This is Madeira Island
Car rental marketplace
7Fridays built a car rental website and marketplace for This is Madeira Island: 9 local rental companies connected by API in one search, with 2,380 cars booked since launch in 2025.
This is Madeira Island is a travel guide for Madeira that sells cars, tours and places to stay. Each of the 9 rental companies runs its own booking system.
Before, every booking went through email. The owner checked availability with each company, confirmed bookings by hand, and dealt with every change, cancellation and refund.
We built the booking platform and connected the rental companies’ systems to it by API: VikRentCar, HQ Rentals, Renteon and Rentsyst. A visitor now searches 110 cars, plus scooters, from all of them at once, sees live availability, and books in one flow. Payments, cancellations and refunds run on their own. Bookings come in every day, and the owner steps in only for the exceptions.
Beyond cars, the same site sells tours and villas, in 15 languages.
Website: thisismadeiraisland.com
- Client
- This is Madeira Island
- Industry
- Travel and car rental
- Year
- 2025
- What we did
- Marketplace, API integrations, automated booking
Booking admin for the owner
What the owner runs the business with
Behind the search sits an admin the owner runs alone: every booking, every discount code and every traffic source in one place.
One list of every booking
Bookings from all 9 rental companies in one list. Our booking number sits next to the rental company’s own, payment and reservation status are tracked separately, and the owner filters by company, dates, amount or traffic source.
What it replaced
An inbox. Every booking came by email and was checked and confirmed by hand with each company.
Discount codes
The owner creates coupons without a developer: a percentage, or a fixed amount with a cap, start and end dates, a usage limit, and the type it applies to (cars, tours or stays).
What it replaced
Discounts agreed one by one by email, then worked out by hand on each booking.
Partner and channel tracking
Every partner and ad channel gets its own link. The admin shows the bookings and revenue each one brought, split by cars, tours and stays, and warns before anyone changes a link that is already earning.
Why it matters
Ad money goes where bookings actually come from, and a changed link never breaks tracking by accident.
Results since launch
Live since summer 2025
- 2,380
- cars booked through the site
- 110
- cars available to book
- 9
- rental companies connected
- 4.9 ★
- from 211 Google reviews
Cars and scooters
110cars from 9 rental companies, plus scooters
Pick-up place and dates first, then filters: price, transmission, seats, fuel, engine and equipment. Availability comes live from each company’s own system, and the booking goes straight back to it.
Car, tour and villa booking
One trip, one search
Tours and activities
18activity types, from levada walks to dolphin trips
Boat trips, levada walks, canyoning, jeep tours and more. Visitors filter by type, dates and length (half day, full day or several days) and book on the same site as the car.
Villas and apartments
15languages across the whole site
Villas and studios with seasonal prices by group size, a minimum stay, a calendar of free dates, and amenities from a pool and jacuzzi to sea views.
We had a fantastic experience working with [7Fridays]. [They] proved to be incredibly reliable and a brilliant problem-solver, tackled every challenge with a proactive approach and ensured our project was completed to perfection.
Building a car rental marketplace
Questions, answered from this project
How long does it take to build a car rental marketplace?
This one took about five months, from February to July 2025: around 700 hours of work by two of our developers. AI models have improved a lot since then, and with them in our workflow we would build the same project today in roughly half the time.
Which car rental software can it connect to?
On this project we connected VikRentCar, HQ Rentals, Renteon and Rentsyst. Each rental company keeps working in its own system; another system with an API is connected the same way.
Can one website sell cars, tours and stays?
Yes. This is Madeira Island sells cars, tours and villas from one site, in 15 languages, so a visitor plans the whole trip in one place.
Are cancellations and refunds automatic?
Yes. Payments, cancellations and refunds run on their own. Bookings come in every day, and the owner steps in only for the exceptions.
What can the owner manage without a developer?
The list of bookings from all 9 rental companies with filters by company, dates, amount and traffic source, discount codes, and a tracking link for every partner and ad channel.
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Tell us what you are building. A real engineer replies within one working day — usually with questions, sometimes with a first estimate.