What Booking.com commission really costs an East African lodge

"Booking.com fills our rooms, but every month the invoice is bigger than I expected." If you run a lodge in the Mara, a guesthouse in Arusha or a beach hotel on Zanzibar, you may have said something like it.

You'll often see Booking.com commission quoted at around 15–25% of a booking. There's no single rate, though.

Booking.com's own help page on commission says the rate varies by country and can depend on your property type or location. So before you decide anything, find your own number.

Find your real commission rate

Your base rate is in the accommodation agreement you signed when you joined Booking.com. Your reservation statements in the extranet show what you actually paid on each stay. If those two numbers differ, you may be in a programme that adds commission in return for more visibility.

Booking.com's help pages name Genius, the Preferred Partner Programme and Visibility Booster as programmes that can push the percentage on your statement above the one in your contract. Each one costs you something in return for more visibility, so check which you've joined and whether it still earns its cost.

Check your last three statements line by line. If Booking.com also collects payment from guests on your behalf, look for any separate payments fee as well, and add it to the cost.

What commission adds up to over a year

Commission leaves your account one booking at a time, which makes it easy to underestimate. The sum is short: your average booking value, times the bookings that came through the platform, times your commission rate.

Here's a worked example with made-up numbers. Picture a twelve-room lodge on Lake Victoria with an average rate of $140 a night, stays of three nights and 40 bookings a month through Booking.com. Each booking is worth $420, and across a year that's 480 bookings.

• At 15%: $63 a booking, or $30,240 a year
• At 20%: $84 a booking, or $40,320 a year
• At 25%: $105 a booking, or $50,400 a year

Your numbers will differ, maybe a lot. A tented camp charging per person in high season pays far more per booking than a town guesthouse does. And a lodge with half its rooms on the platform pays on far fewer stays than one that sells everything there.

The free OTA commission calculator runs the same sum with your figures: average nightly rate, length of stay, monthly bookings from the platforms and the commission on your statement. It then shows what each share of those guests booking direct would be worth, at whatever share you choose to test. We won't tell you what share you'll win back, because nobody honestly can.

Costs that don't show on the invoice

The percentage is only part of it. If a guest who booked you through the platform comes back next year the same way, you pay commission again on the same guest.

Your agreement may also have terms about the prices you offer elsewhere. Read it before you advertise a lower rate on your own website. Extras give guests a reason to book direct without touching the rate: an airport transfer, a later check-out, a sundowner on the first night or a room held while they decide.

Tour operators earn a margin on your rates too, but they bring guests you'd never reach alone. Serving them well is a separate job, covered in your lodge website's two audiences.

What winning direct bookings takes

Direct guests cost something as well. You need a website that prices the stay and takes requests, a Google listing that sends people to it and someone who answers WhatsApp within hours. Weigh those costs against the commission figure you just worked out.

The website is the part guests judge first. It should show every room with its photos and its price for the guest's dates, list what's included and send a booking request straight to you. There's a room-by-room walk through this in what a direct-booking hotel website needs.

Google comes next. Guests who search your name often see your Google profile first, and if your own site isn't there with photos, reviews and a working link, they may tap the platform listing instead. Our guide on getting your hotel on Google Maps covers the listing and Google's free booking links.

Questions lodge owners ask

Can I leave the Preferred Partner Programme?

Booking.com's help pages say you can leave it from the extranet, and that your commission changes when you do. Before you leave, compare your bookings from the months you were in it with the months you weren't, so you know what the extra percentage bought.

Should I take my property off Booking.com?

For most hotels and lodges, no. The platform finds guests you'd never reach on your own, and dropping it before your site and Google listing bring in bookings risks empty rooms.

A better aim is to win back the guests who already know your name and make their second stay a direct one. Then track the share of direct bookings month by month.

Your next step

Once you know your own commission figure, see what a website built to win direct bookings looks like on our tourism and hospitality page.