The alternative
The modern alternative to Rental Car Manager
Built by an operator, owned in NZ, and priced for your season. If you have decided to leave Rental Car Manager, this is where the switch is easier than you think. We move your data and run alongside your old system until you are ready.
Free to build on the full stack, no card needed to start.
We take on up to 10 free migrations a month.
Straight up
Rental Car Manager is an established system. Here is the honest case for leaving it.
Rental Car Manager has been around a long time and runs plenty of fleets. If it is working for you, there is no reason to move. This page is for the operators who have already decided they want out, and are choosing where to go.
The reasons operators give for leaving are consistent, and they are their words, not ours: a booking view that feels clunky and dated, being charged every time they ask for a fix, being billed the same whether it is peak season or the dead of winter, and support that does not answer. Glovebox was built by someone running a hire fleet who hit exactly those walls. The rest of this page is a fair, like-for-like comparison so you can judge it yourself.
Side by side
Glovebox vs Rental Car Manager
| Glovebox | Rental Car Manager | |
|---|---|---|
| Booking view and daily use | A modern, cloud-native command centre: the whole day on one screen, built to be read at a glance. | Established and feature-deep. Reviewers describe it as “quite clunky and outdated” with a “very poorly designed booking view”. (per reviewers) |
| Mobile experience | Mobile-first. Runs on the phone in your hand at the counter, not just the desktop in the office. | A desktop-era interface, described by reviewers as dated next to modern cloud tools. (per reviewers) |
| Pricing model | One flat monthly price. Updates and fixes are included. You are never quoted to change something. | Reviewers report being charged “every time you ask to fix something”. (per reviewers) |
| Off-season flexibility | Priced by your active fleet, so you scale down out of season and pay for what you are actually running. | Billed regardless of seasonal fluctuation, per reviewers. (per reviewers) |
| Ownership | Independent, NZ-owned and founder-run by an operator who runs a hire fleet. | Founded in Christchurch, but part of the global Jonas Software group (an operating group of Constellation Software) since 2023. |
| Support | Founder-led NZ support. You talk to a person who has done handovers and chased bonds, not a ticket queue. | Reviewers cite “very bad customer service”. (per reviewers) |
| Payments and accounting | Windcave first for local cards, Stripe, and Xero sync: GST handled the way NZ operators expect. | Payment and accounting integrations are available. |
| Bonds and compliance | Bond holds through the hire, timestamped damage evidence, and CoF / RUC tracking built in. | Fleet and compliance features are available. |
| Switching over | We move your bookings, fleet and customers with a CSV importer, run alongside your old system, and cut over when you are ready. | Varies by setup. |
Rental Car Manager observations marked “per reviewers” are drawn from publicly published customer reviews on Capterra (accessed July 2026); the ownership note is from Rental Car Manager’s own published announcement. Glovebox and Rental Car Manager are not affiliated, and no endorsement is implied.
Being fair
Where Rental Car Manager might still be the better fit
If you run a very large fleet across multiple countries, or you depend on a specific integration or workflow that RCM has built up over years and Glovebox has not, staying may well be the right call. Glovebox is built first for New Zealand operators who want a modern, simple system for a single country and a fleet they can picture in their head. If that is not you, be honest with yourself about it. We would rather you stayed put than switched to the wrong thing.
Don’t take our word for it
The booking view, on one screen
The most common complaint about the old way is the booking view. Here is ours: today’s movements, who is picking up and dropping off, and what still needs doing: read at a glance instead of dug out of a grid.
The command centre: today’s movements on one screen.
The money
Flat, and priced for your season
Glovebox
One price. Scales with your fleet.
One flat monthly price, set by your active fleet, with updates and fixes included. Fewer vehicles on the road in winter means a smaller bill in winter. You are never quoted to change something.
The common complaint
Billed the same, charged to change.
The pattern operators describe leaving behind: billed the same whether it is peak or off-season, and charged “every time you ask to fix something”. Two costs that a flat, active-fleet price is designed to remove.
Straight answer first
Broker and OTA bookings
Glovebox doesn't have built-in connections to the big brokers yet. There is a Channel API a broker or OTA can connect to, though none has yet, and built-in connections are being built now, starting on our own fleet. If brokers are a big share of your bookings, talk to us first.
