A direct booking website is your own website where guests enquire or book with you, so there is no platform in the middle taking a percentage. No commission means the full amount the guest pays is yours.
Booking platforms charge a cut on every stay, and it accumulates across a season before you notice. The platform also holds the guest relationship: their details, their messages, their next trip.
Platforms still bring guests you wouldn't otherwise reach. A direct booking website lets you keep the margin and the relationship when guests come to you.
How much do booking platforms really cost you?
Most platforms take somewhere between 15% and 18% of every booking. On a $250 night, that is $40 to $45 gone before you have changed a sheet.
Take a small property with two rooms, booked about 15 nights a month at $250. That is $3,750 in bookings. At 15% commission, around $560 a month goes to the platform, or more than $6,700 a year.
A direct booking website with no commission lets you keep that money. Our flat $50/month is a small fraction of it, and it stays the same however many guests book.
How do you get guests to book direct?
Guests book direct when they can find your property at a glance and see a reason to skip the platform. That starts with a website built around your place, not a generic template with a logo dropped in. We design each site for the individual property, so it looks and reads like you.
Getting started takes about 10 minutes. You send us whatever you already have: photos, a few lines about the place, your rates and how guests contact you. There's no long discovery phase and no stack of forms.
From there, we build it, host it and aim to have it live in about a week. That timing does depend on how fast you get back to us with feedback.
Once it's live, guests searching for your area or your name can reach your own website and send an enquiry or booking request with no commission attached.
Can you still use Airbnb and Booking.com?
Yes, and for small properties we'd suggest you do. A direct booking website for accommodation with no commission doesn't replace your listings. It sits alongside them.
Platforms are good at putting you in front of new guests. Your own website is where repeat guests, locals and word-of-mouth enquiries can book without a cut going to anyone else. Keep the listings that earn their keep, and let direct bookings grow at their own pace.
Over time, you'll see which guests come direct and which still need a platform.
Who this suits, and who it doesn't
We design, build and host your direct booking website for a flat $50/month, then keep working on getting it found while you run your property. If you'd rather hand updates over, we offer optional hands-on updates and SEO backlinking.
We should be upfront about the limits. This isn't for anyone who needs online payments, user accounts, inventory syncing, an app or a complex tech build. It's a custom-designed site that brings in enquiries and bookings.
SEO takes time, and we can't guarantee results. If that suits you, get in touch and tell us about your property.