What getting booked actually costs you
Commissions, subscriptions, card fees — every booking arrives with a cost attached. Here's how to find your real number, and how to shrink it.
Ask an outfitter what a trip costs to run and you'll get a sharp answer — guides, shuttles, gear, insurance. Ask what a booking costs to get, and the room goes quiet. The money leaks out in three different places, and each leak looks small until you add them up over a season.
The three ways you pay
- Marketplace commission: 20–30% of the fare when a booking comes through an OTA.
- Software subscription: a flat monthly fee that bills in January exactly like it bills in July.
- Card processing: a few percent on every charge, no matter who sent the guest.
None of these is unreasonable on its own. The trouble starts when you're paying all three at once and nobody has done the math on a real booking.
Do the math on one real trip
Take a $1,000 group booking that came through a marketplace: $250 or so in commission, card fees on top, and a slice of the month's software bill. That trip can hand back a third of its revenue before anyone puts on a PFD.
Marketplaces rent you guests
OTAs are genuinely good at one thing: putting your trips in front of strangers. Paying for an introduction can be worth it. But when last year's guest books again through the same marketplace, you just paid a finder's fee for someone who already knows the way to your put-in.
Make the second booking direct
- Put your own booking link on every confirmation, receipt, and follow-up email.
- Ask for the review — and the rebooking — on your page, not the marketplace's.
- Favor software that earns when you do; a monthly fee running through the off-season is the quietest cost on this list.
You don't have to quit the marketplaces. You just have to stop paying introduction prices for guests you already earned.