Why guests book on the platform although they know your site
Many guests discover a house on Booking.com or Airbnb and then search its name on Google. At that moment your website decides whether the booking comes to you or goes back to the platform.
The platform answers three questions on one screen: is something free, what does it cost, can I cancel? Many hotel websites answer none of them at once. A direct booking website closes that gap, with your photos, your voice and your perks for direct bookers.
March
live
Double room, mountain view
12 to 15 March · 3 nights · 2 guests
Total incl. tourist tax
€468.00
What the website includes
Live availability
Free rooms, rates and minimum stays come from your channel manager or PMS in real time.
Booking in three steps
Dates, room, details and payment. No jump to a foreign page.
Perks for direct bookers
Breakfast, late check-out, flexible cancellation, shown wherever guests compare.
Fast on mobile
Pre-rendered pages and right-sized images, measured against Google’s thresholds after every update.
Structured data
House, rooms, amenities and FAQ in machine-readable form for search engines and AI assistants.
A CMS for your team
Open source, no licence per room. Rooms, offers and texts are yours to edit.
What a booking path has to get right
Most bookings are lost in the same three places. First, the calendar: if it is slow or shows rooms that are gone, the guest goes back to the platform and does not return. We ask your system for live availability and confirm it again at the payment step.
Second, the form: every extra field costs bookings. We ask for what the reservation needs and nothing more, with payment through Stripe, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, so returning guests pay in seconds.
Third, the moment after. The confirmation comes from your system in your wording, and the guest can see and change the reservation later without calling you. That is also where a pre-arrival message belongs, not a marketing newsletter.
What it costs and what it saves
The Hosts package starts at 4,900 euros once plus 149 euros a month, the House package for hotels at 18,000 euros once. There is no booking fee on your direct reservations and no licence per room, so the amount a guest pays reaches you minus your payment provider’s fee only.
Against that stands the platform commission on the same nights. A house with 105,000 euros of yearly revenue through platforms at a 15 per cent rate pays around 15,750 euros in commission; moving even a tenth of those nights to the direct channel pays for a large part of the running cost. Use the commission calculator with your own figures before you decide.
What a website cannot do is fill a house that nobody searches for. If your name is rarely typed into Google, invest in visibility first. The calculation only works once guests look for you by name.
How a project runs
Technical check
We measure load time, booking path and structured data of your current site.
Concept with fixed price
Structure, booking flow, integration, languages, timeline.
Design and build
Mobile first, connected to your system, tested with real bookings.
Launch and training
Domain move, redirects for every old address, training for your team.
Operation
Hosting, updates, monitoring of the integration and a monthly report.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a new channel manager?
Usually not. We connect systems with an open API such as Smoobu, Lodgify, Beds24, Hostaway, Apaleo or Mews.
May we be cheaper on our own website than on Booking.com?
Since Booking was designated a gatekeeper under the EU Digital Markets Act in 2024, it may no longer prevent that. Many houses still prefer perks over discounts.
Who owns the website?
You do. Domain, content and data remain yours, and the CMS is open source, so nothing forces you to stay with us.
How long does a project take?
Six to ten weeks for a house with a clear room structure: two weeks for concept and content, three to five for build and integration, one for testing and training. Houses with several languages, packages or seasonal rate plans take longer, and the time is spent on the rates, not on the design.
What do we have to provide?
Photos you own the rights to, current room and rate information, one person who decides, and about two hours a week during the build. If photography is missing we organise a shoot; texts we draft and you correct.
What happens to our current website and its rankings?
Every existing address gets a permanent redirect to its new place, so rankings and links carry over. We keep the old structure in a list, compare it against the new one before launch, and watch Search Console for the first weeks after.
Is a booking engine included or do we pay extra?
The booking path is part of the website. What you pay separately is your channel manager or PMS licence and the payment provider’s transaction fee, both directly to those providers, not to us.