Humanoid robot rental prices crater as dedicated exchanges appear

Renting a humanoid robot used to be a seller's market. After Unitree's robots danced on China's 2025 Spring Festival Gala, demand surged so hard that finding a unit to hire became a challenge in itself. Daily rates reportedly reached five figures in yuan, roughly $1,400 or more, for a single day with a machine.

That bubble has now deflated as the newest report shows that rates fell to around 2,000 to 3,000 yuan per day (about $280 to $420) by early 2026. They have since slipped below the 1,000 yuan mark even. On one classifieds marketplace, some merchants now list Unitree humanoids from just 289 yuan per day, or roughly $40.

Part of the reason is simple supply and demand. The 2026 gala put four robot makers on stage: Magic Atom, Unitree, Songyan Power, and Galaxy General. That kept public interest high, but more machines are now in circulation, and the novelty premium is fading.

At the same time, the market is getting more organized. In January 2026, Qingtianzu, billed as the world's first dedicated robot rental platform, announced a seed round. In the first week of February, its order volume reportedly grew about 30 percent compared with the previous period. Instead of hunting through classified listings, would-be renters now have a proper exchange to browse.

As for what people are doing with the robots, the rentals seem to mostly serve as a cheaper way for curious customers to try a humanoid instead of paying the full purchase price, which, for a Unitree G1+, starts at 95,000 yuan (about $13,000). The falling prices may indicate both an increase in supply and the fact that rentals used only as a showpiece at festivals and exhibitions with little practical purpose, while the robots sit idle most of the time.

Unitree aims to start selling a general-purpose humanoid by 2030 as generalization, reliability, and safety mature enough so that the application domain expands from vertical industrial scenarios in a controlled environment into household services, elder care, and daily living, like doing laundry.

If prices keep sliding, renting a humanoid for a weekend may soon cost less than a decent dinner for two. Whether that sparks real use cases or just a lot of dancing demos remains to be seen. China, however, has over 70 robot training facilities in operation, with more than 40 others under construction. These centers allow competing manufacturers to train their hardware side-by-side, feeding data back into a shared national pool that benefits both manufacturers and customers.