Every booking through Airbnb costs you 15.5% in host fees. On a property generating £20,000 per year, that is £3,100 going to Airbnb for the privilege of being listed. A direct booking website lets guests book with you directly, cutting the platform out. This article compares the options: platform-built websites, bespoke direct booking systems, and the booking volume at which each pays for itself.
Online travel agencies (OTAs) charge commission on every booking. As of April 2026, Airbnb charges a flat 15.5% host fee on all bookings (replacing the previous split-fee model). Booking.com charges a flat 15%. Vrbo charges about 5%.
A direct booking bypasses the OTA entirely. The guest books on your own website and pays you. Stripe takes about 1.4% and 20p for each payment. You keep the rest. No commission. No platform taking a cut of your revenue.
The trade-off is that OTAs bring you visibility. Guests search Airbnb and find your property. A direct booking website only works if guests know it exists. Direct booking must therefore work next to your listings, and not replace them. Let the listing sites bring you new guests. Then bring the ones who return, and the ones they send you, to your own site.
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Several holiday let management platforms include a website builder:
| Platform | Website Quality | Cost | Payment Processing | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lodgify | Good (template-based, customisable) | From £16/month | Stripe integration | Templates can look similar to other Lodgify sites. Limited design control. |
| Bookster | Moderate (widget-based) | From ~£26/month | Stripe integration | Booking widget embedded on your own site rather than a full website builder. |
| Bookalet | Basic | From £115/year | Stripe / PayPal | Simple booking calendar. Limited design options. |
| Smoobu | Basic | From ~£26/month | Stripe integration | Functional but not visually distinctive. |
Platform-built websites get you live quickly at low cost. The drawback is how it looks. Your site will look like a template. That works against the feel a higher-priced property must give. For properties charging £200+ per night, the website needs to match the experience.
A bespoke booking website is built specifically for your properties. It handles:
A bespoke direct booking system typically costs £8,000-£18,000 as a one-off investment. There are no monthly platform fees and no booking commissions. You pay only Stripe's payment processing fee (1.4% + 20p per UK card transaction).
The fee is high because leaving is hard, and leaving is hard for a reason worth naming.
The platform holds your calendar, your guest history and your reviews, in its own form. Take your listing away and you take none of that with you. The guest who booked twice is their record, not yours. That is what a commission is really priced against.
A direct booking site is the first step out. The second is owning the data behind it. When a property, a night, a booking and a guest are declared once, with permanent identifiers, a listing site becomes one channel among several. You can add a channel, or drop one, without rebuilding anything.
We explain that market in what does an interoperable software market look like. We give the cost of a system of your own in what does it cost to own and run your own systems.
| Scenario | Annual Revenue | OTA Commission (15%) | Direct Booking Saving | Bespoke Payback Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 property, moderate bookings | £15,000 | £2,325 | If 30% book direct: £700/year saved | 12-18 months (at £8,000 build cost) |
| 2 properties | £35,000 | £5,425 | If 30% book direct: £1,625/year saved | 5-10 months |
| 5 properties | £80,000 | £12,400 | If 40% book direct: £4,960/year saved | 2-4 months |
Take a careful figure of 30% direct bookings. A system of your own then pays for itself in the first year, if you have two properties or more. The key variable is how effectively you drive returning guests and referrals to your own website rather than back to Airbnb.
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