Humanoid robot rental in China is still finding the price
Why it matters: a cost-level read on China's robot rental boom. Who actually makes money, and why the headline price is not the market price.
By Embodied AI Frontier
On 9 October 2026, a listing on the second-hand app Xianyu offered a humanoid robot for RMB 289 a day. Within days the qualifiers attached to that number had fallen away, and English-language social posts carried it as "you can rent a humanoid robot in China for $43 a day." On the same day, on the same app, a reporter who asked for a price on a Unitree U2 was quoted RMB 2,000 a day, operator included, no deposit. The RMB 289 listing named no model.
- Fifteen or more published quotes sort into five distinct products, each tested against operator pay, warranty length and utilisation.
- The chain splits into manufacturers, platforms and rental firms, because the three earn from different things.
- Overseas quotes for the same models are set beside domestic ones, and what can be checked is separated from what cannot.
- All figures come from the sources listed at the end. Exchange rates are approximations, noted inline.
Article structure
- 1. One word, five products
- 2. What the robots are rented for
- 3. Costs that do not fall
- 4. Who takes the money
- 5. Cross-border pricing: quotes and denominators
- 6. An unfinished price discovery
- Sources and data notes
- By the Embodied AI Frontier editorial team
- Date: October 17, 2026
1. One word, five products
On 9 October 2026, a short item in the STAR Market Daily carried the number that would travel furthest: merchants on resale platforms such as Xianyu were listing a Unitree humanoid from RMB 289 a day4Humanoid rental prices fall sharply, daily rates below RMB 1,000View the entry below →. The original sentence held four limits. It was one merchant, it was a page price, it was a starting price, and it said nothing about whether an operator or transport was included.
Those four limits came off one by one. What reached English social feeds was a single line: in China, $43 buys a day of humanoid robot.
A reporter at Jiemian News spent the same day asking for prices on the same app. The page prices he saw ran from RMB 300 to over RMB 1,000.
When he asked, a Unitree U2 of the kind that appeared in the Spring Festival gala came back at RMB 2,000 a day in Beijing, operator on site, no deposit. Another merchant quoted RMB 3,000. The RMB 499 on one page belonged to a quadruped robot, not a humanoid. A third merchant listed RMB 2,500 and noted that the price had already been cut by RMB 1,000, on condition that a three-day booking earned a fourth day free3Daily rental falls from RMB 10,000 to under RMB 1,000 as the novelty fadesView the entry below →.
One question separated the listing from the quote, and the answer came back 6.9 times higher. That ratio measures the distance between a page and a phone call. It says nothing about how the price of the same product changed.
Put the quotes from one day on one app side by side and the price ladder comes into view: one word covering five products, with the falling headline number as its bottom rung. Each band is set by what the package contains, not by what the robot can do.
1.1 Five bands and what each includes
Sorted by contents, the published quotes fall into five products with bands stretching from RMB 60 to RMB 8,999 a day. All-in event packages run from RMB 2,000 to RMB 4,200 and cover the robot, an operator on site (a trained technician who runs the machine for the client), local transport, travel and setup, often with no deposit. They fill shopping-mall openings, corporate annual dinners and scenic-area events3Daily rental falls from RMB 10,000 to under RMB 1,000 as the novelty fadesView the entry below →6Robot rental as a hot sector: up to RMB 100,000 a day, with false advertising and unreachable supportView the entry below →. Premium and customised packages run from RMB 4,899 to RMB 8,999 and sell flagship models, choreography, voice work and multi-robot formations, with choreography billed separately3Daily rental falls from RMB 10,000 to under RMB 1,000 as the novelty fadesView the entry below →8Four funding rounds in four months: robot rental becomes a capital-market themeView the entry below →.
