Is online booking worth it for a rental or bulk supply yard? What the numbers say

Your customers already book online

Statistics Canada asks Canadians every two years what they do online. In its 2022 survey, 95% of Canadians 15 and older used the internet, and 76.3% of them researched goods or services online before buying.

Booking is catching up fast. 58.5% booked an appointment online in 2022, up from 48.2% in 2020 and 34.3% in 2018. Among people 25 to 44 it was 72.3%.

That is the customer looking for a dump trailer on a Sunday night, or pricing ten yards of topsoil from the couch. Many of them book a haircut or a vet visit without a phone call, and they expect the same from a yard.

Most yards still make them call

In the fall of 2026 we opened the websites of 542 rental, bin and bulk material yards in ten provinces and territories, and checked one thing: could a customer book or order without calling?

• Gravel, soil and mulch yards: 7 of 292.
• Bin and dumpster companies: 8 of 120.
• Equipment and trailer rental yards: 11 of 130.

26 of 542 is fewer than 1 in 20. The rest end in a phone number, an email address or a request form that someone answers by hand.

Yards are behind other small businesses too. Statistics Canada found 32% of Canadian businesses took orders online in 2023. Among the smallest, with one to four employees, it was 17.4%. So a yard that takes bookings online is ahead of most of its own trade.

What a customer does when there is no price

BrightLocal surveyed 1,227 people in the United States who had searched for a local business in the previous three months. In their most recent search alone, 52% looked at a business and decided not to contact it.

The second most common reason was unclear pricing, at 32%, just behind bad reviews. And 22% said they picked a business because it replied quickly to their first question.

For a yard, that is the quote that waits until Monday, the delivery fee worked out on the phone for every caller, and the Saturday job that went to whoever answered first. A posted price and a way to book after hours answer the question without you.

Does being online pay?

The best Canadian evidence comes from BDC. Its 2020 study of 1,000 small and medium businesses found that those making half or more of their sales online were far more likely to hold their revenue through the first lockdown: 39% kept or grew it, against 16% of the rest. An earlier BDC study found businesses active online were 1.7 times more likely to see higher sales growth.

Neither proves that going online caused the growth, and 2020 was an unusual year. But the gap is wide, and it points one way.

In rentals, the American Rental Association told a 2024 industry webinar that the share of contractors wanting to rent online had grown from 16% in 2019 to 27% in 2023, and that about half wanted to find equipment and schedule pickup or delivery online. Those are its survey's figures as reported, not a published report.

For gravel, soil and mulch yards

Bulk yards were the furthest behind in our check: 7 of 292 let a customer order online, about 1 in 40. Many post a price per yard or tonne and then stop at delivery, with a line to call for a quote.

Delivery is the hard part to put online, and it is the part the customer most wants answered. What they need to see before they call:

• Your price per yard or tonne, and any smallest order.
• Delivery priced from their own address, by distance or by your zones.
• How many loads it is. An order bigger than your truck carries is two or three trips, each with its own fee, and the customer should see that before they order, not on the bill.
• How much they need. One cubic yard spread 3 inches deep covers about 108 square feet, and a line like that saves a call.
• The day and the window it can come, so the truck is never promised twice.

A load of gravel is a sale, not a rental, so taking payment when the customer orders is normal. The yard still confirms the day.

What to look for in the software

Rental and ordering software is anything that lets a customer see what you have, pick dates or a quantity and book or order, and lets you run it all after. Before you pay for any of it, check that it does what your yard actually does.

• It shows your real price and the days each piece is free, including your weekly and monthly rates.
• It prices delivery from the customer's address, and for bulk material, by the truckload.
• Every booking waits for you to confirm it, so nothing goes out that you did not agree to.
• Your rental agreement is signed on the customer's phone, and a damage deposit is a hold on their card, not a charge.
• Customers can still pay cash or e-transfer if that is how you work.
• You can export your bookings and customers any time, and stop any time.

Prices vary. Booqable, one of the larger general tools, starts at $29 a month on a yearly plan, with its delivery add-on and website builder priced separately, according to its own pricing page in October 2026.

The catch

Every one of these tools has the same catches, and it is better to know them going in.

• It costs something every month, so it has to win you more than its price in bookings you would have missed.
• Card payments carry the card processor's fee, whoever the software is.
• Someone has to keep the calendar right. A machine booked twice is worse than no page at all.
• A page nobody finds books nothing. It needs to be on your website, your Google profile and your ads.

None of those is a reason not to do it. They are the reasons to pick a tool that costs little, lets you confirm every booking and gets set up with you rather than left to you.

Where Haulbase fits

Haulbase is software built in Nova Scotia for rental and bulk supply yards, and it runs the yard behind the page too. Rental customers see your price and free days, sign your agreement on their phone and book after hours, and every request waits for your yes. Bulk customers order by the yard or tonne with delivery priced from their address by the truckload, and pick a day and a window.

It is free for 30 days, with no card. After that it is $47 a month, and Haulbase takes nothing from what your customers pay. Stripe's card fee is separate and goes to Stripe, the same as anywhere you take a card. Keep taking cash and e-transfer if you like.

It is month to month. Your bookings and customers export any time, and you can cancel from your billing settings whenever you want.

We set it up with you, from your own website, prices and photos.