A share of every booking adds up fast in a good season
Your booking system charges on each reservation made through your own website. That is a different charge from the commission a marketplace takes, and it is the one you can do something about.
What a tour or activity business usually rents
The core is a booking system. Around it sit tools for the paperwork and the people.
Percent-of-booking pricing rises when you do well
A share of each booking grows in two ways at once. Fill more seats and it rises. Put your prices up to cover fuel, wages or insurance and it rises again, although nothing about the software changed. The fee is tied to your revenue, not to what it costs the vendor to serve you.
Operators are seasonal, so the charge concentrates in the weeks when cash matters most. If the fee is passed to the guest instead, it shows up as a higher total on the final step of checkout.
There is a simple way to see your own number. Take last season's direct booking revenue from your reports and apply your booking system's rate to it. Keep marketplace commission out of the sum. It is a separate charge and it buys something different.
What we rebuild for an operator
- A booking flow on your own siteLive availability by departure, private and shared options, child and group pricing, and add-ons such as transfers or equipment hire.
- Manifests and assignmentsWho is on each departure, which guide and which vehicle or boat, with a daily sheet staff can open on a phone.
- Waivers tied to the bookingEach guest signs from a link before arrival, and the manifest shows who has not.
- Weather cancellations and rebookingCancel a departure once and offer every affected guest a new date, a credit or a refund according to your policy.
- Vouchers and returning guestsGift vouchers sold and redeemed in the same system, and a list of past guests you can contact directly.
What stays rented, on purpose
- Marketplaces and online travel agenciesTheir commission pays for reach you do not have on your own. Keep them as channels. Where a channel offers a way to connect, we build to it, and where it does not, its bookings are entered the way you enter them today.
- Card processingThe processor's charge is the same whichever system creates the booking.
- Mandated safety or permit systemsIf a port authority, park service or regulator requires manifests or permits through its own system, that remains the record of truth for them.
Direct bookings and marketplace bookings are different money
It helps to separate three charges that tend to blur into one. Marketplace commission buys distribution: a stranger found your tour because the marketplace put it in front of them. Card processing buys the ability to take a payment. The booking system's fee on your own website bookings buys software, for a customer who was already on your site.
Only the third is replaceable, and it is usually charged on your best customers: repeat guests, referrals and people who searched for you by name. That is why the first question we ask is how your bookings split between direct and marketplace.
Questions operators ask
Will we lose our marketplace bookings?
No. The marketplaces stay as channels and nothing about your listings changes. What changes is the system behind your own website and your daily operations.
How do we avoid double bookings across channels?
One availability calendar has to be the record of truth, and every channel reads from it. Where a marketplace can be connected, availability updates automatically. Where it cannot, we keep an allocation for that channel so it never sells seats your website has already sold.
When is the right time to switch for a seasonal business?
In the shoulder season, with the new system running beside the old one on a few departures first. Nobody should change booking systems in peak weeks. You get a date with your quote so you can plan around your calendar.
Can guests still sign waivers on their phones?
Yes. The waiver is part of the booking, sent by link, and the guide's manifest shows who has and has not signed before the group sets off.
From the blog, for tour and activity operators
- Percent-of-revenue software pricing, explainedSeptember 25, 2026 · How percent-of-revenue software pricing works, why the fee grows with your prices and volume, and how to turn the share into a yearly figure.
- Is it cheaper to build or buy software for a small business?September 21, 2026 · Build or buy depends on how the rent scales and how much of the product you use. How to compare over three years, and the costs both sides forget.
Keep reading
Tell us what your booking system takes
The rate on direct bookings, your add-on subscriptions, and how your bookings split by channel.
Hiro costs about a tenth of what you pay now, quoted against your own bill. Hosting, fixes and changes included, and no per-seat fees.