Direct booking websites
Your branded booking site, your guests, your margin
Hostibly builds you a direct booking website on your own domain. Guests check dates, book and pay through your Stripe account, the booking lands in your calendar, and the dates block on Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com. You keep the margin the platform fees would have taken.
Keep listing on every major platform
- No FeesDirect bookings go straight to your own Stripe account
- Unified calendarSee all your bookings and track cleaning tasks in one place
- UnlimitedConnect as many calendars to your listings as you want
Airbnb fee savings calculator
See how much you could save each year by taking bookings directly instead of through Airbnb.
- Annual booking revenue
- $208,780
- Airbnb host fees
- $16,180
- Stripe fees on direct bookings
- $3,063
- Total fees
- $19,243
Annual savings compared with 100% Airbnb
Save $13,118
If every booking came through Airbnb, host fees would total $32,361 for the year.
The fee math, on a $3,000 week
Airbnb is moving every host to a single 15.5% service fee: software-connected US listings since October 2025, and all remaining non-EU hosts from 15 September 2026. Vrbo takes roughly 8%. A booking through your own site pays Stripe processing and nothing else, so the same guest is worth about $375 more to you.
| Where the guest books | What it costs you | On a $3,000 week |
|---|---|---|
| Airbnb, host-only fee | 15.5% | $465 |
| Vrbo, commission plus processing | about 8% | $240 |
| Your Hostibly site | 0% + Stripe processing | $0* |
* Plus Stripe processing fees.
Everything the site ships with
- A site on your own domain
- Your photos, branding and policies, hosted on a domain you own and control.
- An embeddable booking widget
- Already have a website? Drop the booking widget into any page and keep your design.
- Stripe checkout
- Guests pay by card through your own Stripe account. Money settles with you, not with us.
- A guest record, not a lead
- Every direct guest lands in your CRM with their full contact details and booking history.
- Automatic tax invoices
- The invoice issues and sends itself the moment the booking lands. No Sunday-night admin.
- Sync back to every channel
- Direct dates block Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com automatically through two-way iCal sync.
Your site can be live this week
Our team handles the website build with you: branding, listings, payments and channel sync. Most single-property sites can be ready within a week.
- 1
Send us your listings
Share your properties, photos, rates and house rules. Our setup team builds the pages for you, so you need no design or technical skills.
- 2
Connect your Stripe account
Payments run through your own Stripe account and settle directly with your bank. We set your rates, minimum stays and policies alongside it.
- 3
Start sharing your link
Publish to your domain, add the link to your OTA profiles and social accounts, and direct bookings start landing in the same calendar as your OTA reservations.
Hosts booking direct with Hostibly
We've booked over $50k directly through our website in eight months with Hostibly. Unsurprisingly, local businesses love booking directly because our prices are better, and we offer discounts for longer stays.
BrandonProperty Manager and CohostHostibly has made running my business a lot easier. The cleaner scheduling especially saves me a ton of time. Direct bookings have also helped me keep more repeat customers. It's nice not losing money to fees.
Daniel KingmaSuper HostI was a bit skeptical at first, but the setup service from Hostibly really delivered. All 14 listings were live in less than a month, and now my site genuinely reflects my brand and style.
Amy MorrisCohost
Direct booking questions
Need help? Contact us here
- How much does a direct booking website cost in fees?
- Hostibly charges no commission and no booking fee on direct bookings. Your only cost is the Stripe processing rate on the payment. For comparison, Airbnb has charged US hosts a 15.5% fee since October 2025, and Vrbo charges around 8% per booking. On a $3,000 week, that is roughly $465 in Airbnb host fees versus about $90 in Stripe processing when the guest books direct.
- Will guests actually book direct?
- The guests who convert best are the ones who already know you: repeat visitors, longer stays, and people arriving from your social profiles or Google Business listing. Travellers new to you mostly still start on the OTAs. That is why direct booking works as a margin strategy that runs alongside the platforms, and hosts who treat it that way see steady direct volume within a season.
- How do direct bookings stay in sync with Airbnb and Vrbo?
- Your Hostibly site and your OTA calendars share a two-way iCal feed. A direct booking blocks the dates on every channel, and OTA bookings block your site, so the same dates cannot sell twice. Each channel controls how often it pulls the feed, which is why we flag any overlap the moment we receive it.
- Who holds the payment, and when do I get paid?
- You do. Payments run through your own Stripe account, so funds settle to your bank account on Stripe's normal schedule. Hostibly never holds your money and takes no cut.
- Do direct guests get confirmation emails and invoices?
- Yes. A direct booking can automatically send the guest a confirmation email and a tax invoice with your business details, and the guest is added to your customer database with their full contact record.
- Is a direct booking website worth it for a single property?
- It can be. One listing with healthy repeat guests or long-stay bookings can win back meaningful commission within a season, because those guests already know where to find you. If your guests almost never return, the site still builds your brand and gives you a booking path the OTAs cannot throttle, but the payoff takes longer.
- Can I keep using Airbnb and Vrbo alongside it?
- Yes, and most hosts do. The OTAs remain your discovery engine for new guests, while your own site converts the repeat and referral traffic they generate. Calendar sync keeps both sides honest, and the fee comparison does the arguing for you.
Start booking direct this month.
Start your 14 day free trial of the Team plan. No card required, and our team builds your site, payments and channel sync with you.