A commission-free booking engine for small hotels, B&Bs and apartments on Beds24

What “commission-free” means, and what it doesn’t

Commission-free means the booking engine takes no percentage of each booking. You pay for the software, usually as a fixed subscription that does not grow with your revenue.

It does not mean free. You still pay:

• A subscription for the engine, unless it comes with software you already pay for.
• Payment fees: Stripe or PayPal charge theirs on every card payment.
• Your PMS: your Beds24 subscription carries on as before.
• Extras that some providers bill separately, such as setup or your own domain. On Beds24, your own domain without the Beds24 link is the Private Label option, and “a monthly fee will apply” (Beds24 wiki).

Nor does it touch OTA commissions: Booking.com, Airbnb or Expedia still charge theirs on the bookings they bring. You save only on guests who book on your own page instead.

Beds24 advertises its own widgets with “Commission free bookings from your web site” (Beds24). If you are on Beds24, commission alone is no reason to change booking engine. What your guests see is.

Flat fee vs commission: a worked example

A commission grows with every booking; a flat fee does not. This example uses hypothetical numbers, not data: an illustrative OTA commission of 15% on an illustrative stay of CHF 300. Your real commission depends on your contracts.

With these illustrative numbers, one booking a month moved from an OTA covers the CHF 29 plan, and two cover the CHF 49 plan. After that, each booking moved is a net saving, before payment fees.

To redo the sum with your own figures, be strict:

• Use your real commission rate and average stay value.
• Count only bookings that would otherwise have come through an OTA: a guest who would have booked direct anyway saves you nothing.
• Subtract the Stripe or PayPal fee on direct card payments.
• Leave out your Beds24 subscription: you pay it either way.

Comparing with an engine that takes a percentage per booking? Same sum: replace 15% with its rate.

A booking engine for small hotels and B&Bs on Beds24

Our booking page is made for small hotels, B&Bs, guesthouses and holiday apartments that run on Beds24 and want to stay there. It replaces only the page guests see when they click “Book now”.

Nothing moves out of Beds24:

• Prices and availability are read live from Beds24 on every search, so your discounts, minimum stays and closures apply as they are.
• Each booking is written into Beds24, and its channel manager closes the room on Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia and your other channels.
• You connect with a Beds24 invite code, and can revoke access at any time.

What changes is what your guests see:

• Real room names, beds, descriptions and photos in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. In Beds24, room names are often internal codes such as “XGL”.
• Several rates per room side by side, cheapest first.
• City tax added per person per night, so the total shown upfront is the total due.
• No empty lines: room types without a bookable rate, the cause of “No price found”, are left out, and you are told which ones.

Put it online as a hosted page behind your “Book now” buttons, as a two-line booking widget on your website, or with our WordPress plugin. More on our Beds24 booking engine.

Payments go to your own Stripe or PayPal

On our page, payment at booking is optional: a deposit (a percentage) or the full amount. The guest pays on the Beds24 payment page, with the Stripe or PayPal account set up in your Beds24 account.

• The money goes to your own Stripe or PayPal account.
• No card data ever goes through us.
• Stripe or PayPal charge their usual fees: the cost any commission-free booking engine leaves you with, ours included.

Pricing: from CHF 29 a month, no commission

Our pricing is a flat fee per property, excluding VAT, based on the rooms or units in Beds24. We count them automatically.

• Setup: included with the yearly plan. Otherwise, we set it up for you for CHF 200 per property, paid only when your page is live.
• Groups: -20% on each property from the third.
• Trial: a 30-day free trial without a credit card. You can cancel for the end of any month.

Commission-free booking engines compared

Three options, side by side:

Beds24’s own page is the baseline. Its widgets send guests to it to finish booking, and the official WordPress plugin “is free to use for all Beds24.com customers” (Beds24). You can also customize the Beds24 booking page in your settings.

A bundled engine comes with a PMS switch: new rates, new channel connections, new habits. Our guide to Beds24 booking engine alternatives weighs that route against the others.

A standalone engine replaces only the page guests book on. Beds24 documents how one connects: it reads price and availability, then enters the booking into Beds24, which “will automatically reduce the availability accordingly at all other booking channels” (Beds24 wiki). Before choosing one, ask:

• Are prices and availability read live, or copied once a day?
• Is every booking written into Beds24, so your channels close the room?
• Do payments go to your own Stripe or PayPal?
• What is the full price: subscription, setup, per-booking fees, own domain?
• What do guests see if the service is down? Ours sends them to your original Beds24 page.

Frequently asked questions