I'm no expert, but I'm renting out a few machines in the $200-$300 a month range - which includes maintenance. I can't imagine a scenario where maintenance would not be included. I'll describe the more interesting scenario:

Two pins in an office for the employees to play. ~25 employees put around ~500 plays per month on each machine (though the first month might be more like 1000 or more plays, but it averages out to around 500 by the time I swap out for a new game).

So in my situation, it's almost as though they're pre-paying 50 cents a game.

They understand that they have to keep the game for at least a few months before we swap in something else. Moving pins sucks - I mean, I'm not sure I'd even move one pin out of my basement to an office, pick another one up, and put it in my basement for $200. I don't think you'd want to rent weekly.

Interesting. Most places in my area are still 50 cents. Occasionally you'll see 75 cents for newer Sterns, or $1 for WOZ.

You guys need to raise your prices. Those are 1990s prices.

I know you are maintaining good games so you should get paid appropriately based on inflation rates.

.50 for sys11 and up. Anything DMD is .75 or 3/$2. New games are $1 or 3/$2.
I am guessing you get way more play but still you should be getting a reasonable coin drop price. To me the math does not add up for the amount of wear/tear/maintenance when you are doing 90s pricing but your fuel, fees, insurance, etc... are no longer 90s prices.

mick >> nobody will be able to give you very precise numbers as things are widey variable based on location, game, clientele, etc. Could be 100 plays a week and could be played constantly. When you toss in that the games will be on free play (I assume since you are renting them out already then no coin drop) that is a whole new variable.

What is the situation you're getting into? How many pins? Do you know the people personally?

I ended up starting with lower pricing, but quickly realized that they were playing more than I expected and I was coming out for maintenance more often. I raised the price and they understood (and saw how responsive I was when there were issues).

Point being, you might be able to just try something out and then change it up a bit if things aren't working out.

Maybe so. You've been out here...everything is 50 cents in Denver. Even WOZ.

Over the next year or so, I'll have some opportunities to play around with pricing. We'll see how things turn out.

Note the price the OP quote, and his location Australia, not the USA, things are generally more down under.

Can you bill your rental based on number of balls played or total time played?

Yeah, you have more options for players in your area but they are also dropping more coins so I guess it goes both ways. I am guessing some of the bigger locations are getting 100% of the coin drop which makes sense how they can do everything at cheaper than 90s prices.

My guess is that it's better to just bill a company the same amount each month so they can forget about it. Varying prices might cause more scrutiny and/or levels of approval.

Also, I think what you're charging for is the convenience of having a pin, right there, on freeplay. If they're not playing it, that's their loss, not yours - you could be making money on it in a different location.

So, did you end up doing this?