Switching over
Send us your export. We do the moving.
Send us your RCM export and we map it and import it for you. There is no RCM-specific preset, so the mapping is work we do rather than a button you press. You check the numbers before anything goes live. There is no big-bang weekend either: the booking widget drops into the site you already have and runs alongside RCM, so you take live bookings through Glovebox while your old system stays as your fallback, and you pick the cutover week.
We bring across
- Your fleet, as vehicles and locations
- Your customers, deduped by email
- Your bookings, with dates, vehicle, totals, references, status, notes and extras
Stays behind
- Payment and deposit history
- Signed agreements and customer documents
- Handover photos and damage records
- Bonds and their current state
- Per-booking event history
None of these has a column in the import. Where you need some of it, that is a hands-on migration we run with you, and we will tell you which parts before you commit to anything.
Walk away and we delete everything we imported, once you say so.
Who you'll be dealing with
Built by an operator.
I built Glovebox to run Jimny Rentals, and I still use it there every day. When you switch, you deal with me.
The booking engine, the imports and the pre-pickup flow you see here are the ones we use on that fleet.
Your data, and our fleet
We run a rental fleet too. Here is how we keep yours separate.
Our own rental business runs on Glovebox as a workspace like yours, and its staff cannot see your bookings, customers or prices. As the platform operator we can open your workspace to fix a problem or answer a support request, and any change we make there is recorded in your own activity timeline, attributed to us. Nothing we see is used for our own fleet, and your data is never pooled, benchmarked or shared with another operator.
Questions
Leaving RCM, answered
Can I move my data from Rental Car Manager?
Yes, and we do it for you, free. Send us your RCM export and we map it and import your fleet, customers and bookings into your workspace, then you check it before anything goes live. There is no RCM-specific preset, so the mapping is work we do rather than a button you press. Payment and deposit history, signed agreements, handover photos, damage records and bond state do not come across in the import; where you need some of that we run it with you, and we tell you which parts before you commit. RCM keeps running until you pick the cutover week.
How long does switching take?
Mostly it depends on how much time you can give it, so the honest range is wide. An operator who sits down and works through it can be live in a day. An operator fitting it around a busy season can take a couple of months, and that is fine, because nothing is pushing you. The import itself runs in minutes once the mapping is done, and the mapping is our work, not yours. What takes real time is you checking the numbers came across and choosing your cutover week, and nothing flips at once: the Glovebox booking widget drops into your existing site and runs alongside RCM until you are confident.
Is Glovebox cheaper than Rental Car Manager?
Glovebox is one flat monthly price, priced by your active fleet, with updates and fixes included rather than quoted for. Because you scale the price down in the off-season, the total cost of running Glovebox across a year tends to look very different from a system billed the same regardless of season. We cannot quote RCM’s pricing for you, so compare your own RCM invoices against our published pricing.
Is Glovebox NZ-owned?
Yes. Glovebox is independent, NZ-owned and founder-run. Rental Car Manager was also founded in New Zealand, but since 2023 it has been part of the global Jonas Software group, an operating group of the Canadian-listed Constellation Software. If dealing with an independent, locally owned vendor matters to you, that is the honest difference.
Do you charge for fixes and updates?
No. Fixes and product updates are part of your monthly price, not a per-change bill. This is a direct answer to one of the most common complaints operators raise about their current system: being charged every time they ask for something to be fixed.
What about my bonds and compliance?
Glovebox holds bonds against the vehicle through the hire and releases or partially claims them with timestamped photo evidence, and it tracks CoF and RUC so nothing on the fleet quietly lapses. GST is handled the way NZ operators expect. These are core to the platform, not add-ons.
Will my website or my SEO change?
Only if you want them to. The booking widget is a single script tag that drops into the site and domain you already have, so your website and its rankings stay where they are. Moving to a Glovebox website later is a separate decision on your own timeline, not a condition of switching.
Free to build. Pay when you go live.
Or talk it through with a person who has done the switch before you.
We take on up to 10 free migrations a month.