Is robot leasing a good business?

In just one year, the daily rental price of mainstream humanoid robots has dropped by 80%.

In the spring of 2025, renting a humanoid robot for a commercial performance could cost up to 10,000 or even 20,000 yuan per day. In March 2026, the price tag on JD.com's self - operated robot rental flagship store showed that the daily rental price of Unitree U1 humanoid robot, including on - site engineer service, starts from 1,796 yuan. The robotic dogs are even cheaper, at 78 yuan per day.

Although the prices are dropping, the number of people entering the market is increasing. In 2025, more than 1,500 new robot rental companies were registered nationwide, a year - on - year increase of 48.1%. In December 2025, Qingtianzu, a platform focusing on robot rental under the control of Zhiyuan Robotics, was launched in Shanghai. At the beginning of 2026, Wanjiyi Rent quickly entered the market, and JD.com also opened a self - operated robot rental flagship store.

The Spring Festival gave the robot rental industry a lively start.

According to the data obtained by reporters from Economic Observer from Qingtianzu, during the Spring Festival (from the first day to the seventh day of the first lunar month), the number of robot rental orders on the platform increased by nearly 70% compared with the previous period, and the total number of orders during the entire holiday exceeded 5,000. JD.com's data also showed that from New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the first lunar month, the number of users visiting the platform's robot products increased by 4 times year - on - year, and the number of users searching for the keyword "robot" increased by 25 times year - on - year. The turnover of JD.com's self - operated robot rental business increased by more than 100% month - on - month in January 2026, and the overall number of orders during the Spring Festival increased by 130% month - on - month.

Intensified Industry Competition

Qingtianzu was jointly initiated by embodied intelligence enterprises such as Zhiyuan Robotics and Feikuo Technology, and was launched on December 22, 2025. Li Yiyan, the CEO of Qingtianzu, told reporters that Zhiyuan is the founding shareholder and the controlling major shareholder of Qingtianzu, but the platform is open to the entire industry and has reached cooperation with many robot manufacturers.

In January 2026, Qingtianzu completed its seed - round financing, led by Hillhouse Capital and participated by Fosun Capital, Mufang Science and Technology Innovation, Dafeng Fund, etc. Three weeks after its launch, the number of registered users exceeded 200,000, and the average daily number of orders was stable at over 200. Recently, Qingtianzu also launched a recruitment campaign for urban partners across the country.

The operation mode of this business is not complicated.

One end of the platform is connected to more than 200 robot suppliers, covering multiple brands and models. The other end is connected to customers with needs, including corporate annual meetings, shopping mall openings, exhibition promotions, wedding entertainment, and even personal birthday parties.

After customers place an order on the platform, the system automatically matches based on distance, equipment inventory, and the historical performance scores of service providers. In complex scenarios, manual intervention will be involved. After the matching is completed, the service provider will bring the robot to the site and take care of transportation, debugging, operation, and on - site interaction throughout the process.

Shi Jian, one of the first - batch urban partners of Qingtianzu, told reporters from Economic Observer that a typical order process is as follows: First, communicate with the customer about the requirements, such as the size of the venue, whether customized clothing is needed, and if there are specific action choreographies. Then, come up with a delivery plan. Finally, the staff will bring the robot to the site, taking care of transportation, debugging, operation, and interaction with the audience.

Regarding the profit model, Li Yiyan told reporters from Economic Observer that the platform's profit model is to take a commission on order service fees. However, during the promotion period, the service fees are waived, and profitability is not considered for the time being.

The Spring Festival was the first major test for Qingtianzu after its launch. The overall GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) of the platform increased by about 80% month - on - month. Among them, festival - related orders accounted for more than 54%, and the three main scenarios were New Year greetings, temple fair parades, and shopping mall activities. Moreover, first - time rental users accounted for about 30%, meaning one in every three orders was from a new customer. The "999 - yuan national robot experience program" launched by the platform accounted for about 15% of the total transaction volume.

Wang Mingfeng, the chief strategy officer of Qingtianzu, told reporters from Economic Observer that the above - mentioned experience program "is not for making money, but a demand detector." The platform wants to use it to see if ordinary people are willing to pay for robot services.

