Why pricing comparisons are misleading

At first glance, booking platforms appear very affordable.

• One charges £40 per month.
• Another advertises “no monthly fee” but takes a percentage of each booking.
• Some offer access to a marketplace that promises extra customers.

Each option can sound reasonable in isolation. The difficulty is that these pricing models behave very differently as your booking volume increases. What feels cheap at low volume can quietly become expensive once you are busy. This is the same strategy payment companies use. Comparing platforms purely on advertised price almost always leads to surprises later.

Understand the pricing models

Most booking platforms use one of these models

• Flat monthly fee: You pay a fixed subscription, typically somewhere between £50 and £150 per month, regardless of how many bookings you take
• Booking fee: The platform takes a percentage of each booking, often between 2% and 6%
• Hybrid model: A combination of a monthly fee plus a smaller per-booking commission
• Marketplace commissions: If the booking comes through the platform’s own marketplace rather than directly from your customers, an additional commission often applies, sometimes as high as 10–20%

Each model shifts risk differently. Flat fees favour high-volume businesses. Commission models favour low volume but scale poorly. Marketplaces can bring demand, but at the cost of margin and ownership of the customer relationship.

Payment processing is unavoidable

Every booking platform has to process payments. That means card network fees (Visa, Mastercard, Amex), payment provider charges (such as Stripe, Adyen or PayPal), and sometimes currency conversion or cross-border fees.

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These costs exist regardless of which platform you choose. Whether payments are handled “inside” the booking platform or externally, the fees are real. In practice, payment processing usually costs between 1.5% and 3.5% of the booking value. If you process £10,000 in bookings in a month, £200 to £350 will go straight to payment processing before you see any revenue.

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This matters because some platforms bundle these fees into their headline commission rate, while others list them separately. Either way, they reduce your margin. A 2% payment fee on £250,000 of annual bookings is £5,000. That is rarely highlighted in marketing material, but it is very real on your bank statement.

Test your business model

To understand the true cost, you need to run the numbers using your actual booking volume. Let’s say you run paddleboard sessions. You average 500 bookings per month at £40 each.

• 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 with a flat-fee platform charging £100 per month plus the same payment fees, and the difference becomes obvious. The key point is not which model is “best” in general. It is how each model behaves as your volume changes. A good exercise is to run the same calculation at 100, 500, and 1,000 bookings per month. That will show you whether a platform supports your growth or quietly penalises it.

Hidden costs

Some of the most important costs are indirect.

• Switching pain – Changing platforms later is rarely simple. Data migration, retraining staff, reconnecting integrations and updating customer flows all take time. Platforms know this, which is why many make it cheap to start as once you are locked in it is hard to leave
• Marketplace dependency – Marketplaces can bring bookings, but often at high commission. Over time, you may find you are paying to access customers you no longer fully own
• Seasonality – If your business is seasonal, commission-based pricing can swing wildly. A flat fee may feel expensive in quiet months but save you significantly during peak periods

These factors do not appear on pricing comparison tables, but they strongly affect your long-term cost. Include these considerations when you are selecting the right platform and pricing model for your business.

Key take away

The price you think you are paying for a booking platform is rarely the price you end up paying. The only reliable way to choose is to calculate the total cost using your own booking volume, payment fees, and growth expectations. Do this before you commit, not after you scale. A platform that looks slightly more expensive upfront may turn out to be far cheaper once your business is busy.

Why we are writing about this

We spend a lot of time talking to businesses that rely on booking platforms. A common pattern we see is frustration that appears months after a decision was made, not because the platform is broken, but because the real cost only became clear once volume increased.

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Pricing pages are not misleading by accident. They are designed to simplify a complex topic. The problem is that simplicity often hides the trade-offs that matter most as a business grows. At Breezy, we work alongside booking platforms. That gives us a clear view of how different pricing models behave in practice, not just in theory. We see where costs compound, where margins quietly erode, and where businesses feel locked in.

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Breezy integrates with trusted booking platform partners like RezKit, Eola, TrekkSoft, and Bike.rent Manager but writing about this is not about pushing a particular platform. It is about helping businesses make decisions with their eyes open. When you understand the true cost structure early, you are far less likely to regret it later. Better decisions upstream lead to healthier businesses downstream. That is the perspective we bring to topics like this.

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