Compared
Chauffeur on Demand vs Running a Company Car Scheme
Leasing a fleet of company cars looks cheaper on paper until you add up insurance, depreciation, and idle time. A comparison for firms weighing the two options.
Published 1 Sep 2026Updated 7 Oct 20262 min read
A company car scheme feels like the obvious answer to regular executive travel — lease a few vehicles, employ or contract drivers, and you've got transport sorted. It's only once the invoices for insurance, servicing, depreciation, and a driver's salary land alongside the calendar showing the car sat idle three days out of five that the maths starts to look different.
Booking chauffeurs on demand flips the cost structure. You pay for journeys taken, not for a vehicle depreciating in a car park while nobody's travelling. For most firms outside the very largest, executive travel doesn't happen every single day for every executive — it clusters around client meetings, board days, and travel weeks, with quieter periods in between. A fleet is sized for the busy weeks and wasted the rest of the time.
What a Fleet Actually Costs
A leased executive saloon typically runs £500-£800 a month before you add insurance, a dedicated driver's salary, fuel, servicing, and the admin of managing all of it. That's £6,000-£10,000+ a year per vehicle before a single mile is driven for a client — money that's spent whether the car is used twice a week or twenty times.
Where a Fleet Still Wins
To be fair to the fleet model, it makes sense for firms with genuinely constant daily transport needs across a large executive team, where utilisation is consistently high. If that's not your situation — if travel is meeting-driven and variable — on-demand chauffeur booking usually comes out ahead on cost and removes the management overhead entirely.
What It Costs
On-demand bookings start at £47 for a short Saloon journey, and a full standby day is as-directed hire at £75 an hour in an Executive, with nothing owed between bookings. Call 020 8742 2888 to talk through your travel pattern and we can help work out roughly what a comparable month would cost against a leased vehicle.
Questions, answered.
At what level of travel does a company car scheme start making financial sense?
Generally only once you have consistent, near-daily transport needs across multiple executives — utilisation is the deciding factor, not headcount alone. Most firms with variable, meeting-driven travel come out ahead booking on demand.
Do we need to commit to a contract to book chauffeurs regularly?
No. You can book as often or as rarely as you need, with no retainer or minimum commitment — a corporate account simplifies billing but doesn't require a fixed volume.
What about firms that already have a company car but need occasional overflow?
This is common — firms keep one vehicle for a very senior figure's daily use and book chauffeurs on demand for everyone else and for peak periods. We support that mixed model regularly.
Get your fixed price
Enter the journey and you see the full price before you book — airport fee, tolls and any supplement included.
Rather talk it through? Call 020 8742 2888, 24 hours a day.
P5 Chauffeurs is a TfL-licensed private hire operator (licence no. 11928). Every journey is pre-booked at a fixed price with a licensed driver in a licensed vehicle. Written by Faraz, Operations Manager, who runs our day-to-day operations.