Shi Jian told reporters that he has 6 robots, and they were fully booked from the first day to the seventh day of the first lunar month. According to the platform's operation data in the past two months, each robot can receive about 10 orders per month on average, with an average price of 2,500 yuan.

He estimated that the pay - back period is 6 to 8 months, "and it will actually be shorter because the platform provides subsidies, and we also take non - platform orders." "The demand is the strongest in cultural and tourism scenarios such as scenic spots and parks," Shi Jian said.

During the Spring Festival, the most difficult thing was not getting orders, but the shortage of staff. Li Yiyan said that some orders beyond their capacity had to be declined, "which is also responsible for the users."

However, the popularity is one thing, and the price is another.

Li Yiyan once publicly stated that from March to May 2025, the daily rental price of humanoid robots was about 10,000 to over 20,000 yuan. However, in the second half of 2025, as the supply side expanded rapidly, the daily rental price of a standard Unitree G1 dropped from over 10,000 yuan to about 5,000 yuan.

From December 2025 to January 2026, during the peak season of Christmas, New Year's Day, and corporate annual meetings, the price rebounded briefly. But by the Spring Festival in 2026, the daily rental price of basic - model humanoid robots generally fell to the range of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan.

On March 11, reporters from Economic Observer saw even lower prices on JD.com's self - operated robot rental flagship store. The daily rental price of Unitree Go2 series robotic dogs starts as low as 78 yuan, and the daily rental price of humanoid robots including engineer service starts from 1,796 yuan.

The core reason for the price reduction is the increase in supply.

According to data from IDC, a well - known market research institution, about 18,000 humanoid robots were shipped globally in 2025, a year - on - year increase of about 508%. Among them, about 14,400 were shipped in China, accounting for 84.7% of the global total.

According to the "2025 Humanoid Robot Market Research Report" released by Beijing CCID Publishing and Media Co., Ltd., six Chinese enterprises, including Unitree Technology, Zhiyuan Robotics, Leju, Accelerated Evolution, Songyan Power, and Ubtech, together accounted for 74.1% of the global shipment share.

Wang Xingxing, the founder of Unitree Technology, once publicly stated that the company's target shipment volume of robots in 2026 is set at 10,000 to 20,000 units, which is about 4 times that of 2025.

The release of production capacity and the influx of new players have directly pushed down the rental price. According to publicly available data from JD.com, more than 90% of domestic embodied intelligence brands have settled in JD.com's self - operated rental platform. In February 2026, Wanjiyi Rent announced the completion of angel - round financing and plans to cover 300 cities across the country.

The daily rental price has dropped by 80%, but the operating cost has not dropped by the same proportion.

For a robot to participate in an event, expenses such as transportation, debugging, on - site engineers, and safety protection have not decreased proportionally with the rental price. The Spring Festival can be profitable because of the high order density brought by the concentrated release of festival demand. However, once the peak season is over, the order density decreases, and the income of each robot will be correspondingly diluted. Shi Jian's statement of "a 6 - to 8 - month pay - back period" is based on the assumption of "10 orders per month on average and an average price of 2,500 yuan." If the order volume drops after the Spring Festival, this pay - back period will be broken.

However, for robot rental platforms like Qingtianzu, expanding the network may be more urgent than calculating short - term profits.

Li Liheng, the co - president of Qingtianzu, told reporters from Economic Observer that urban partners are neither franchisees nor agents. The platform does not make money by collecting franchise fees. "The platform is responsible for products, technology, traffic, and brand, while partners focus on local delivery and service."

He said that in the early stage, it is completely open with zero - threshold entry, and in the later stage, a balance between supply and demand will be achieved through data. The platform provides four types of support to partners: on the equipment side, there are procurement subsidies lower than the market price; on the technology side, there are standardized debugging and operation and maintenance SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures); on the operation side, there is systematic training; on the traffic side, orders are intelligently distributed by region.

Li Liheng has a clear definition of this business: "This is not a traffic - driven business. Burning money cannot build a moat. This is a business based on capabilities. The scores of the system, operation, performance, and service all need to be high."

"The Market Is Far from Saturated"

During the Spring Festival, entertainment performances and commercial marketing together accounted for 65% of the orders on Qingtianzu. These two types of demand are mostly concentrated in festivals and large - scale events, which are naturally intermittent. Whether this business can stand on its own after the festivals depends on what robots can do beyond "dancing."

Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee on Information and Communication Economics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told reporters from Economic Observer that the current market "does not lack industrial robots, but lacks embodied intelligence robots with autonomous decision - making ability."

In Pan Helin's view, many robot enterprises have a problem - they develop embodied intelligence robots in the same way as industrial robots. "The main difference lies in autonomy and versatility." He believes that most humanoid robots are currently in the "cerebellum development" stage, requiring operators and remote controls to execute actions and lacking autonomous decision - making ability.

"Breaking through application scenarios solves the problem of realizing the value of embodied intelligence, but it cannot solve the fundamental problem of technological deficiencies." Pan Helin emphasized that technological R & D and scenario breakthroughs should go hand in hand. The most critical breakthrough lies in the transformation of robots from simple control and execution to autonomous decision - making, autonomous execution, and the ability to understand complex environments.

In addition, he believes that the robot industry needs a new evaluation system to make a concrete judgment on autonomous ability, "similar to the L1 to L5 ratings in intelligent driving."

The technological bottleneck restricts the current scenario applications. Guo Yandong, the founder of the embodied intelligence enterprise Zhipingfang, told reporters from Economic Observer that he is rational about the C - end market. "It is still immature and unrealistic for robots to directly enter households. It requires the joint improvement of cost, reliability, and general ability, which is expected to take about 5 years."

Currently, Zhipingfang robots have entered fields such as automobile manufacturing, semiconductors, and biotechnology, undertaking tasks such as sorting, loading and unloading, and quality inspection. In 2025, Zhipingfang signed a three - year contract with CEC Panda Display, the world's third - largest panel manufacturer, for 1,000 units. Guo Yandong called it "one of the largest non - performance - based commercial orders in the industry."

"What really matters is not who is more popular, but who is accumulating certainty for the next few years," Guo Yandong said.

From the overall perspective of the industry, the supply side is changing rapidly.

TrendForce, a well - known technology industry research institution, recently predicted that the global shipment volume of humanoid robots will exceed 50,000 units in 2026, a year - on - year increase of more than 700%. CSC Financial Co., Ltd. also predicted in an industry research report that with the advancement of mass production and cost reduction through supply - chain collaboration, the cost of a humanoid robot may drop to about 80,000 yuan or even lower in the future.

The "2025 Humanoid Robot Market Research Report" also pointed out that Chinese enterprises follow the path of "mass production and implementation + scenario adaptation." Relying on the full - industrial - chain manufacturing capacity, they achieve rapid deployment under the model of "hardware first, software iteration," while American enterprises focus more on "technological iteration + high - end market."

Capital investment in this industry is also accelerating. According to publicly available industry data, in the first 11 months of 2025, the financing amount of China's embodied intelligence industry reached 33.473 billion yuan, four times that of the same period in 2024. There were more than 305 financing events throughout the year, and more than 600 investment institutions participated. In addition, leading robot manufacturers such as Unitree Technology, Leju Robotics, and Zhiyuan Robotics are also advancing their IPO processes.

Of course, after the cost comes down, there will be more rentable robots, and the coverage of scenarios will be wider. In its report released in 2025, IDC listed RaaS (Robot as a Service) as one of the six development trends of embodied intelligence robots, pointing out that the business model is evolving from one - time hardware sales to service - oriented.

Li Yiyan told reporters from Economic Observer that there is a window period between the current technological capabilities of robots and social expectations, "and rental is the best way to present in this window period." In his view, only 18,000 humanoid robots were produced globally in 2025, and 99% of people have not even come into contact with robots. "The market is far from saturated."

Zhang Yi, the CEO of iiMedia Research, once publicly stated that the scale of China's robot rental market was less than 1 billion yuan in 2025, and it is expected to approach or even exceed 10 billion yuan in 2026.

He also mentioned a reference: The development path of robot rental may be similar to that of the drone industry. The explosion of the drone industry in the domestic market did not come from agricultural or industrial applications, but from the widely adopted drone performance rental services in various cities, with the core being the integrated delivery of "renting equipment + renting solutions."

Li Yiyan also said that he is quite optimistic about the robot rental business.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Economic Observer", author: Zheng Chenye, published by 36Kr with authorization.