Book the cab for the hours, not the trip. The driver waits while you go in and out of shops, viewings, hospital appointments, school gates, or the third meeting that always runs over. 3-hour minimum, fixed hourly rate, no surge, no per-mile maths in your head. Used by parents on the half-term Saturday, agents on property days, and location managers on the Tuesday shoot.
Hourly hire is not a fancier version of a standard cab — it is a different product. Instead of paying for the trip from A to B, you pay for the driver and the car to be yours for the booked hours. The route is whatever you say it is on the day, the stops are wherever you want them, and the meter is not ticking in the background.
Book a block of hours. Inside that block, every mile is included up to a sensible cap (8 mi/hr of metered driving on average — far more than a normal afternoon's circuit) and every minute of waiting is included up to 30 mins per booked hour. You don't watch the meter; you watch the clock.
PredictableOne driver from start to finish — they learn your stops, mind your shopping in the boot, hold the door if it suits the day, and stay parked while you go in. Every EasyCab driver is DBS-checked and on our books at least six months before they take an hourly job. No tag-team handovers.
DBS-checked · 6+ monthsSkip a stop, add a stop, swap the destination — the driver does what you ask without ringing back to base. Want another hour at the end? Dispatch rings, you confirm, the booking extends at the same rate. There is no surprise upsell and no penalty for finishing early. You pay for what you booked.
Add stops · extend on the dayThe everyday workhorse — school run, shopping, airport pickup of two. Two adults plus a couple of bags fits comfortably in the boot.
Picks for viewing days, garden-centre runs, dog crates, surveying kit. Same four seats as the saloon, twice the load space.
Client pickups, evening events, wedding-day chauffeur. E-Class, 5 Series, A6 — bottled water, phone chargers, suited driver.
School-gate days with the cousins, agent days showing four buyers around, hospital trips with the whole family in tow.
Hen and stag circuits, film crew + kit, hospitality runs, in-laws visiting. Eight adults plus eight bags fit in.
Side-loading WAV with electric ramp, four-point securing harness. Same hourly as the saloon — the accessible option never costs more.
Hourly rate = (base ÷ 3) + 8 mi × per-mile + 30 min × per-minute waiting — applied at each tier's standard multiplier. Includes fuel, insurance, parking on residential streets, the driver, and a real human picking up dispatch 24/7. Congestion Charge (£15) and London airport drop-off charges billed at cost. ULEZ already met by every EasyCab vehicle.
None of these are theoretical. They are the use-cases we get rung up about every week — pulled from eleven years of dispatch logs across Kingston, Richmond, Putney, and out into Surrey. Pick the closest match to plan your hours; ring dispatch if you want to talk through a day that doesn't quite fit.
Kingston Bentall, Eden Walk, then Kingsmill for the trainers, then back to Surbiton via the pharmacy and the dry-cleaner. The driver minds the bags so you don't end up dragging them between shops. Four-hour booking handles it with time to spare.
Four houses in Esher and Cobham on a Saturday morning. Agent and buyer in the back, surveyor or partner up front, plans and tape measure in the boot. The estate makes the difference if a folding pram or a dog has to come along.
Pickup from home, wait at outpatients while the appointment runs over by 40 minutes, on to a follow-up at the chemist, and back. Drivers know the layout at Kingston, St George's, Epsom, and Royal Surrey. They will help with bags and arm-into-the-car if needed.
Camera unit moves, talent runs between location and trailer, the location scout who needs to see eight buildings before lunch. We have done all three. Executive saloons for talent, MPVs for crew, 8-seater for hair-and-makeup plus rolling rails of costume.
City client at 10, lunch in Mayfair at 13:00, an afternoon meeting in Soho, and a 17:30 pickup of a colleague from St Pancras before the run home. Executive saloon, suited driver, all four stops fixed at booking and the route on a single tab.
Bride-and-bridesmaids out at 13:00, back to the venue for photos, run guests between venue and reception after the ceremony, and stand-by until the speeches finish. We can do ribbon and decoration on the day — book the executive saloon or MPV depending on numbers.
A real circuit run for a Kingston family on a typical Saturday — pulled from a January dispatch log. MPV booked because Mum, Dad, two kids and Nan all went together; saloon would have done the job, MPV made it pleasant. Every figure here is computed from the rate above × hours booked — no hardcoded total.
Same circuit on per-mile metered fares with kerb-side waiting would have come out broadly similar — but with a driver checking the clock instead of the route. The hourly rate buys you predictability and a driver who is actually yours for the day.
If a number is on this page, it is the number. If it's not on this page, we don't charge for it. The only line that ever appears on top of the hourly rate is Congestion Charge at cost (£15) and the £5 drop-off charges at Heathrow / Luton / LCY — and only if your day actually goes through there.
Up to 30 minutes of stationary waiting per booked hour, accumulated across stops. Almost no booking ever uses the full quota — viewings and shopping days average 18 min/hr.
The booking is the day, not a single A-to-B. Drop a friend home, swing past the dry-cleaner, double back to the pharmacy — every stop is on the same rate. Plan four stops, end up doing seven, no issue.
Bags, shopping, suit cover, presentation kit — all of it stays in the car between stops. Driver locks up and keeps an eye on the vehicle for as long as you are out. Insured for the contents of a normal household shop.
Driver-assist is part of the job — they will hold the door, help bags into a hospital lobby, fetch a coffee while you are in a meeting, run a parcel back home. Ask at the start of the day; nothing extra to pay.
If your driver hits a problem (you do not), dispatch knows about it before you. We hold a small dynamic reserve specifically for hourly bookings so a swap-out, if it ever happens, takes 10-15 minutes rather than ending your day.
Want to extend on the day? Dispatch rings, you confirm, the booking extends at the same rate in 30-min or 1-hour blocks. Want to finish early? You pay what you booked, no refund — but no surcharge for the change either.
The two main alternatives to hourly hire are (1) stringing together short fares from a ride-hail app or (2) booking a "chauffeur" service that quietly adds extras at the end. Here is what changes with EasyCab.
"We did three viewings, the school run for two kids, the in-laws to the station, and a hospital appointment — same driver, same car, no maths in my head all day. Best £183 I've ever spent on a Saturday."
If you know roughly what you need to do but you do not know how long each bit will take, hourly hire is the right answer. Saloon from £30.57 per hour, 3-hour minimum, no surge, one driver all day.
config/pricing.php and every rate on the site updates.From a half-term Saturday with the kids to a Tuesday camera-unit day in Surrey, the hourly rate buys you a driver who is yours for the booked block — and the freedom to change your mind about half the stops on the way.