Entry-level platforms and e-commerce packages run from RMB 599 to RMB 1,796 and include an engineer on site3Daily rental falls from RMB 10,000 to under RMB 1,000 as the novelty fadesView the entry below →29Is robot rental a good business?View the entry below →. Classified listings sit between RMB 60 and RMB 289, with the contents unstated and conditions attached about region and minimum rental period6Robot rental as a hot sector: up to RMB 100,000 a day, with false advertising and unreachable supportView the entry below →. Bare hardware has a public price only for quadruped robots, about RMB 800 a day, and the customer posts a deposit of RMB 60,000 to RMB 100,00027The robot rental market cools: last year's RMB 10,000 daily rate cut at the kneeView the entry below →2Rental robots hard to book: daily rates above RMB 10,000 and still queuingView the entry below →.
Table 1. Five ways to quote a daily rental
| Band | Price (RMB/day) | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| All-in event package | 2,000–4,200 | Robot, operator on site, local transport, travel, setup; often no deposit |
| Premium and customised | 4,899–8,999 | Flagship models, choreography, voice work, formations; choreography billed separately |
| Entry-level platform | 599–1,796 | E-commerce and scenario bundles with an operator on site |
| Classified listing | 60–289 | Contents unstated; region, minimum term and deposit conditions |
| Bare hardware | about 800 (quadrupeds only) | The machine alone, customer supplies staff, deposit RMB 60,000–100,000 |
Source: Jiemian News, Securities Times, Beijing Business Today, JD.com, Qingtian Rent, Xianyu, Wanjiyizu, Cailian Press and The Beijing News; reference numbers appear at the end of the article.
The widest sample in the table comes from Wanjiyizu, a Shanghai rental marketplace launched in January 2026. In March 2026 a reporter posed as a customer on its mini-program and found listings from RMB 60 to RMB 99,980 a day, a range whose top was 1,666 times its bottom.
The bottom of the range was a Pudu delivery robot at RMB 60, tied to a 30-day minimum, Zhejiang province only, no travel charge within Hangzhou. The top combined five humanoids, ten quadrupeds, group control, rehearsal, two choreographers and eight hours on site. A RMB 20,990 package in between paired three humanoids, three quadrupeds, an operator and rehearsal6Robot rental as a hot sector: up to RMB 100,000 a day, with false advertising and unreachable supportView the entry below →.
An average daily price computed across that catalogue has no statistical meaning. Numerator and denominator come from different markets.
Fig 1 One word, five products, four of them charted: the gap between a RMB 289 listing and a same-day quote of RMB 2,000
Source: Jiemian News (Oct 9, 2026), STAR Market Daily (Oct 9, 2026), Economic Daily (Oct 16, 2026). Horizontal axis is logarithmic.
This layering explains something that looked contradictory within a single year: platform prices and market prices moved in opposite directions. In March 2026, a base-edition AGIBOT X2 rented in the open market at about RMB 5,000 a day, while Qingtian Rent listed the same model at RMB 3,599 with the engineer's wages and travel explicitly included7The Spring Festival gala model: has the price collapsed?View the entry below →.
The platform was cheaper than the market, and the difference sat in who carried the on-site labour. By October, U2 quotes on Xianyu had settled at RMB 2,000 to RMB 3,000. The two sets of numbers were never in the same unit to begin with.
The layering inside a single platform is just as clear. On Qingtian Rent's mini-program in October 2026, the checkout prices started at RMB 8,999 for a Unitree H2, RMB 3,899 for a G1, RMB 4,899 for a flagship X2 and RMB 599 for a Noetix Bumi3Daily rental falls from RMB 10,000 to under RMB 1,000 as the novelty fadesView the entry below →. One price list covers everything from a trial session to a flagship booking.
1.2 The arithmetic behind RMB 289
The quickest way to place a quote is to subtract the person. Public reporting gives two operator benchmarks. One quadruped price sheet lists RMB 800 a day without technical staff and RMB 1,600 with them. A Cailian Press catalogue splits the same way, RMB 1,500 with an operator against RMB 800 without, a difference of RMB 70018From robot dogs to quadrupeds: this rental market was fully booked for the May holidayView the entry below →27The robot rental market cools: last year's RMB 10,000 daily rate cut at the kneeView the entry below →.
