Free tool
Direct Booking vs OTA Savings Calculator
See what OTA commission costs your hotel each year, what you keep from an OTA booking compared with a direct one, and what moving a few points of business to direct is worth. The break-even figure shows how much you can spend to win a direct booking before it nets less than the OTA.
Estimated annual gain from the shift
£22,251
Moving 5% of room nights (300 nights, about 120 bookings) from OTAs to direct adds £185.42 of net room revenue per booking.
Your direct bookings have no marketing, booking engine or per-booking costs entered, so the direct figures are flattering. Use the break-even figure below to judge what you can afford to spend.
OTA commission per year
£107,892
Break-even marketing per direct booking
£185.42
Net per OTA booking
£922.50
Net per direct booking
£1,107.93
You could spend up to £185.42 (16.5% of the booking value) on marketing to win a direct booking before it nets less than the same booking through an OTA.
| Item | OTA | Direct |
|---|---|---|
| Room revenue ADR × nights | £1,125.00 | £1,125.00 |
| OTA commission | -£202.50 | £0.00 |
| Metasearch and marketing | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Booking engine fee | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Other per-booking costs | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Card fees | £0.00 | -£17.08 |
| Net room revenue | £922.50 | £1,107.93 |
| Distribution cost % of room revenue | 18% | 1.5% |
| Bookings OTA / direct and other | 533 / 1,867 |
|---|---|
| OTA commission | £107,892 |
| OTA channel cost commission plus card fees you pay | £107,892 |
| Direct channel cost incl. discounts, if all non-OTA bookings carried it | £31,882 |
| Gain from the shift | £22,251 |
An estimate. It assumes the shifted guests would have booked anyway and pay the same rate, and it leaves out fixed costs such as your website and booking engine subscription.
How the calculation works
- Bookings. Room nights ÷ average nights per booking. Each booking is worth ADR × nights.
- OTA booking. The booking value less the OTA commission, and less card fees if you take the guest’s payment.
- Direct booking. The booking value less any direct-booking discount, then less metasearch and marketing, the booking engine fee, other per-booking costs such as perks, and card fees.
- The shift. The percentage points you move from OTA to direct, turned into bookings, multiplied by the difference between the two net figures.
- Break-even. The marketing spend per direct booking at which the direct booking nets exactly what the OTA booking does.
What the tool doesn’t do
- It doesn’t split VAT or local taxes out of the room rate. Enter the ADR on the same basis your OTA commission is charged.
- It leaves out fixed costs such as your website, booking engine subscription and channel manager, which you pay whatever the mix.
- It assumes moved guests would have booked anyway at the same rate. It doesn’t model the extra demand OTAs bring, cancellations or ancillary spend.
- It doesn’t use live rates or comment on OTA contract terms.
Questions & answers
How much commission do hotels pay OTAs?
Booking.com and Expedia don’t publish a standard rate: it is set in each hotel’s contract and shown in the extranet. Industry sources commonly cite 15% to 30% or more, and optional visibility programmes add to the base rate. Enter your own contracted rate, including any programme uplift, for an accurate result.
What share of hotel bookings come through OTAs?
HOTREC’s European Hotel Distribution Study puts the average OTA share at 29.6% of overnight stays in 2023, up from 19.7% in 2013, with direct channels at 50.9%. Five-star hotels in the sample reported a lower OTA share, 22.2%. Shares vary widely by country, size and location.
Is a direct booking always cheaper than an OTA booking?
Not always. A direct booking carries its own costs: metasearch and paid search, booking engine fees, card processing, and any member discount or perk you offer. If those add up to more than the OTA commission, the direct booking nets less. The break-even figure shows how much marketing you can spend per direct booking before that happens.
How should I work out my metasearch cost?
Divide what you spent on Google Hotel Ads, Tripadvisor and paid search over a period by the direct room revenue those campaigns brought in. Google Hotel Ads now bids on cost per click or target return on ad spend, so a cost per booking is something you calculate from your own results rather than a published rate.
Does it matter whether the OTA or the hotel takes payment?
Yes, a little. On pay-at-hotel bookings you take the guest’s card and pay the processing fee as well as the commission. On prepaid bookings the OTA collects payment and pays you, although virtual cards can also carry fees. For reference, Stripe lists 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards; hotels often have negotiated blended rates.
Does shifting OTA bookings to direct lose me business?
It can. The calculator assumes the guests you move would have booked with you anyway, at the same rate. In practice OTAs also bring guests who might not otherwise find you, so treat the gain as the best case for bookings that genuinely switch channel.
Sources & data
Every figure this tool uses by default is listed here with where it came from and when we last checked it. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
- OTA share of hotel overnight stays in Europe (2023)HOTREC study, executive summary: OTA share rose “from 19.7% in 2013 to 29.6% in 2023”; direct channels account for “50.9 % of overnight stays”. Segment table (p. 100): OTA share 22.2% for 5-star hotels. Survey of over 3,000 European hotels, reference year 2023, published June 2024. Self-reported survey data, weighted; shares vary widely by country, size and location (city hotels rely more on OTAs).
- Typical OTA commission paid by hotelsBooking.com and Expedia do not publish a standard hotel commission rate: it is set by contract and shown in each property’s extranet. Cloudbeds (a hotel software vendor) says “the average commission rate ranges from 15% to 30%+”. Optional visibility programmes (for example Booking.com’s Preferred Partner programme) are widely reported to add a few percentage points, but we found no official published figure. The HOTREC 2024 study records widespread complaints about high commission rates but gives no average. Use the rate on your own contract.
- Metasearch and paid search cost per direct bookingNo reliable published benchmark: the cost depends on your bids, market and conversion rate. Google Hotel Ads now offers Target ROAS, Enhanced CPC, Manual CPC and CPC% bidding for hotel campaigns; Google has sunset the commission-based strategies (Commissions per stay and per conversion). Work out your own cost as a share of the direct booking revenue it brings in (ad spend ÷ attributed revenue).
- Example card processing fee: Stripe, standard UK cardsStripe UK pricing page: “1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards”; 2.5% + 20p for EEA cards and 3.15% + 20p for international cards, plus 2% if currency conversion is required. Premium and corporate cards cost more. One published processor’s list price, used as an example: hotel acquirers often negotiate blended rates, so enter your own.
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