Rent your textbook

Yes, you got that right! Recently we saw a rise of online platforms offering you the possibility to save dollars by renting a textbook, instead of buying it. To help you save money we would like to introduce you to some of the available textbook rental platforms

The issue behind the whole idea is that a new book for your studies can easily cost you between $50-100. You usually use these books for one semester. After that you bring it to the book store to sell it back and realize that writing and marking in it has reduced its value to effectively nothing. Some just discard them somewhere on campus in hope to never see them again. Well, that’s quite a lot of paper gone waste. The book rental platforms made it their mission to do something about this nuisance. The concept is simple: You order a book for rental for a certain term, which can be as long as a semester, and return it afterwards or buy it out to make it yours. Some of the platforms even allow you to highlight or make notes and still return it. Always make sure you checked the service policy before renting something. Conditions can differ quite a lot.

1. bookrenter.com

bookrenter.com is relatively new to the market, yet managed to grow quite fast. One reason are their deals with local book stores. They ship for free and you also get free return-shipment. If you need to extent a rental the fee stays the same. If you are late with your return the rental period will be extended automatically at the normal rate. You have the option to buy out a book you like. If your rental fees for extensions reach the buyout price you can keep the book. So you will never pay more than the book is actually worth. Even though some writing and highlighting is allowed this might come in handy when you scribbled a bit too much. They, however, need some work on their search functionality. There is only a basic form and no advanced features whatsoever and also no option to filter or sort search results. That needs improvement.

The popular platform nationalbookrentals.com is operated by bookrenter, which is why we don’t cover them seperately.

2. chegg.com

chegg.com is the top dog in this market and offers an immense range of textbooks for all sorts of topics. They are a bit cheaper than bookrenter.com but you have to add shipping fees, so the difference in price isn’t that great. They offer 3 different rental periods ranging from 60 days to a complete semester. If your semester doesn’t fit their schedule you can talk to them to get free extension for your required period. Return shipping is free. When using their books you should be a bit more careful as only some modest highlighting is allowed here. So keep a notepad at hand. Interestingly enough we found their search to be as insufficiently developed as bookrenter’s. What we like here is the option to sell your books. This is a good thing if you found out too late about this whole rental thing.

3. Barnes & Noble

Good old Barnes & Noble have a slight different approach to the rental idea, which is pretty obvious considering that they are a major bookseller. Besides the central website for nationwide access to their books they also partner with an increasing number of colleges. Their individual contracts with the colleges allow them to create reading lists tailored to your own course. This is pretty cool. The college specific rental sites also have a different look and feel than the nationwide one. This is how it looks at the University of South Carolina. And again: what is it with these search forms? They also have no advanced option!  As others, B&N allow you to write and highlight as long as you keep it within limits, otherwise the damaged returns policy kicks in. With their extensive book selling background the option to buy and sell your textbooks comes as no surprise.

Follow this link to check if your college has an agreement with Barnes & Noble

4. textbookrentals.com

Textbookrentals is a comparative search engine. You enter a book you are looking for and they look for the best deals available at various places, ranging from Amazon to rental platforms. Sometimes you even get away cheaper with buying a used volume than with renting one. So this platform is certainly one to consider when looking for sweet deals. I’m not mentioning the search anymore as you know what I would say, but they have a listing by category. And you can get a free t-shirt if you wish so.

Here are some more platform we found in the wild wide web:

campusbookrentals.com

Basically the same as bookrenter or chegg. Noteworthy is the 15 days “grace period” in case you need it earlier or longer due to odd exam dates or for early course content adopters. ;)

collegebookrenter.com

textbookstop.com

These 2 platforms work like the other rental platforms. We didn’t find any great advantages or drawbacks for both of them.

In conclusion we can say that the whole idea of renting your textbooks is a good thing and can really save you some money. In some cases, however, you might get away cheaper with buying a used volume. It’s pretty much the same as with almost any other good available on the net: comparing can save you money that you can spend on other student things. But here’s a call to action for all you rental platform developers: Improve your search functions!

You already tried a textbook rental platform or know one we didn’t cover? Share your experience with us!