Home · Direct-booking websites
Direct booking
Direct-booking websites that pay for themselves
The OTAs take 15 to 18% of every booking and keep your guest data. We build direct-booking websites for small hotels, B&Bs, guest houses, and Airbnb hosts, so guests book with you, you keep the commission, and you own the relationship. From £500.
The commission math
A direct-booking site pays for itself in weeks, not years.
Here is the arithmetic every host and small hotelier already feels every time a payout lands short. The OTAs are useful for being found. They are expensive for guests who already know you.
15 to 18%
Typical OTA commission on every booking. On a £120 room that is £18 to £22 gone per night, before Airbnb’s guest-side fees inflate your price too.
£2k to £8k
What a property doing 15 to 30 bookings a month hands the OTAs every year. Your whole website costs less than a single quarter of that.
6 to 10 stays
Roughly what it takes for a £500 Starter site to pay for itself in saved commission. Every direct booking after that is margin you keep.
Keep the OTAs for discovery. Win the repeat guest, the direct booker, and the word-of-mouth referral onto a site you own. That is the whole job.
Why direct
Four reasons a direct booking beats an OTA booking
Online travel agents are useful for being discovered. They are a bad deal for every booking after the first.
- You keep the margin. No 15 to 18% commission skimmed off the top of every stay.
- You own the guest. Their email and booking history are yours, so you can market the rebooking.
- You own the data. Not locked inside a platform that can change its rules or rankings overnight.
- You control the experience. Your brand, your photos, your packages, your prices, no rate-parity handcuffs.
What ships with every build
Bespoke design, booking engine integration, and direct-booking tracking.
Every build ships hospitality-fluent. These six are in the scope of every band, from Independent to Group.
Bespoke design system
Photography-led design tuned to the property. Not a template.
Booking engine integration
Cloudbeds, SiteMinder, Mews, Little Hotelier, WebRezPro, RoomRaccoon, Guestline.
Rate calendar UX
Seasonal calendars that don’t fight the guest picking dates.
Package builder
Room + F&B + spa bundles the property can edit without a developer.
GA4 + booking funnel tracking
Custom events on room view, rate select, guest details, confirmation.
Mobile-first performance
Core Web Vitals pass on 4G mobile. LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms.
Pricing, up front
Direct-booking sites from £500. Every quote in writing.
Built for smaller properties: Airbnb and short-let hosts, B&Bs, guest houses, and small independent hotels. No mandatory retainer. You own the site, the domain, and every guest record from day one.
Starter
Airbnb hosts & single lets
from £500
- 3 to 5 page direct-booking website
- One property or listing
- Direct enquiry + booking (connect your existing tool, or a simple availability and deposit request)
- Mobile-first, fast, on your own domain
- Basic on-page SEO + Google setup
- You own the site, the guest data, and every booking
2 to 3 week build. Fixed price if you meet the Starter criteria.
Growth
B&Bs & guest houses
from £1,500
- 6 to 12 page semi-custom website
- Multiple room or rate types + availability calendar
- Booking engine integration (Little Hotelier, Cloudbeds, and others) or direct booking
- Package and extras builder
- GA4 + booking event tracking
- 3 months support included
3 to 5 week build.
Pro
Small independent hotels
from £3,500
- Fully bespoke design system
- Full booking engine integration + direct-booking CRO
- Seasonal rates, multi-room, package builder
- GA4 + GTM booking funnel tracking
- On-page hotel SEO at launch
- 6 months support included
6 to 10 week build.
Larger or multi-property build? We still do those, scoped after a discovery call. But this shop is built for smaller properties that want off the OTAs, not 200-room chains.
FAQs
Common questions.
Is WordPress the right stack for a hotel?
For 90% of independent hotels, boutique properties, B&Bs, and small groups, yes. WordPress with Elementor gives your marketing coordinator control without needing a developer. Enterprise groups on Opera or custom PMS/CRS stacks get scoped separately.
Can you integrate our existing booking engine?
Almost certainly. Cloudbeds, SiteMinder, Mews, Little Hotelier, WebRezPro, RoomRaccoon, and Guestline are the majors we ship regularly. If you’re on something more unusual, tell us on the discovery call and we’ll say honestly whether it’s viable.
Do you take a commission on our booking engine choice?
No. Vendor-agnostic is the whole point. We don’t take reseller commission from any booking engine, PMS, or CRS. If your existing engine is wrong for the property, we’ll say so.
What direct-share uplift can we realistically expect?
For independent hotels, bespoke web + integration + on-page CRO typically shifts direct share from around 35% to around 50% in year one. This is the honest number. It is not OTA replacement.
Do we have to take the support plan?
No. The support plan is optional and cancel any time. £150 per property per month for Independent, £350 for Boutique, £800 for Group. Backups, updates, uptime, booking engine health, monthly analytics readout.
What about ongoing hotel SEO?
On-page hotel SEO ships at launch with every build. Ongoing SEO retainer goes to our sister brand Marketing The Change. Different job, different specialist.
Do you own our site after launch?
You do. IP transfers on final payment. If you want to move host later, we’ll help you migrate at no extra cost within the first 12 months.
Talk to us about your hotel website.
Reply within one working day. Preliminary proposal in writing. Discovery call is 30 minutes, no hard sell.