Direct bookings, answered plainly.

A direct booking is a stay a guest books with you, on your own website or by contacting you, rather than through a third-party marketplace. You hold the guest relationship, the payment and the guest's contact details, and no commission is deducted from the stay.

Once host fees and guest service fees are counted together, most short-stay listings give up somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the total booking value. The exact split depends on the platform and the fee structure you are on, so check your own payout statements rather than a headline percentage.

Yes, and that is how we build every project. Your existing listings keep running exactly as they are while the direct channel is built beside them. Nothing gets paused or switched off, and you decide later whether to reduce your reliance on marketplaces.

Running your own website is normal and allowed. What platforms restrict is using their messaging and listings to divert a booking that is already in progress off-platform. Keep marketplace conversations on the marketplace, and let search, your Google profile, social media and returning guests bring people to your own site.

Four routes carry most of it: Google searches for the area and property type, your Google Business Profile, social media and the film that travels with it, and past guests who already know the property. A direct site with no visibility work behind it will stay quiet, which is why search and the Google profile are part of the build.

Short-stay accommodation can be listed when there is genuine guest contact at the address and the profile represents a real business. Google sets and changes the eligibility rules, so we check your specific situation before setting anything up rather than promising a listing in advance.

Through a secure payment link or checkout connected to your own booking system, so funds go to your account on your terms. You set the deposit, balance date and cancellation policy instead of inheriting a platform's version of them.

It is different rather than automatically riskier. You replace platform cover with your own booking terms, a deposit or bond, guest details captured at booking, and appropriate property and liability insurance. Talk to your insurer about short-stay use, because standard homeowner cover often does not include it.

Short-stay income is taxable, GST registration becomes compulsory once turnover passes the Inland Revenue threshold, and many councils apply their own bylaws or rating categories to visitor accommodation. Rules differ by district and change, so confirm your position with your accountant and your local council. We build the booking channel, not the tax advice.

Returning guests and social traffic can book as soon as the site is live. Search visibility builds more slowly, usually over months rather than weeks, because Google has to find, trust and rank a new site. Anyone promising ranked traffic on a fixed date is guessing.

It depends on your nightly rate and occupancy. Work out a year of commission on your current bookings, then compare that to a one-off build cost. For a well-performing property the commission saved in a season is often the larger number, and the film and website keep working after that.

A template gives you pages. The work that produces bookings is the property film, the way the stay is described, the booking path, the Google profile and the search visibility behind it. We build those as one connected system rather than leaving you to assemble them.

A cinematic property film, a direct-booking website and Google profile, booking and guest automation, or all of it as one complete ecosystem. You can start with one layer and add the next when it makes sense.

No. The film is built from property photos and video you already have and approve, so there is no shoot to schedule around guest turnovers. That is what makes it practical for a portfolio spread across several towns.

Launch is $2,900 for one or two properties and covers the film, the direct-booking site, the Google profile and the core booking setup. Scale starts at $6,500 for three to eight properties and adds multi-property booking, guest messaging and ongoing visibility from $900 a month. Larger portfolios are quoted individually.

No. You pay a project fee for the build, and any ongoing visibility work is a fixed monthly amount. We do not take a percentage of a stay, so a busy season costs you no more than a quiet one.

Yes. The site sits on your own domain, the guest details belong to you, and the film is yours to use on any channel you like. That ownership is the whole point of the exercise.

No. Your listings stay live and untouched throughout. The direct channel is built alongside them and only goes live when you are happy with it.

Your property photos and any video, the details of each property and who it suits, where guests currently book, and a domain if you already have one. If you do not have a domain we will help you choose and register one.

It depends on the number of properties and how quickly photos and copy come back to us. You get a schedule with dates before any work starts, so you are never guessing where the project is up to.

Yes. We work with hosts anywhere in New Zealand. The place pages exist because search demand is local, not because we are limited to those towns.

Yes. Every property gets its own film and its own page on one shared booking site, with a single invoice, a single contact and one place to manage guest messages. The detail is on the property managers page.

You can run it yourself, or keep us on for ongoing search visibility, content and reporting under the Scale plan. There is no lock-in either way, and the site remains yours if you stop.

Two people. Reuben handles design and engineering, Gray handles strategy and search growth. You deal with us directly rather than an account manager. There is more on the about page.