How much should gear rental cost?

I have a company in the PNW and am looking for any and all feedback related to gear rental. We guide mainly mountaineering/ crevasse rescue courses on Mount Baker. My question is, what has been your experience with renting equipment for similar courses? What was the cost? Did you feel that the cost was reasonable? What did you rent? Etc. Also what are your opinions? Should equipment be included for a course like that or does having it as an addition make sense? For more context, the gear that would be used is as follows:

Glacier Glasses
Helmet
Jacket
Harness
Boots
Sleeping Bag
Sleeping Pad
Backpack
Ice Axe
Crampons
Trekking Pole
Ursack 

Thanks!

-Brian Johnson

For more thoughts check out some of these links to other company's rental prices:

https://admin.alpineascents.com/gear-rental?trip=chimborazo

https://www.theguidehut.com/shop/rental-gear/33

https://whittakermountaineering.com/pages/rentals

https://www.mountainguides.com/rainier-rentals.shtml

I have never needed to rent gear so cannot comment on cost.

Given the wide variety of clients making rental gear al-a-carte is best. About the only gear that should be bought by a client are glacier glasses. Otherwise the course price has to include that the equipment which makes it harder for people to compare course costs as the norm is not to include personal equipment rental as part of a course (based on my limited knowledge).

I might suggest that if camping and the course supplies tents / cooking that the Ursacks are provided as well. The hardest is rental boots. One needs enough sizes for the gamut of people who might take the course. For a good PNW example look at RMI and what all the rent for their clients.

I mean, do the math and work to determine cost first. 

(Purchase price/uses before trash) + incremental checking cost per rental + profit margin = rental cost

Then, work with gear companies to potentially reduce/eliminate gear purchase prices and/or run a try before you buy program.
For clients, the answer is usually "as little as possible" so first figure out true costs before going after numbers. Also - never skimp on the labor or profit margin lines, as if you do, it means you don't have cushion for a someone mistakenly trashing a piece of gear nor accounting for employee wages properly. 

https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/write-your-business-plan

I've taken a few courses at this point and I can say that one of the deciding factors for me was choosing the guide service that didn't charge additional fees for renting gear. It was definitely not the primary factor in my decision, but it made it very easy for me to eliminate options where I was going to have to pay a bunch more to rent gear. 

Call it marketing strategy or whatever you want, but I would say either bump up the cost (while staying competitive) and don't charge for rentals, or build that cost into what your projections are and ideally you'll capture more prospective clients because people don't feel like they're getting nickel and dimed after already paying a bunch. 

I’ve heard of fleets of rental gear being sold off at the end of season to be replaced with new gear each year.

This helps recoup costs of purchase and helps save on labor costs of fleet maintenance. Also keeps your rental gear looking nice for the users

Theoretically, between originally purchasing for wholesale, and then selling it at “retail/used,” you end up getting the new equipment for “free” and each customer rental sale is just extra. 

You provide tents? I wouldn’t think of renting glacier glasses, but maybe it could be a good idea.