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Last updated: October 2026
If you sell bikes, your customers now have at least five ways to get one from you: buy it, finance it, lease it through their employer, subscribe to it, or rent it until they decide to buy. Each of those is a different business on your side. They differ in who owns the bike, who carries the risk, when the cash arrives and how much work happens after checkout.
This guide is for bike brands, retailers and bike shops and startups deciding which models to run. It compares selling, company bike leasing, bike subscriptions, rent-to-own and short-term rental from the operator's side of the counter.
The short answer: Selling gives you cash today and no asset risk, but the relationship ends at the till. Company bike leasing keeps that cash-upfront model, because a leasing provider pays you and owns the contract, but you don't own the customer relationship. Subscriptions give you recurring revenue, repeat contact and the bike back at the end, in exchange for tying up capital and taking on service, theft and payment risk. Rent-to-own recovers that capital faster through buyouts. Short-term rental is a utilisation game. Most successful bike businesses run two or three of these side by side.
The five models, from the operator's side
1. Selling (with or without financing)
How the money flows: the customer pays the full price upfront. In Germany, e-bikes sold for an average of €2,550 in 2025. If you offer financing through a bank or payment partner, the partner usually pays you upfront and collects the instalments, so for you it's still a sale. Here's the difference between financing and subscription.
What you carry: almost nothing after the sale, apart from warranty. Service, theft, insurance and resale are the customer's problem.
What you give up: the next conversation. You may not see the customer again until their next bike, if they come back to you at all. You also give up the bike: once it's sold, its second life happens on classifieds sites, not in your shop.
2. Company bike leasing (Dienstrad-Leasing)
How the money flows: the employer leases the bike from a leasing provider such as JobRad, Bikeleasing or Lease a Bike, and passes it to the employee through salary conversion. The dealer sells the bike to the leasing provider. For the shop it looks a lot like a sale: you're paid upfront, and the leasing provider owns the bike and the contract.
Why it matters to you: it's a huge channel. 2.4 million people in Germany lease a bike through their employer, around 720,000 new bikes were leased in 2025, and the average leased e-bike cost €3,700, well above the average retail sale. The tax advantage (employees pay tax on 0.25% of the list price per month for private use) pushes customers towards more expensive bikes.
What you carry: little contract risk, but you need to be connected to the leasing platforms your customers' employers use, and many contracts include servicing, so your workshop needs the capacity. Terms usually run 36 months. Read more about the lease model.
What you give up: control. The leasing provider owns the contract, the customer data and the end-of-term decision. And the channel only reaches people whose employer offers a scheme.
3. Bike subscription
How the money flows: the customer pays a monthly fee for a bike with service included, and you keep ownership. It's a classic product-as-a-service model with recurring revenue. The trade-off is cash flow. A €2,500 e-bike on a €69 subscription needs about 36 months of fees just to cover its purchase price at retail, before service, insurance and payment costs. That's why buying at cost and getting several customers out of each bike matters so much. We run the full numbers in bike subscription pricing and unit economics.
What you carry: the bike, and everything that can happen to it: service and repairs, theft (around 214,000 bikes were reported stolen in Germany in 2025), damage, failed payments, churn and returns. You also need capital to buy the fleet. Bike Club, for example, has raised more than €50 million across equity and structured debt to finance fleet growth.
What you get: a monthly relationship with the customer, predictable revenue and the bike back at the end, ready to refurbish and rent again. Done well, it scales: Swapfiets reached around 280,000 members in 45 cities after acquiring Dance in May 2026.
Choices you'll make: term length (Swapfiets is known for flexible monthly memberships, Bike Club has a nine-month minimum in Germany, and Decathlon Belgium offers 12, 24 or 36-month terms from €38 a month), what's included (maintenance, insurance, roadside assistance) and whether customers can ever buy the bike.
4. Rent-to-own
How the money flows: like a subscription, but the customer can buy the bike and part of their payments counts towards the price. Riese & Müller's Bike Abo credits 90% of past subscription fees towards the purchase price, and Joule builds up a buyout discount every month.
Why operators like it: every buyout returns capital early, saves you a return, an inspection and a refurbishment, and turns a subscriber into an owner who chose your bike after months of daily use. It also lowers the barrier for customers who'd never commit to a premium bike upfront. See how subscribe-to-own works.
What you give up: second-life revenue. A bought-out bike won't earn subscription fees from a second or third customer. And buyout prices have to be calculated correctly for every contract, which is not something you want to do in a spreadsheet. Decathlon went the other way: its e-bike rental doesn't allow buyouts, because the bikes are meant to be rented again.
5. Short-term rental
How the money flows: per hour, day or week, for tourists, test rides and occasional use. Revenue depends on utilisation: how many days each bike is actually out. It's built around booking calendars, handovers and quick turnarounds, and it's usually seasonal. Read our guide to product rentals.
Why it's useful even if it's not your main model: a weekend rental is the best test ride there is, and it gives older fleet bikes a few more years of earning before you sell them.
How the models compare for your business
Cash flow and capital
- Selling and leasing: cash upfront, no capital tied up in bikes
- Subscription: capital tied up for months or years, paid back monthly
- Rent-to-own: like a subscription, with part of the capital returning early through buyouts
- Short-term rental: capital tied up, repaid through high-utilisation weeks
Risk you carry
- Selling: warranty only
- Leasing: mostly with the leasing provider; you carry service capacity
- Subscription and rent-to-own: theft, damage, payment defaults, churn and residual value. You can manage these with credit checks, deposits, insurance and clear lock rules
- Short-term rental: damage and no-shows, managed through deposits and cancellation rules
Customer relationship
Selling and leasing are mostly one moment. Subscriptions and rent-to-own are a monthly relationship with natural touchpoints: service visits, size swaps, upgrades, renewals. Decathlon found that its rental customers interacted with the brand around seven times a year and spent more on average than regular customers.
