How to work out your real cost per booking

You can probably price a trip to the dollar: guides, shuttle, gear, insurance. The other number, what it costs to get the booking in the first place, is slipperier. It hides across three separate bills that never show up on the same page. The good news: pinning it down takes one real booking, a calculator, and not much else.

Step 1: Pull one real booking

Pick a typical one from last season, say a $1,000 group trip that came in through a marketplace. It's tempting to reach for an average, but a real booking keeps the math honest. Averages have a way of flattering you.

Step 2: Add up the three costs riding on it

• Marketplace commission: if the booking came through an OTA like Viator or GetYourGuide, that's 20–30% of the fare. Call it $250 on our example.
• Card processing: roughly 3% of the charge, whoever sent the guest. About $30 here.
• Software subscription: take your monthly bill, multiply by twelve, divide by last year's booking count. That's the slice this booking carries, off-season months included.

Now add them up and divide by the fare. On the example booking you're near 30% — gone before you've paid a guide or fueled a shuttle. Your number will be different, but now it's a number, not a feeling.

Step 3: Split your bookings into strangers and returners

Here's where the number starts to move. Commission earns its keep on strangers: the marketplace introduced you, and paying for an introduction is fair. The expensive ones are the returners: last year's guest who rebooks through the same OTA, handing over another $250 introduction fee for someone who already knows the way to your put-in.

Step 4: Give the returners a direct path back

• Put your own booking link in every confirmation, receipt, and follow-up email, so when this year's guest plans next year's trip, your page is the one already in their inbox.
• Ask for the review, and the rebooking, on your own site rather than the marketplace's. Their next booking should build your reach, not rent someone else's.
• While you're at it, look at what the software slice costs you in January. A subscription bills the same whether you launched boats or shoveled the driveway; per-booking pricing only bills when you earned something.

Step 5: Re-run the math next season

Same exercise, one booking, ten minutes. If the percentage is falling, the direct paths are working. And you don't have to quit the marketplaces to get there. Plenty of great outfitters never do. Just make sure the guests you've already earned are booking the cheap way the second time.