Rentomojo raises performance marketing spend 86.3 per cent in FY26

MUMBAI: Rentomojo is spending more to bring more into the fold. The furniture and appliance rental company increased its performance marketing expenditure by 86.3 per cent to Rs 20.95 crore in FY26, more than the growth in its branding budget, as it stepped up digital efforts to acquire subscribers and expand its rental business.

According to the company’s FY26 annual report, performance marketing expenditure rose from Rs 11.24 crore in FY25 to Rs 20.95 crore in the year ended 31 March 2026. Branding and other marketing expenses, meanwhile, increased by a more modest 9.9 per cent to Rs 4.95 crore from Rs 4.50 crore.

The contrasting increases suggest that Rentomojo placed a greater emphasis on performance-led digital campaigns than on traditional branding expenditure during the year. The company attributed the higher performance marketing outlay to digital initiatives aimed at acquiring subscribers and growing subscriptions across new and existing markets.

The spending push coincided with a year of strong growth for the rental platform. Revenue from operations increased 45.51 per cent to Rs 386.99 crore in FY26, compared with Rs 265.96 crore in FY25. Consolidated profit after tax rose to Rs 104.30 crore from Rs 43.11 crore, while its live subscriber base expanded to 253,825 as of 31 March 2026, up from 194,262 a year earlier.

The subscriber base grew by 59,563 during the year, an increase of around 30.7 per cent. Revenue grew faster, rising by Rs 121.03 crore year on year. While the figures indicate that the company expanded both its customer base and revenue, they do not establish how much of the growth came directly from the additional performance marketing expenditure.

For a subscription rental business, attracting a customer is only part of the equation. Revenue also depends on how long customers remain subscribed, whether they rent additional products and how effectively the company retains them. Rentomojo’s annual report points to improvements in these areas, with its repeat rate rising to 50.41 per cent in FY26 from 46.55 per cent in the previous financial year.

The average number of items per user also increased to 2.83 from 2.67. This suggests that customers were renting more products on average, giving the company another route to expand subscription revenue beyond simply adding new users.

The business model revolves around recurring rental payments rather than one-time product sales. Subscriber acquisition and retention therefore work together: digital marketing can bring customers to the platform, while repeat subscriptions, longer rental periods and multiple products per user can influence the value generated over time.

The increase in performance marketing expenditure comes with a higher employee cost base as well. Rentomojo’s salaries, wages and bonus expenses rose 49.4 per cent to Rs 53.46 crore in FY26, compared with Rs 35.79 crore a year earlier. Total employee benefit expenses increased 46.72 per cent to Rs 60.80 crore.

The rise in employee costs broadly tracked the company’s revenue growth, although the annual report figures do not provide a detailed breakdown of how much was spent on marketing teams, technology staff, logistics or other functions. Together with the higher digital advertising outlay, the increase highlights the resources being committed to scaling the platform.

Rentomojo is also looking to technology to support that expansion. The company plans further investment in its proprietary technology infrastructure, including artificial intelligence and machine learning applications across refurbishment diagnostics, spare-parts forecasting, technician workflows and logistics.

These are areas where operational efficiency can have a direct bearing on a rental business. Unlike a conventional retailer that sells a product and moves on to the next transaction, a rental platform must manage products through multiple stages, from procurement and refurbishment to delivery, servicing, collection and redeployment.

A rented appliance or piece of furniture may pass through several subscription cycles, with maintenance and logistics required between customers. As the number of subscribers, products and service requests increases, managing those movements becomes more complex. Rentomojo said its growing platform involves more asset movements, subscriber interactions and service events, making technology increasingly important to its operations.

The company’s stated objectives include better forecasting, faster workflows, lower friction across the product lifecycle and greater operating visibility. AI-led refurbishment diagnostics could help assess the condition of returned products, while spare-parts forecasting and improved technician workflows could support servicing. Better logistics planning could also help coordinate product movement and redeployment.

The technology platform spans e-commerce, subscriptions and re-commerce, linking activities from procurement and refurbishment to servicing, logistics and the reuse of assets across multiple rental cycles. The planned investments indicate that Rentomojo is looking beyond customer acquisition to the operational systems needed to support a larger rental network.

One product category that has recorded particularly rapid growth is water purifiers. According to the company, the number of water purifiers onboarded grew at a compound annual growth rate of 145.16 per cent between FY24 and FY26. The report attributed the expansion to recurring maintenance requirements and the company’s servicing and refurbishment infrastructure.

The category illustrates how rental platforms can expand beyond furniture and larger household appliances into products that require ongoing maintenance. For customers, renting can offer access to equipment without the need for an upfront purchase, while servicing requirements can create recurring operational demands for the provider.

However, rapid growth in a product category also brings the need to manage maintenance, spare parts, returns and redeployment efficiently. That makes the company’s planned investments in forecasting, servicing workflows and logistics relevant to its wider expansion strategy.

Rentomojo’s FY26 performance therefore presents two connected priorities. The first is to continue growing its subscriber base through digital acquisition and improved customer retention. The second is to ensure that the infrastructure supporting those subscriptions can keep pace as more products move through the rental cycle.

The 86.3 per cent increase in performance marketing expenditure shows how aggressively the company increased its digital acquisition spending, while the rise in repeat rate and average items per user points to additional sources of growth within its existing customer base. Revenue and profit also increased substantially during the year, although the available figures do not isolate the contribution of marketing spend to either result.

As Rentomojo expands, the test will be whether it can turn higher acquisition spending into durable subscriptions while managing the costs of maintaining, servicing and redeploying its growing inventory. For a business built on renting products repeatedly rather than selling them once, the next stage of growth will depend not just on getting customers through the door, but on giving them reasons to stay.