The Greenlit Checkout Promise
Hidden fees work. Just not for you.
The ticket industry tested it on millions of people. A fee that shows up at checkout makes people spend more, and makes them madder doing it. The software keeps the fee. You keep the mad. So we wrote a promise, and we put the research next to it.
Our promise to you and your renters
- We will never add a service fee to your renter's bill. No booking fee, no service fee, no convenience fee. Not now, not in a new plan, not in the fine print.
- Your renters pay you. The money goes through your own Stripe or Square. We are never in the middle of it.
- Your price is the price. Your renter sees your price, then any extras they pick, then sales tax, then the total. No service fee from us, anywhere on the page.
Rachel and Jon Minion, Greenlit Rentals and Welaka Golf Carts
Exhibit A: StubHub, fall 2015
The experiment behind every surprise fee.
StubHub split half of its US shoppers, millions of people, into two groups. One group saw the full price, fees included, from the very first screen. The other group saw the fees only at checkout.
The hidden-fee group spent more, bought more often, and picked pricier seats. At the checkout screen, when the fee finally appeared, they were far more likely to balk. Overall, they still bought more. By then they had picked their seats, and letting go is hard.
Shortly after the experiment, StubHub moved the whole site to fees at checkout.
more money spent by shoppers who saw the fees only at checkout.
more likely to buy at all. A lower first price pulled more people in.
less likely to buy at the checkout screen itself, the moment the fee showed up. It still made more money.
Blake, Moshary, Sweeney and Tadelis, "Price Salience and Product Choice," Marketing Science, 2021. Figures as summarized by UC Berkeley Haas.
Exhibit B: Ticketmaster
Then it got famous.
Up to 44%
Mandatory fees as high as 44% of the ticket price, hidden until checkout, according to the FTC's September 2025 lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
$16.4 billion
In fees collected over five years, according to the same complaint.
Kept it anyway
The FTC alleges executives kept the approach after their own research showed people were less likely to buy when they saw the true cost up front.
In May 2025 a federal rule started requiring the full price up front for event tickets and short-term lodging. Cart rentals are not on that list. Nothing in that rule stops booking software from adding a fee to your renter's bill at the last screen.
We are not waiting for a rule. That is what the promise is for.
Sources: FTC press release, Sept 18, 2025. The Ticketmaster figures are the FTC's allegations. FTC Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, effective May 12, 2025.
Exhibit C: your booking page
At a concert, they blame Ticketmaster. On your page, they blame you.
Your renter did not pick your booking software. They picked you. So when a fee shows up on the last screen, it reads as yours.
A 2020 study in Marketing Science looked at what fees added late in a purchase do to people. They ended up paying more. They stayed less satisfied, even after they saw the full price. They rarely switched. And they assumed every competitor charged similar fees.
That last one is your opening. If your renters think every cart company does this, the one that doesn't gets to say so.
And 40% of US online shoppers say they walked away from a checkout in the last three months because the extra costs were too high.
Santana, Dallas and Morwitz, "Consumer Reactions to Drip Pricing," Marketing Science, 2020. Baymard Institute, retrieved August 2026, about online checkouts in general.
A real checkout, Sept 11, 2026
The line next to "Fees" on that checkout said it goes to the competition's booking software for the online booking and payment, not to the rental company.
The same week on Greenlit
Your price, any extras they pick, the tax. No service fee from us.
Left: a live online checkout for a one-week golf cart rental, taken to the payment screen on September 11, 2026. We did not book. Fees vary by operator. Check your own.
We are not going to oversell this.
Nobody has measured surprise fees for cart rentals. And StubHub's own experiment says hidden fees bring in more money, not less. So we will not tell you that showing the full price makes you rich.
Here is what we will tell you. If your renter is willing to pay an extra $33, that money can be part of your price, set by you and paid to you. Right now, on a lot of booking software, it is part of somebody else's revenue, with your name on the receipt.
So how do we make money?
You pay us $49 a month. That is the whole business model. Not a cut of your bookings, and nothing from your renters.
Check your checkout tonight.
Book one of your own carts on the system you use now, all the way to the payment screen. Write down your price. Write down the total. Take out the tax and the extras. Whatever is left went to someone who is not you.