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Cheap Car Hire Heraklion: 71 Compacts and the Real Price Floor
The cheapest line here is a real car on a real date, not a rate you can plan a week around.
/ 4 · Nights
Heraklion Car Hire Review
Insurance options available on all cars · TPL · CDW · SCDW · Full CDW
What the floor is actually made of
Cheap hire in Heraklion is not a coupon and not a season. It is the shape of the fleet. Of the 120 cars bookable here, 71 are compacts, and a class that large competes with itself, which is what keeps the bottom of this market low. The four figures below were counted on the live listing.
71
compacts in a fleet of 120
More than half of what you can book here is a small hatchback, and that is the whole reason the cheap end has any depth.
5 EUR
the lowest day rate we saw
One car, one supplier, one of three sampled days. Real, and somebody booked it. Still not a rate.
36-51
EUR a day, lower quartile
The band a quarter of the sampled cars came in under. Budget against this one and the real number tends to please.
88
of the 120 cars are manual
The stick is the ordinary car on Crete. Thirty two automatics exist here, and being the exception is why they price like one.
Why one five euro car is not a price
We read the live listing three times, one week out, one month out and two months out, and noted what the cheapest car cost on each of those days. The answer was not a number. It ran from 5 EUR a day at one end of the sample to 35 at the other, and the 5 was one car from one supplier on one date. By the next sample it had gone.
That is how the bottom of a small market behaves, and it is why this page quotes bands rather than a headline. A quarter of the sampled cars sat between 36 and 51 EUR a day, the middle of the listing between 48 and 63, the upper quartile between 68 and 86. An outlier is a lucky booking. A band is something you can plan a holiday against.
What moves the number before you do
Six things decide which band your booking lands in. Only two of them are about the car.
The week you land in
Demand here is a calendar, not a policy. The same compact carries one number in a quiet week and another when the flights are full.
How many days you keep it
A supplier does the same handover work for two days as for seven, so a short hire carries that work spread across fewer days.
How early you commit
The cheap end of a small fleet is thin. Once the compacts for a given week are taken, the next line up becomes the floor.
Which gearbox you need
Of the 120 cars here, 88 are manual. An automatic is the exception on Crete and it prices like one, with no flat surcharge to quote.
Whether delivery is in the price
Eighty four of the 120 cars offer delivery. Some suppliers fold it into the day rate and some price it apart, so compare totals.
Where you hand it back
Giving the car back where you found it is the cheapest ending. A drop at the far end of the island is quoted by the supplier at booking.
What the cheap line still includes
Cheap does not mean stripped. Every car in the list carries an insurance level, and the level is named on the car: third party, CDW, super CDW and full CDW are the terms you will see. The cheapest cars usually carry the basic one, which is a choice you make with the information in front of you.
Mileage is its own line. Where a car says unlimited kilometres, that is the supplier term for the whole hire, and with Chania 140 kilometres west of Heraklion it matters more here than it would at home.
The honest version of a cheap booking is not the lowest number on the screen. It is the lowest number whose lines you have read.
Before you pay
- The insurance level named on the car
- Third party, CDW, super CDW or full CDW, printed on the car rather than three clicks later.
- Whether the mileage line says unlimited
- Where it does, the run east to Elounda or west to Rethymno costs you fuel and nothing else.
- The pickup point and the hour
- A cheap car you have to reach by taxi is not the cheap one.
- The fuel rule on the contract
- Whichever rule applies, it is an easier conversation at the counter than at the return.
The four bands, and who each one is for
Same three samples, cut four ways. Pick the band that matches how fixed your plans are.
Best if your dates are still loose
The cheapest car on the day rather than a class. Across three samples it moved between 5 and 35 EUR a day, so the bottom is one or two cars from one or two suppliers.
Best for a budget you have to write down now
A quarter of the sampled cars came in under this band and most of them are compacts. If you need one number before the dates are fixed, this is the honest one.
Best if you asked for something specific
The median of the whole listing, which mixes compacts with family cars and smaller crossovers. Landing here usually means you wanted an automatic or five real seats and got it.
Best when the car is the point of the trip
The larger SUVs, the minivans and the cabriolets sit here. The listing holds 23 SUVs, 7 minivans and 11 cabriolets, so this band is a set of choices.
More Heraklion car hire options
Questions about what a car here costs
Across three sampled dates it ran from 5 to 35 EUR a day, and the 5 was one car from one supplier on one day. A quarter of the sampled fleet came in under the 36 to 51 EUR band.
Supply, not policy. Suppliers here hold small fleets, so once the compacts for a week are taken the next line up becomes the floor. Your dates move the number far more than the day you search on.
Usually. The handover costs a supplier the same for two days as for seven, so a short hire carries that work in fewer days. Keeping the car a little longer is often cheaper by the day.
It does, and the reason is scarcity rather than a surcharge. Of the 120 cars, 88 are manual and 32 are automatic, so the manual is the ordinary car here. No fixed figure applies.
Every car carries an insurance level and it is named on the car: third party, CDW, super CDW and full CDW. The cheapest line normally carries the basic one. Where the mileage line says unlimited kilometres, that holds for the whole hire.
Your dates decide which band you get
The bands on this page hold across a sample. Your week is one point inside it, so put the real dates in and Heraklion Drive will show what the suppliers are holding for them.
See real prices