Contents
Pricing rules - Plugixa Car Rental
Pricing rules PRO change the daily rate on the days they match: a high season, weekends, a discount for long rentals or for booking early. Your rates stay the starting point. A rule only moves the price up or down from there.
Open the list from Plugixa Car Rental, then Pricing rules in the Fleet group of the app’s sidebar. The pricing calendar beside it shows what the rules do to one model, day by day.
Pricing rules are an app. If you do not see the menu item, switch on Pricing rules in the App manager. It needs the rates app, which is always on.
The one idea to understand: every day is priced on its own
A rental is cut into days, and each day is checked against the rules on its own date. Day 1 is the pickup date, day 2 the date after, and so on, on the calendar of the pickup location.
So a week that starts in low season and ends in high season is charged low-season days and high-season days. A rule limited to Saturday and Sunday raises only the Saturdays and Sundays inside the rental, whatever day the car is picked up. (The demo rule “Weekend pickups” is named after the common case, but it raises every weekend day of the rental, not only a weekend pickup.)
The list
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Priority | The order the rule runs in. Lower runs first. |
| Name | The rule’s name, which customers also see. |
| Change | What the rule does to a day: “+25%”, “-10%”, “+€5,00 a day”, or “= €40,00 a day” for a rule that sets the rate. |
| When | A short summary of the conditions, such as “2027-06-15 - 2027-09-15”, “Sat, Sun”, “7+ days” or “booked 30+ days ahead”. “Every day” when the rule has no conditions. |
| Last | A Stop chip when the rule is marked Stop here. |
| Status | A switch: on is Published, off is Unpublished. |
The search box is labelled “Search rules…”. Filters, Export CSV, Active / Trash and ticking rows for bulk actions work as on the other lists.
Only Published rules that are not in the trash take part in pricing. Switch a rule off to pause it without losing it.
Adding a rule
Click Create. The form has three parts.
Name, priority and status
| Field | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Required. “Customers see it next to the price it changes, e.g. “High season”.” | |
| Priority | 10 | “Lower runs first.” A whole number from 0 to 9999. Two rules with the same priority run in the order they were created. |
| Status | Published | Published or Unpublished. |
The price
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Change | How the rule alters a matching day. See the table below. |
| Amount | Required. For a percentage or an amount: “Negative for a discount, e.g. -10.” For a set rate: “What each matching day costs.” |
| Stop here | “Rules after this one are skipped on the days it applies.” |
| Change | What happens to the day’s rate | Allowed amounts |
|---|---|---|
| Change the daily rate by a percentage | rate x (1 + amount / 100). 15 raises it by 15%, -10 lowers it by 10%. | Between -100 and 1000, not 0 |
| Add or take off an amount per day | rate + amount. -5 takes 5 off each matching day. | Anything but 0 |
| Set the daily rate | The day costs exactly the amount, whatever it cost before. | 0 or more |
A day never costs less than nothing. If a discount would push it below zero, the day costs 0.
When it applies
“Each day of a rental is checked on its own date. Leave a condition empty to apply always.” Every condition you fill in must be met; an empty one does not limit anything.
| Field | Checked against | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| From / To | Each day’s date | Both dates are included. Leave one empty for an open start or end. To before From is refused: “The last day must be on or after the first.” |
| Days of the week | Each day’s weekday | Mon to Sun. “None chosen means every day of the week.” |
| Rentals of at least (days) | The whole rental’s length | “0 = no limit”. |
| Rentals of at most (days) | The whole rental’s length | “0 = no limit”. Must be at least the shortest, or it is refused. |
| Booked at least … days ahead | Days from today to pickup | “0 = no limit”. An early-booking discount uses this one. |
| Booked at most … days ahead | Days from today to pickup | “0 = no limit”. A last-minute price uses this one. |
| Vehicle models | The model booked | “None chosen means every model.” |
| Pickup locations | Where the car is picked up | “None chosen means every location.” |
The first two rows are checked day by day. The others are about the rental as a whole, so they either apply to all its days or to none.
“Days ahead” counts whole days on the pickup location’s calendar: a booking made the day before pickup is 1 day ahead, one made on the pickup day is 0.
Clicking a day on the pricing calendar opens a new rule with From and To already set to that day.
How rules stack
On each day of the rental:
- The day starts at the rate card’s daily rate for a rental of that length (for example the 3-6 day bracket for a 4-day rental).
- The rules that match the day run in Priority order, lowest first.
- Each rule works on the rate the rule before it left. Percentages therefore multiply: +25% then -10% is 1.25 x 0.9 of the rate, not +15%.
- A matching rule marked Stop here is the last one to run on that day. Rules with a higher priority number are skipped for that day only.
- The day’s rate is never below 0.
A rule that does not match a day is simply passed over, and its Stop here has no effect on that day.
A worked example
The demo business has three rules, and a Toyota Corolla Hybrid at €55,00 a day on the rate card:
| Priority | Rule | Change | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Summer season | +25% | 2027-06-15 to 2027-09-15 |
| 10 | Weekend pickups | +15% | Sat, Sun |
| 20 | Book 30 days ahead | -10% | Booked at least 30 days ahead |
A Saturday in July, booked 40 days ahead:
| Step | Rate |
|---|---|
| Rate card | €55,00 |
| Summer season, +25% | €68,75 (+€13,75) |
| Weekend pickups, +15% | €79,06 (+€10,31) |
| Book 30 days ahead, -10% | €71,16 (-€7,91) |
A Tuesday in the same rental gets only Summer season and Book 30 days ahead. If Summer season were marked Stop here, every summer day would cost €68,75 and neither of the other two rules would touch it.
Use Set the daily rate with Stop here when you mean “this price, and nothing else”, for example a fixed festival price that no discount should reduce.
What the customer sees
The rental line keeps the rate card’s price. Each rule that changed the price adds its own line to the quote, named after the rule with the number of days it acted on. A 7-day summer rental of the Corolla, booked 40 days ahead with two weekend days in it, taking €55,00 as its daily rate for the example:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Toyota Corolla Hybrid, 7 days | €385,00 |
| Summer season, 7 days | €96,25 |
| Weekend pickups, 2 days | €20,63 |
| Book 30 days ahead, 7 days | -€50,19 |
So the customer can see why the price is what it is. The lines are listed in the order the rules run. A rule whose total across the rental rounds to 0 adds no line.
Rules change the rental charge only. One-way and after-hours fees, extras, the young or senior driver PRO surcharge and the delivery PRO fee are never changed by a rule. A coupon and tax PRO are worked out afterwards, on the total that includes the rule lines.
Existing bookings
A booking keeps the lines it was priced with. Editing, unpublishing or trashing a rule changes the price of new quotes only, never a booking already made. Nothing else in the plugin refers to a rule, so you can trash one at any time.
Messages you may see
| Message | Why |
|---|---|
| “Give the rule a name. Customers see it next to the price it changes.” | Name is empty. |
| “A percentage change is between -100 and 1000, and not 0.” | The percentage is out of range or 0. |
| “Enter how much to add to each day (or take off, with a minus sign).” | An amount change of 0. |
| “A day cannot cost less than nothing.” | A set rate below 0. |
| “The longest rental must be at least the shortest. Leave it at 0 for no limit.” | Rentals of at most is below Rentals of at least. |
| “The latest booking time must be at least the earliest. Leave it at 0 for no limit.” | The two “days ahead” fields are the wrong way round. |
| “One of the chosen records no longer exists. Choose again.” | A chosen model or location has been deleted. |