipping over Turo and going straight into direct rentals. There is so much that goes into direct rentals. And if you have issues with Turo as a rental car agency, you will most likely also have issues with direct rentals. And Turo should at the very least be viewed as a jumping-off platform where you can get your toes wet, learn the ropes, grow a fleet, and then go into direct. But, to me personally, whenever I talk to a new host and they say, "Yeah, I'm actually interested in going straight direct. I'm not interested in doing Turo." This is a major red flag, and to me, it more often than not leads to not being successful in this venture. And this actually happens more often than you would think.

[00:03:10]The second type of person that's perfect for Turo is the small fleet owner. The reality is the safety net that Turo offers to car sharing hosts is far better than any competitor in this space as of today. And for small and new car sharing hosts, this is huge. Whenever you rent cars direct, and this is also the case with Turo, but it's especially true with direct rentals, there is a lot of law of averages with incidentals, damage claims, late returns, just overall costs. You will win some, you will lose some, but you need enough volume and enough wins to prop up the losses with your rental car business.

[00:03:41]And while you certainly win some and lose some with Turo, too, the losses aren't as bad because of the safety net that Turo provides, and so you don't need as many cars to really make your fleet work and start making real money.

[00:03:50]With direct rentals, there are so many factors that improve with volume. And for that reason, a direct fleet is really difficult to get going with a small amount of cars. And for this reason, I believe that if you're somebody who has really less than 10 cars, I personally wouldn't even really consider going direct. And honestly, I think that maybe even if you're not somebody who's wanting to get to 30, 40, 50 plus vehicles, I don't really know if Turo rentals is going to be worth your time. And the last persona of who should be going with Turo is the side hustler.

[00:04:17]This is someone who is not wanting to go full-time with this gig. They're just simply wanting to do it on the side in addition to their full-time job. And this is somebody who should absolutely stick with Turo. Again, I go back to the point that I made earlier, which is basically that if you plan on not growing past 20, 30, 40 cars on Turo, I think that you should really just stick to it. The risks associated with going direct, in my opinion, for a side hustle just isn't worth it. And as a result, Turo is by far the best option. I have said many times over the years, and I believe it's to this day that car sharing on Turo is one of the best side hustles in existence. And if you are using Turo as a side hustle, don't fix something that isn't broken. Just stick with Turo, make money, stay protected, and keep rolling. Now, let's move on to direct rentals, and these are the types of situations that I feel make a lot of sense for someone to explore going direct. And the first is large fleet owners. People that have a lot of cars.

[00:05:06]And this is where we start talking about people that have 30, 40, 50 cars, or they're people who want to realistically get to that car mark. And of course, over 50, 100, 100 plus. Honestly, I'm a big believer that if you rely on Turo as your primary source of income, you should absolutely be looking to at least diversify into direct rentals. And not doing so, I think, is borderline negligent. Turo can ban you for any reason at any time. And to me, relying on Turo for 100% of my income, it's just too risky. And being able to develop my own systems and processes to get direct rentals, and to be independent from Turo, that was really important for me once I started to grow my fleet. In fact, this is the primary reason as to why I started doing direct rentals. As my fleet grew and we hired an employee, it became a larger part of my income and I would literally have nightmares about Turo banning my account. It was a real source of anxiety for me and it was a primary reason why I started doing some direct rentals. And I feel way better about my rental fleet now that I have.

[00:06:01]The second persona that should be looking to go direct is somebody who wants to build a business that could be sellable later. One of the biggest problems with Turo is that it isn't really a sellable business or scalable outside of your own business. And what I mean by that is that you really can't franchise a Turo fleet, you can't license out a Turo fleet, and you can't sell a Turo fleet. Or at least in most cases you can't. In many cases whenever you see a Turo host exit Turo, whether their fleet is small or large, it doesn't involve a sale, it involves a liquidation, which is very different.

[00:06:31]Now, there are exceptions to this rule and I actually personally know a couple of really big hosts that actually did successfully sell their business. But these are the exception and not the rule. For the average Joe, which is generally who I cater my videos to, if you have only a Turo profile and a handful of cars, that business is going to be very difficult to sell and exit.

[00:06:49]Not to say that going direct suddenly makes this process easy and doable because that's not the case either. But it does make it more possible and it does mean that your business has more tangible assets associated with it. When you go direct, you can build a brand, a business, a book of business, customer data. These are things that can help you create a real business that can be scaled, possibly franchised, maybe sold.

[00:07:08]It opens you up to a world of possibility and to me it really takes your fleet to the next level. If you see yourself wanting to scale to a large fleet, open a location, and want to exit with a sale, not just a liquidation, then starting a direct business, in my opinion, is something that should be a goal. Now, let's talk about ride.auto and this is the new kid on the block.

[00:07:26]It's something that I am particularly really excited about, but it's a platform that isn't made for everybody.

[00:07:30]In my opinion, I think ride is a really unique cross between direct rentals and going on a third-party platform like Turo. It's not quite as protective as Turo, it's not quite as loose as going direct, it really is kind of a bridge.

[00:07:41]And the reality is Ride is not going to be suitable for a brand new host. If you're someone who's just getting started, if you only have one car, if you only have a couple of cars, Ride is not going to be a good option for you.

[00:07:50]From a systems and processes standpoint, Ride has a lot more in common with Wheelbase as a direct rental platform than it does Turo as a peer-to-peer car sharing platform. And for that reason, there are three personas that I think would do really well with Ride in present day. First is the person who's already listed on Wheelbase. You're a Wheelbase customer, you've been running your direct fleet on Wheelbase. This is a very easy route to go down with Ride because it's integrated within Wheelbase. In fact, if you are a Wheelbase customer, there's a really good chance you're already listed on Ride. For me, this is natural and you might as well be on Ride. The second person is somebody who is wanting to dip their toes into direct. Maybe you're somebody who is wanting to have a little bit more independence outside of Turo.

[00:08:29]You want to get a vibe for what your direct rentals feels like, but you don't want to have all of the training wheels off. Ride is actually, I think, a really good option for that because the flow of customers is very, very very similar for direct as it is for Ride. And so, this is a really nice bridge that kind of allows for you to take the training wheels off of the bike, so to speak, in the world of peer-to-peer car sharing versus direct rentals. And then the third is somebody who is just wanting to ver- diversify their fleet. You're not looking for a Turo alternative, so to speak. You aren't saying, "Yeah, I don't want I don't want to touch Turo. Turo isn't a good option." But instead, you're saying, "You know, we are having success with Turo. We want to diversify our fleet outwards. Let's look at Ride."

[00:09:06]This is somebody who has already have experience in the peer-to-peer car sharing space. You already have a fleet and you already kind of know what you're doing, but you're just looking for the diversification aspect. Now, in the case of Ride, and I think all of these different platforms, they will change and evolve as they grow. But as we sit here today, this is kind of the different personas that I think are most applicable to these different types of platforms. Remember that if you're interested in checking out the car sharing master class, you can use the code Memorial Day 177 to get $177 off before our sale ends on May 26th. You can check out the link down in the description below. And like always, you guys, I hope that you enjoyed this video. If you have any questions, comments, if you have anything to add, I would love to hear it. So, make sure to leave a comment down below. And while you guys are at it, make sure to hit the like button, hit the subscribe button, and hit the notification bell, and I will see you guys in the next video.