The common build
A custom website. Hostaway still checks the guest out.
Your website
Hostaway hosted checkout
Booking-engine channel
1.8% Guest Channel Fee applies
For Hostaway Property Managers
Your guests are already paying the 1.8%. Who keeps it?
Hostaway’s hosted booking engine adds a Guest Channel Fee to eligible direct bookings. A true direct checkout can remove that Hostaway line entirely — then you decide whether to keep the margin or give it back to the guest.
- See what the fee may represent at your current booking volume
- Find out whether a custom checkout makes financial sense
- Understand the difference between a branded site and a true direct booking system
Five questions to put a real number on Hostaway's Guest Channel Fee.
Want the full picture?
Here’s exactly what changes.
The fee is useful because it proves the architecture is different. A custom-looking website that still hands checkout to Hostaway is not the same thing as owning the transaction from search to payment.
The SOL build
Your site owns the booking. Hostaway stays the PMS.
Your branded checkout
Your own Stripe account
Reservation created via API on a direct channel
Payment written back to Hostaway afterwards
Two ways to use it
Keep the margin. Or make direct cheaper.
If you keep the guest’s total price roughly the same, the economic value that used to go to Hostaway can become revenue for your management company. Or you can give it back to the guest and make direct booking more attractive. The important part is that you control the choice.
$9,000estimated annual Hostaway Guest Channel Fee at your current volume
$27,000over three years if volume stayed flat
Real portfolio reference
A nine-property luxury portfolio shows why the 1.8% is proof, not the whole pitch.
$4.2Mportfolio revenue
334reservations
$717.9Kthrough the booking engine
~$9–9.7Kannual fee opportunity
The 1.8% applies only to bookings already arriving through the Hostaway booking engine. The larger growth opportunity is moving more future demand from OTAs into a channel you own.
The bigger opportunity
The fee is the floor. Direct-booking growth is the upside.
Removing the Hostaway fee requires no guest behavior change on existing direct bookings. Moving Airbnb and Vrbo demand direct can be worth much more, but that takes a site built to convert plus the marketing around it: ads, content, email, remarketing and a reason to book direct.
Questions property managers usually ask
Do I have to leave Hostaway?
No. Hostaway remains the PMS for calendars, reservations and operations. The change is the guest-facing booking and payment layer.
Does any custom Hostaway website remove the 1.8%?
No. If the site still sends the guest into Hostaway’s hosted booking engine, the reservation is still created through that booking-engine channel. The architecture has to create a true direct-channel reservation instead.
Do I have to keep the 1.8%?
No. You can retain the economic value as your own fee/margin, reduce the guest price or split the difference. Tax treatment and disclosure of your own fee should be reviewed with your accountant and legal adviser.
What changes with payments?
The management company uses its own Stripe account and becomes merchant of record. That gives direct control of funds and refunds, but also means chargebacks and payment operations sit directly with the manager.
Is 1.8% always the right rate?
No. Hostaway pricing can vary by account, market, plan or contract. The calculator uses 1.8% unless you tell it otherwise and the rate should be verified against the prospect’s own checkout before making a final ROI claim.
Want to talk through what this could look like for your portfolio?
Book a 30-minute call with me. We can look at your setup, your booking volume and whether a more direct checkout is worth exploring.