commission
Is a direct booking website worth it for a small hotel?
For most properties at 8 to 25 rooms a direct booking website is worth it, and for four specific kinds of property it is not. Here is how to tell which one you are, the arithmetic that decides it with two worked examples, what the US and Canadian parity rules do to your discount, and the free work worth doing while you wait.
Cloudbeds Payments pricing vs your own Stripe account
Cloudbeds publishes no processing rate for Cloudbeds Payments, and Stripe publishes 2.9% plus 30 cents. What each does with a failed card, where the payout fee falls, who holds the guest's card and the record of a charge, and the verdict by property size.
Hotel rate parity: what your contract covers and what you can still do
Rate parity promises a booking platform the same or better price, conditions and availability than you make available anywhere else. Booking.com runs three versions of it, and the United States and Canada get the widest one by default. Here is what the clause reaches, what it can be used for, and the narrow routes that stay open.
Airbnb channel manager: what it does and what it costs you
An Airbnb channel manager keeps one calendar and one price list across Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and your own site. What connecting actually changes, including the 15.5% host-only fee, what Airbnb keeps hold of, and a three number test for your own books.
Hotel post stay email templates for direct and platform guests
Your post stay email should ask for one thing, and which one depends on where the reservation came from. Booking.com is already collecting the review, so a platform guest gets the invitation back. A guest who came direct gets the review request. Both emails are written out, with where the address comes from.
Direct booking discount: how deep you can safely go
A direct booking discount stops paying for itself at about 12 to 13% off list once card fees are counted, or at about 30% if you also fund a platform loyalty discount. The three cases worked on one real stay, where the discount has to live so the platforms never read it, and why a US or Canadian property has to check its Booking.com parity clause before publishing one.
Airbnb host fees calculator: how to do the sum yourself
Most Airbnb hosts now pay one service fee of 15.5%, so multiply your nightly rate times the nights, plus cleaning and extra guest fees, by 0.845. Worked here on a $180 night, with the eleven things Airbnb says will move the money that finally lands, the Genius discount you fund on top at Booking.com, and what the same stay leaves you on your own site.
How to increase direct bookings for hotels, and what each step costs
A dollar of booking value moved from a platform to your own website is worth about twelve cents to you. Here is every step that moves it, with what each one costs to put in place and how much it has to return before it breaks even.
How to get more direct hotel bookings at a small hotel or B&B
More direct hotel bookings come out of four pieces of work: a site that can take dates and a card, a Google Business Profile filled in properly, reasons to come to you that have nothing to do with the rate, and the guests who already stayed. Then the arithmetic that says how deep your direct rate can go, and what sixteen booking systems publish about price.