Subtract RMB 700 from RMB 289 and the merchant is RMB 411 out of pocket for the day. Subtract RMB 1,600 and the loss is RMB 1,311.
No daily rental that puts a person on site survives at RMB 289. The number can only describe one of three things: bare hardware with no staff, a lead-generation price, or a stripped-down trial session with time and configuration both compressed. The gap to RMB 2,000 sits in the definition of the product. These are not two prices for one thing.
Table 2. Daily rental quotes, February 2025 to October 2026
| Date | Quote (RMB/day) | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 2025 | Purchase price RMB 99,000; rental about RMB 20,000 | Resale platforms and rental firms; terms not itemised |
| Mar 2025 | About RMB 10,000, up to RMB 30,000 | All-in, transport, crew lodging and setup included |
| Dec 2025 | Base RMB 2,000; dance RMB 3,500–4,500; advanced voice RMB 6,500; quadruped from RMB 500 | Tiered pricing; the variable is operator and customisation |
| Mar 2026 | U2 with dance RMB 4,200; without RMB 3,000 | Operator and travel included; several merchants waive the deposit |
| Oct 2026 | U2 RMB 2,000–3,000; platform scenarios from RMB 3,899; classified listings from RMB 289 | Contents differ; the lowest band states nothing |
Source: compiled from references [1], [3], [5], [6], [18] and [27]; terms as stated by each source.
RMB 289 documents a shift in the job a listed price does. In 2025 a listing still resembled a quote. In 2026 it resembles advertising. The difference sits in customer acquisition, and the cost of fulfilment has not fallen at all.
Only one published series holds the product definition constant: one platform, one scenario, one service package, across ten months. In December 2025, Qingtian Rent listed its corporate annual dinner package from RMB 13,300 a day. In October 2026 the same package started at RMB 3,899, a fall of 70.7%9From RMB 13,000 a day to RMB 3,900 a dayView the entry below →. That is the only decline used here.
The same reasoning governs how the number should be cited. RMB 289 can be recorded as a page price, and analysed as a customer-acquisition tactic. It cannot be quoted as a market price, because a reader told that "rental has fallen to RMB 289" pictures an entire band collapsing. What exists is a ladder where RMB 60 and RMB 99,980 sit in one catalogue, and RMB 2,000 sits beside RMB 2896Robot rental as a hot sector: up to RMB 100,000 a day, with false advertising and unreachable supportView the entry below →3Daily rental falls from RMB 10,000 to under RMB 1,000 as the novelty fadesView the entry below →.
1.3 How the number travelled
The path of the claim can be checked link by link. Notebookcheck, an English-language tech site, kept the word "listed" but added "as low as", and cited only the lower bound of the 2025 price.
The robotics site humanoid.guide then corrected the record, writing that the lowest figure was a classified listing rather than evidence of a market price, and that the original item did not say whether transport or operator support was included20Humanoid robot rental prices fall as Chinese supply growsView the entry below →. The correction was not what travelled on social platforms. CNN was never part of that chain; on 30 June 2026 it used RMB 3,000, about $443 a day, based on an interview with a robot livestream operator in Hangzhou19China's humanoid robots have captivated the world. A rental market is exposing their limitsView the entry below →.
One boundary deserves stating. No archive of the original Xianyu post could be obtained, including the merchant name, the model, whether an operator was included, the minimum term or the deposit.
What can be confirmed is the wording of the original report and the results of independent price checks by four outlets on the same day. What cannot be confirmed is the full set of terms on that page. The boundary does not change the conclusion, since RMB 289 loses money under any quoted operator cost. It does change how the number should be cited.
2. What the robots are rented for
Before asking how long a rental price can hold, it helps to know what the machines are hired to do. Purpose sets the rental term, the repeat rate, the way a job is priced, and the ceiling on what any of it can cost.