Rent Textbooks Online: Websites for Book Rent and Getting Textbooks for Free

Inflation, the high cost of education, and parasitical interest rates have led to the lower financial capacities of students. 

It has become more and more difficult to save money on college textbooks. However, if one wants to rent textbooks online, it costs almost 20 percent of the cost of buying a book.

Does anybody have any recommendations on websites for renting books for school?

— bianca (@bionks12) June 1, 2018

Online rental websites can help students get books for a few days or even a whole semester at very low costs. 

Explore below to find out the reason to rent books, best websites to rent college textbooks, other ways to save money on books, and websites where you may find free eBooks.

Why Rent Textbooks Online?

True, renting textbooks saves a lot of money. But, there are some other major factors as to why you must rent a textbook online. Let’s take a look at a few factors.

• Can save up to 80 percent of money when compared to buying a new book.
• Leads to a lower impact on the environment.
• It saves up space since you can return books immediately at term-end.
• It prevents you from the hassle of re-selling the books you bought. 

Tips for Renting Electronic Textbooks

Before you opt to rent electronic textbooks, consider the points below.

• Choose your rental term wisely.
• Instead of title or author, use ISBN to search for the right book. 
• Check the availability of supplement materials if you need them.
• Ensure that the book’s access codes are usable if you need them.
• Avoid highlighting or writing in your rented books. 

Therefore, it is better to rent textbooks online than buy them. You may use the above tips while exploring the sites mentioned below. 

Rent a Book Online: 10 Websites to Consider

If you want rental textbooks online, there are a vast number of good options. However, below are some of the most popular websites for this purpose.

Chegg is among the top textbook rental sites for college students. As per their claims, they can help students save up to 90 percent. The following are its major features.

• A 21-day window for free return of books.
• They provide a free 4-week Chegg Study trial with book rental.
• May extend the rental period.
• Provide an alternative service to Chegg study – homework help. You may even find Homeworkify alternatives to unblur Chegg answers. 

The textbook rental service on Amazon is even better than the Chegg homework help subscription and can help you save a lot of money. Let us explore its several features.  

• 30-day and 15-day money-back guarantees.
• Free associated services – fast delivery, free shipping, and gifting.
• Month-long rentals and semester-long rentals.
• Extend the period up to 90 days for incremental fees.
• Prime student deals at better prices with additional services.

CampusBooks is a comparison website that seeks to provide its customers with the lowest possible price for renting. The following are its major features.

• Compare prices across more than 50 sites.
• Filters to select the rental terms and budget.
• Provides comparison between buying vs renting.
• Bookbag feature to compare best prices across a book bundle. 

ValoreBooks is one of those rent books websites that claim to offer the lowest possible prices to students. Using them for online courses can complement your career, and the site comes with the following features. 

• There are no shipping charges.
• Refunds are available for a portion of the money if you find books at a lower cost on any other platform.
• You may rent books for the whole semester or quarter.
• 30-day money-back guarantee.

Knetbooks is known for its customer service and user-friendly platform. Below are some of its major features. 

• Provides free shipping.
• 25-day guarantee for a refund.
• The period for renting can be increased by 15, 30, 60, 90, and 130 days.
• Multiple promotional offers and discount codes.

eCampus is known for its good promotional deals and discounts. Some of the major features of this platform are mentioned below.

• You may rent for a whole semester, quarter, or even a shorter time span.
• There are no shipping charges for orders above $59.
• 25-day guarantee for a refund.
• eWard Loyalty Program for better discounts and deals.

TextbookRush is known for its eco-friendly policy of using reusable packaging materials. Some of its top features are mentioned below.

• 30-day guarantee of refund.
• Re-rent the books after returning them. 
• There are no shipping costs for orders above $35.
• It covers the cost of return shipment. 

You may use Alibris to help with your homework by renting college textbooks. They even provide some essay-writing tools for students. Some of its major features include:

• Availability of rare and out-of-print textbooks.
• Music and movies are available.
• Deals with independent booksellers.
• Provides good shipping discounts and free shipping above $39.
• 21-day guarantee for money back.
• Rent extension option.

CheapestTextbooks is a website for comparing the rent prices of books across different platforms. Some of its major features include:

• It helps to compare the top rental companies.
• Provides the features and prices listed side-by-side.
• Fast load time for results.

BiggerBooks is among the best-rent textbooks websites for college students to study cheaply. Let us look at its major features.

• Discounts of up to 91 percent.
• Free shipping above $59.
• You may rent books for the whole semester.

Hence, if you wonder where to rent textbooks cheap, you may choose any platform from the above list and start your studies.

How to Rent a Textbook Online?

It is easy to rent college textbooks online. You may do that easily on any online platform through the steps mentioned below.

• Search your textbook through the search bar by its title or ISBN.
• Compare the prices of rental books across multiple platforms.
• Also, compare the prices of new and used books available online.
• Choose your term for rental.
• Create an account.
• Select the book and complete the checkout process.
• Upon arrival of books, ensure that they are not damaged.
• Use your rented book.
• Upon completion of the rental period, paste the shipping labels and return the books to the platform. 

Hence, you may rent a book online easily through the above steps. 

Other Ways to Save Money on College Textbooks

If you want to rent textbooks from Amazon, Chegg, or any other site, it is fine. But know this – there are other ways to save money on college textbooks.

Let’s take a look at them. 

• Buy used books: Instead of buying new books, it is always cheaper to buy used books from other students or dealers.
• Use the library: Schools, colleges, and public or even private libraries are cheaper options for having books.
• Stay away from bookstores: The bookstores inside or near the colleges are always costlier than the shops in bookmarkets.
• Sharing the books: One way to save money is to share the cost of books among friends.
• Buy or rent eBooks: In general, eBooks are cheaper than printed books.
• Buy older edition: The books of older editions are cheaper than newly printed editions.
• Purchase only for the long-term: It is a good strategy to only purchase books if you want to keep them for the long term. Otherwise prefer to rent or use a library.

Therefore, you may use the above measures to save money on textbooks or may even get homework help online.

Where to Get Textbooks for Free?

Further, there are sites to get textbooks for free of cost. If you prefer to have books on a very low budget or for free, you may get them through the following sites.

• Wikibooks: They have open-content textbooks that can be edited or downloaded for free.
• Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg provides free eBooks in a variety of niches.
• Google eBooks: Google is also known to provide free eBooks to its consumers.
• Libre Texts: It is a non-profit educational website best for peer-reviewed textbooks across several niches.
• OpenStax: OpenStax provides school and college textbooks for students in the online medium.
• Library Genesis: At Library Genesis you may get online articles, books, magazines, and other content for free of cost. 
• Open Library: This platform is known for providing free PDF books on its web pages.
• Open Textbook Library: The eBooks available on this platform can be downloaded, edited, and distributed without any cost. 
• Bookboon: This platform is best for students of engineering, business, IT, and literature.

Hence, you may use the above platforms to get free textbooks for your school or college studies.

To Sum it Up

You may rent textbooks online through rental websites. You will only need to find the book of your choice, compare the prices and rent conditions, and order the book to be delivered to your doorstep.

Further, you may also use other ways to get cheap books, like ordering eBooks, buying used books, sharing with friends, etc. There are also sites to get textbooks for free.