You Can Finally Rent Products in the Marketplace in MSFS 2024, New Dev Q&A Session This Month

One of the more intriguing components of the in-sim Marketplace for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was the ability to rent products. The rental system, announced during the Global Preview Event in September 2024, was quickly seen as a great way for people to check products out without forking over large sums in the first instance.

The concept is simple: you rent a product for a specific period of time at a reduced cost. Once the period is over, you will no longer have access to the product. But if you wish to make a purchase for digital ownership, you would then pay the difference, instead of the full price. This meant the developer would be able to demonstrate their product’s capabilities, but also be very consumer-friendly for the reduced cost-to-entry.

Whilst the rental system wasn’t available at the launch of the Marketplace itself, the latest blog post on the official Flight Simulator site has now confirmed that the system is in place for a select number of products. Specifically, it relates to products published by Microsoft, which are part of the Deluxe and Premium Deluxe Editions of the sim. No doubt, this will be expanded over time to new products in the future, and this serves as a testing ground for the system.

The system itself is pretty straightforward. You rent the plane for a small fee for a specified period of time. Either during, or for a period of seven days after the rental expires, you can purchase the plane for full digital ownership at a discounted price. This is what Microsoft said:

“This offer is valid during your rental period and for seven (7) days after your rental expires. The purchase price is calculated by subtracting the highest single rental price you paid from the current full purchase price of the item in the Marketplace. For example: If the item costs $10 and you rented it twice, once for three days at $3 and once for one day at $1, the discounted purchase price would be $10 (item price) – $3 (highest rental paid) = $7.“

For now, only 6 aircraft are part of this system, but more will follow in the future. Microsoft confirmed that developers will be able to select their own rental price and timeframes through their portals.

Live Developer Q&A Session

A new developer Q&A session will be taking place on July 23rd, 2025. If you’d like to pre-submit a question to the panel, you can do so at this link.