If those stays come through the portal
Booking value—
Portal commission—
Card processing—
You receive—
Savings calculator
What would direct booking actually leave you?
Not our example — your rate, your booked nights and your portal's cut. The card fee and our own monthly fee are subtracted, because a number that leaves those out is a sales pitch, not a calculation.
If they come through your own site
Booking value—
Website commission$0
Card processing (2.9 % + $0.30)—
Our fee—
You receive—
—
more in your account per year, after our fee and after the card fees.
- Direct bookings a year
- —
- What you pay us
- —
- Pays for itself after
- —
- From year two
- —
What is in the number
Every assumption, written down
A calculator that hides its assumptions can produce whatever number it likes. Here are ours, including the ones that work against us.
What we subtract
Our own fee comes off the total
The setup fee lands in the first year and the monthly fee in every year. Both are taken off the direct-booking column before we call anything a saving. So is the card fee, which you pay on a direct booking exactly as you do on a portal one — it goes to the payment processor, never to us.
Airbnb
The guest-side fee is real money, just not on your statement
Airbnb charges the host around 3 % and the guest around 14 %. Enter 3 % if you only want what leaves your payout, or around 17 % if you want the whole take — because the guest fee is money that comes out of what your listing can charge. Both are defensible; we just won't pick for you.
What the portals still do
We are not telling you to leave them
The portals bring guests who have never heard of you, and that is worth paying for. The share you set above is only the part you could take direct anyway: people who came back, were told about you, or looked you up by name. Those are the bookings you should not be paying 15 % for.
What we do not count
No made-up upside
No extra bookings because the website is nicer, no higher rates, no "SEO uplift". The calculation only moves bookings you already get from one channel to a cheaper one. If the site does bring extra bookings — and it usually brings some — that is on top and not in this number.
Not tax advice and not an offer. Lodging tax, cleaning fees and any local licence cost are left out on both sides, because they are the same either way. The domain (about $12 a year) is paid by you to the registrar. Prices are in US dollars.