Direct-Booking Calculator
See exactly what you hand the booking platforms in fees every year — and how much you would keep by shifting even a fraction of your nights to direct bookings.
The OTAs earn their fee — they bring you demand. But once a guest has stayed once, paying a platform to reach them again is money you do not have to spend. This shows what your current fees add up to, and what a direct channel would keep in your pocket.
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored. Fee rates checked against the platforms' own help pages, July 2026. Want the Airbnb-specific breakdown, including what your guests pay on top? Use the Airbnb fee calculator.
How the math works
Gross bookings are your average nightly rate times the nights you book in a year. The platform fee is what your main channel charges the host. The savings table assumes that when a booking comes to you direct, you still pay roughly 3% in card processing — so the amount you keep is the platform host fee minus that 3%, applied to the share of nights you move direct.
Two honest caveats. First, if you are on the Airbnb split fee (about 3% to the host), most of the cost actually sits on the guest side as a service fee — direct booking lets you drop the guest price or keep that margin yourself, which this simple model does not count. Second, a direct channel is not free: it takes a website, a little marketing, and the effort of turning one-time guests into repeat ones. That is the work we do — but it is real work, not a switch you flip.
See how we build direct-booking sites that actually convert repeat guests.
Reading the table like an operator
The rows are shares of nights you already book — not new demand. The 20%, 30%, and 50% lines answer one question: if this many of your existing nights had come through your own website instead of the platform, what would you have kept? That framing matters, because it means the savings require no growth at all. Same guests, same calendar, different checkout page.
The honest cost of direct is about 3%, plus effort. Card processing is the visible cost. The invisible ones are a website that can actually take a booking, the discipline of collecting guest emails, and a post-stay follow-up that gives people a reason to come back direct. None of that is free — but all of it is front-loaded, while the fee spread repeats every year you operate.
On the Airbnb split fee, read the caveat. If you pay the 3% split fee, the calculator will show a thin saving — because on that structure most of the platform's cut sits on your guests as a service fee. Direct booking still helps you there, just differently: you can price below what guests pay all-in on the platform and keep the difference. Run the Airbnb fee calculator to see the guest-side number.
What to do with your number
1. Price the build against the savings. Read the direct-booking website playbook for what a real direct channel involves, then look at how Cavmir builds them. If your five-year fee number is a multiple of the build cost — and for most established listings it is — the spread is paying for the site several times over.
2. Make sure the listing itself converts. Direct traffic lands on your website; platform traffic lands on your listing. Both need to be strong, because guests cross-shop. The free grader scores both sides in a couple of minutes.
3. Start the repeat-guest flywheel now. Every departing guest is a future direct booking you either capture or hand back to the platform. Our guides on getting more direct bookings and vacation rental email marketing cover the follow-up sequence that turns one stay into three.
Direct-booking questions, answered
How much do OTA fees cost a host per year?
Multiply your gross bookings by your platform's host fee. At the calculator's defaults — $250 a night and 200 booked nights, or $50,000 gross — Airbnb's 15.5% host-only fee is $7,750 a year, and about $38,750 over five years at flat volume. Your number moves with your rate, your nights, and your fee structure, which is exactly what the calculator is for.
Is 100% direct booking realistic?
For most operators, no — and chasing it is usually a mistake. The platforms are unmatched at putting your property in front of strangers. The realistic play is a mix: keep the OTAs for discovery, then move repeat guests, referrals, and search traffic to your own site. Even 20 to 30% of nights booked direct changes the annual math meaningfully.
What does a direct booking actually cost me?
About 3% in card processing on the payment itself, plus the real costs the calculator does not count: a website that can take bookings, a little ongoing marketing, and the effort of collecting guest emails and following up. Those costs are front-loaded — the website is built once, while the fee spread repeats on every direct night for as long as you operate.
Where do the first direct bookings come from?
Past guests are the easiest win — they already trust the property, so a post-stay email with a book-direct reason gets real conversions. After that: your Google Business Profile, your social bios, a card in the welcome book, and search traffic to your website. Discovery of brand-new guests stays mostly with the platforms; direct is where the relationships you have already paid for become repeat revenue.
