Open rental karting sessions in the US, UK and Europe average around $2.50 to $5 per minute of track time. That still makes rental karting the cheapest real-life circuit racing there is. By my calculations, national-level owner karting works out at about $20 to $25 per minute, and international events can go past $75 per minute.

How I measure value: dollars per minute

Every year I make a track rankings video on my YouTube channel, rating every track I visited around the world. One of the main criteria is dollars per minute ($/min), which is a great way to compare the value of a track or championship. What I’ve found is a big difference in value depending on where in the world you live. But even at the most expensive end, rental karting is still incredible value.

• Rental karting in Asia (cheapest I’ve found): under $1 per minute
• Rental open sessions, US, UK and Europe (average): $2.50 to $5 per minute
• High-powered rental karts, US, UK and Europe: up to around $10 per minute
• National-level owner karting: $20 to $25 per minute
• International owner karting: $75+ per minute

Figures are from my own track visits and calculations, as of late 2026.

Make every lap count

Prices are creeping up, so it’s worth asking how many of your laps are wasted. I mean the laps where you’re zoned out, not improving, not getting more consistent, or just getting frustrated. If you keep track of your racing budget each season, I’d bet it’s a bigger number than you’d expect, because those laps add up FAST.

When I won my first indoor rental karting championship back in 2014/2015, the prize was a huge amount of free session credit. So I made a plan to burn through it one session at a time, with a new objective or lesson for each outing. I only got in the kart when there was something specific I wanted to try or work on. I called it “treating every day like a school day.”

You might think that takes the fun out of karting. For me, it definitely didn’t. It turned karting into a giant puzzle I became obsessed with solving. And because it made me genuinely faster, I felt less pressure in races, made fewer mistakes, and had more fun wheel to wheel as a result.