How to calculate the cost of your booking platform

At first glance, booking platforms all look affordable. One might charge £40 per month. Another advertises “no monthly fee” but takes 5% commission. Some lure you in with a marketplace promising more customers.

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Comparing prices is messy. What looks cheap up front can end up costing you hundreds more once your booking volume grows. To make the right choice, you need to look past the marketing and calculate the total cost.

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Understand the pricing models

Most booking platforms use one of these models

• Flat monthly fee: A fixed subscription (e.g. £50–£150/month)
• Booking fee: A percentage of every booking (often 2–6%)
• Hybrid model: A monthly fee plus a booking fee
• Marketplace commissions: Extra fees (10–20%) if the booking comes through the platform’s own marketplace

Payment processing

Every booking platform has to process payments, and that comes with card network fees (Visa, Mastercard, Amex), payment provider charges (Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, etc.), and sometimes even cross-border or currency conversion costs.

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These charges are unavoidable, you’d pay them whether you run payments directly or through your booking system. Payment fees usually run between 1.5% and 3.5% of the booking value. That means if you take £10,000 in bookings in a month, £200–£350 will go straight to card processing before you see a penny.

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Even if a platform advertises “no booking fees,” the payment charges still apply. In some cases, providers bundle them into the headline commission rate to make comparisons harder. For a business running at tight margins, these fees make a huge difference. A 2% fee on £250,000 in annual bookings is £5,000, a cost that often gets overlooked when comparing platforms

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Test your business model

Let’s say you run paddleboard sessions. You average 500 bookings per month at £40 each.

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• Monthly booking platform fee: £50
• Per booking fee: 3% (500 × 40 × 0.03) = £600
• Payment fees: 2% (500 × 40 × 0.02) = £400

Total = £50 + £600 + £400 = £1,050/month. Compare that to a flat-fee system at £100/month, and you can see how quickly “low-cost” commission models become expensive. Don’t just calculate based on today’s numbers. Run the formula at 100, 500, and 1,000 bookings per month. That’s how you’ll see whether the platform scales with you or quietly eats into your margins as you grow.

Hidden costs

• Switching pain – Moving platforms later is difficult: migrating data, retraining staff, and reconnecting integrations all take time. Providers know this, which is why they make it cheap to start but expensive to scale
• Marketplace dependency – You may get extra bookings, but often at 10–20% commission. Worse, you risk losing direct customer relationships
• Seasonality – If your business is seasonal, commission-based fees will swing dramatically. A flat monthly fee might save you in peak season

Key take away

The price you think you’re paying for a booking platform is rarely the price you’ll actually pay. The smartest move is to calculate your true cost using your own booking volume. That way, you avoid surprises and choose a platform that supports your growth.

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Breezy integrates with trusted partners like RezKit, Eola, TrekkSoft, and Bike.rent Manager. Whatever platform you choose, Breezy helps you get more from it by turning customer enquiries into confirmed bookings without extra admin.

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For more on what to look for beyond price, see our guide to choosing the right booking platform.

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