Direct booking sites for UK properties
Your website should take the booking. Most don't.
I'm a London short-let host who got tired of paying commission on guests who already knew my name — so I built my own direct-booking site. Now I build them for other independent properties. From £500, live in about a week.
Three ways a small property loses a direct booking
The button goes nowhere.
Plenty of small properties already pay for a booking engine — SiteMinder, Little Hotelier, Beds24 — and still send every guest to an OTA, because no button on their own site actually reaches it. The engine is paid for. It just isn't connected.
The platform keeps the guest.
Booking.com's headline commission is around 15%, but Preferred Partner, Genius and visibility bidding push the effective rate to 17–22% for most independent UK properties. Taking the same booking on your own site costs roughly 1.5% + 20p in card processing.
The site was built to be looked at.
Most brochure sites were made before phones mattered: slow, no live rates, no availability, no way to pay. A guest who wanted to book direct gives up and goes back to the app.
The numbers
What the platforms cost you in a year
Paid to platforms each year
£3,142
The same nights taken direct would cost about £288 in card fees.
This isn't an argument for leaving Booking.com. It's an argument for owning the guests who were already going to book you.
See what a direct booking site costs →
Pricing
Published, because you shouldn't have to sit through a call to find out.
Fix
£500
A booking engine you already pay for that guests can't reach
- ·Audit of the current booking path
- ·Engine reconnected and exposed properly on the site
- ·Working, tested booking button on every page
- ·Mobile check
Delivery: 1–2 working days
Enquire →Direct Booking Site
£1,500
One property, done properly
- ·Custom design
- ·Your photography, edited and sequenced
- ·Rates and availability visible
- ·Calendar
- ·Stripe checkout in your name
- ·Local SEO · Google Business Profile connected
- ·Analytics
Delivery: About a week
Enquire →Direct Booking Plus
£2,750
Several rooms or room types
- ·Everything in Direct Booking Site
- ·Multiple room pages
- ·All copywriting written for you
- ·Photo direction (shot list, and what to retake)
- ·Area and things-to-do content
Delivery: Two weeks
Enquire →Care Plan
£55/mo
Keeping it working after launch
- ·Hosting
- ·Updates and security
- ·Small changes each month
- ·Checkout monitoring so a broken payment never goes unnoticed
Delivery: Ongoing, cancel any time
Enquire →Why £1,500 and not £4,000
Published UK guides put a custom site for an independent property at £4,000–£8,000, a template one at £1,000–£2,500 before you add booking, and booking-engine integration alone at £2,000–£6,000. Freelance day rates sit at £300–£400. At £1,500 all in, a full week of work comes out at the common UK day rate — not below it, and not padded.
The difference is that I'm early. I don't have ten jobs to show you yet, and the first properties I work with are taking that on with me. That's priced in. It won't stay this way once the portfolio fills.
All prices exclude VAT where applicable. 50% to start, 50% on launch. You own the site, the code, the domain and the Stripe account from day one.
One property so far — and it's mine
I built westlondonstays.co.uk for my own studio flat in Hammersmith, because I was tired of paying commission on guests who had already found me. It works, it takes bookings, and you can go and look at it right now. If you want an agency with thirty hotels in the portfolio, I'm not it — and that's why this costs £1,500 instead of £4,000. What you get is someone who has actually solved this problem for himself, not an account manager.
Work
One, and it's mine.
West London Stays
Hammersmith, W6
A studio flat in West London, listed on Airbnb and booked direct through its own site. Built on long stays — 7, 14, 28, 60 and 90 nights — for remote workers, contractors and people relocating to London, because that's the guest this flat actually suits.
- ·Direct booking with Stripe checkout
- ·Rates and minimum stays priced by length of stay
- ·Positioned for long stays rather than weekend tourism
- ·Runs alongside the Airbnb listing, not instead of it
“I built it for my own flat first. Everything I sell is something I already run.”Visit westlondonstays.co.uk →
Concepts
Concepts, built to show how I work. Flamingo was created for a client I know personally.
Table booking concept for a restaurant on the Manfredonia marina.
Direct booking concept for a five-room B&B above Fowey harbour.
Table booking concept for a late-night London cocktail bar.
How it works
Booking check — free.
Send me your site. I go through it the way a guest would, on a phone, and tell you exactly where the booking path breaks. You get that whether or not you hire me.
Scope and fixed price.
One of the four options above. No hourly billing, no scope creep, no surprise invoice.
Build, review, launch.
You see it on a real URL before it goes live, you get one round of changes, and it launches with the checkout tested end to end with a real card.
NOX Studio is me.
I host a studio flat in Hammersmith and run its direct bookings myself, which is how I learned what actually makes a guest book on your site instead of an app: visible rates, a real calendar, a checkout that works on a phone, and nothing in the way.
I work with a small number of properties at a time, so the work stays mine rather than something I hand off.
Questions
Do I have to leave Booking.com?+
No, and I wouldn't advise it. The platforms are good at putting you in front of people who've never heard of you. They're just expensive for the guests who already have. Keep them for discovery, and stop paying commission on the repeat stays and the name searches.
I already pay for a booking engine.+
Then you probably need the £500 Fix, not a new site. If your engine works and guests simply can't reach it, I'll say so and charge you £500 instead of £1,500.
How many properties have you done this for?+
I'm early. I built and run my own — West London Stays in Hammersmith — and the properties I work with now are getting first-client pricing because of exactly that. I'd rather tell you that than invent case studies.
Who owns everything?+
You do, from day one: the domain, the code, the Stripe account, the Google Business Profile. Nothing is rented from me. If you stop the Care Plan, the site stays yours and keeps running.
How do payments reach me?+
Stripe, in your name. Guests pay you directly, money lands in your account, and card processing is roughly 1.5% + 20p per transaction.
What if my photos aren't good?+
The £1,500 build works with what you have, and I tell you precisely which three or four shots are worth retaking on a phone. The £2,750 build includes full photo direction.
Free booking check
Send me your site. I'll tell you what's broken.
A free booking check: I go through your booking path on a phone and send you a short written breakdown of where guests drop out. No call required, no obligation.