Operational load
Selling is the lightest. Leasing adds platform connections and servicing. Subscriptions add the most: recurring billing, failed payment recovery, per-bike asset tracking, swaps, returns, refurbishment and a customer portal so your team isn't answering "when is my contract up?" emails all day.
What happens to the bike
Sold and leased bikes leave your world. Subscription bikes come back to you, which is where the circular model makes money: one bike, several paying customers, then a refurbished resale at the end.
Leasing vs. subscription: competitors or complements?
When Decathlon launched its e-bike rental in Belgium, RetailDetail wrote that it was entering the territory of traditional lease companies and bike shops. For employees with access to a good leasing scheme, that's true: the tax advantage is hard to beat on price.
But leasing has clear gaps, and that's where subscriptions win:
- people whose employer doesn't offer leasing, including the self-employed, freelancers and many small-company staff
- students, newcomers and anyone who doesn't want a 36-month contract tied to their job
- families with growing kids, who need a different size every year or two (see kids' bike subscriptions)
- people who simply don't want to own, insure and fix a bike
So for most shops the question isn't leasing or subscription. Keep the leasing channel for customers who have it, and add a subscription for everyone it doesn't reach.
Which models fit your type of business?
Bike manufacturers
You buy at cost, control the product and can refurbish and resell returned bikes through your own channels. That's a structural advantage in subscriptions and rent-to-own. Riese & Müller sells through dealers, works with company bike leasing and runs its own Bike Abo on a separate site, with dealers handling pickup and service. That's a good template if you don't want to compete with your own retail partners. See how Riese & Müller built its product-as-a-service model.
Large retailers
You have stores, a service network and existing customer accounts. Decathlon sells bikes, rents them short term, offers long-term e-bike rental and buys used gear back, all under one brand. Starting subscriptions in a few categories or regions and expanding from there is the usual path. Read our overview of sports equipment rental and subscription companies.
Local bike shops
Leasing is probably already part of your business. A local subscription or rent-to-own offer is your answer to the customers leasing doesn't reach, and your workshop is your advantage: online-only subscription providers have to buy that service from someone. Start small, with one or two models you know you can service well.
Startups
You'll usually buy closer to retail price, so you can't win on price against manufacturers and big retailers. Win on focus instead: a specific audience (kids, students, delivery riders, families with cargo bikes), a better service promise or a city others ignore. Plan your fleet financing early. Start with how to start a bike rental or subscription business and the leading bike subscription companies you'll be compared with.
Don't forget B2B
Businesses rent cargo bikes for deliveries and fleets for staff. Riese & Müller launched a cargo bike rental concept for small businesses with a deliberately low entry price. B2B customers care about uptime, replacement bikes and proper invoices more than paint colours, so build the service promise around that.
A decision checklist
- Can you finance a fleet? If not, start with selling and leasing, or rent-to-own, where buyouts bring capital back sooner.
- Do you buy bikes at cost? That sets your pricing power in subscriptions.
- Can you deliver service reliably? Service is the reason people subscribe. If you can't promise fast repairs, don't sell the promise.
- Do your customers have access to company leasing? That tells you how much a subscription would compete with leasing, and where it wouldn't.
- Do you want bikes back? If refurbishment and resale are part of your plan, lean towards subscriptions. If not, rent-to-own or selling fit better.
- Can your systems run several models at once? Different contracts, billing rules and return flows multiply quickly. Check this before you launch, not after the first hundred customers.
How circuly supports bike businesses
circuly runs subscriptions, rent-to-own with automatic buyout calculation, long-term rental and short-term rental from one platform, connected to your shop, your stores and your payment provider. That's how Riese & Müller credits 90% of past payments towards a buyout automatically, how Decathlon Belgium creates subscriptions online and in store, and how Bike Club handles thousands of swaps without manual work. Explore our micromobility solution or book a demo.
FAQs
Should a bike shop offer subscriptions if it already works with leasing providers?
Usually yes, because the two reach different customers. Leasing serves employees whose company has a scheme. A subscription or rent-to-own offer serves everyone else: the self-employed, students, families and people who don't want to own.
What's the difference between leasing and a subscription for the business offering it?
With company bike leasing, a leasing provider buys the bike from you and owns the contract, so for the shop it works much like a sale. With a subscription, you own the bike, collect the monthly fees and carry the service, theft and payment risk, and you get the bike back at the end. See our glossary on subscription vs. rental vs. leasing and our general guide Subscription, Rental or Lease?.
Should I let subscribers buy their bike?
It depends on what you want from the bike. Buyouts bring capital back early and save refurbishment costs, which is why Riese & Müller and Joule encourage them. If your business case depends on renting each bike to several customers, as Decathlon's does, don't offer buyouts, or price them so they don't undercut your second-life revenue.
How do bike subscription companies finance their fleets?
Usually through a mix of equity, asset-backed debt and refinancing partners. The bikes themselves are the collateral, which is why accurate per-bike tracking of status, contract and value matters to lenders as much as to your operations team.
Related reading:
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