Direct booking, Whitby-built
Keep the commission.
Booking.com and the rest take fifteen to eighteen per cent of every guest they send you. Coble takes none of it. Guests book on your own site, and the card payment goes straight into your account — not through us on the way.
- From £15 a month
- Whatever you take through it.
- No commission
- Not on the first booking, not on the thousandth.
- Cancel whenever you like
- No notice, no tie-in, and your guest data comes with you.
What is commission actually costing you?
Put your own figures in. Nothing is sent anywhere — this works out in your browser.
a year, if every one of those bookings came to you direct instead.
One direct booking a month covers what Coble costs. Everything after that is money you were giving away.
Card processing is separate and is not ours: Stripe charge about 1.5% plus 20p on a UK card, and take it from the payment on its way to your bank. Whoever takes the booking, somebody processes the card — that part does not go away.
What happens when somebody books
You get a booking page
Your photographs, your prices, your changeover day, your minimum stay. On your own web address if you have one, or on ours until you do.
A guest picks dates and pays
By card, on the page, without ringing anybody. The money goes to your Stripe account. It does not pass through Coble on the way, and we could not hold it if we wanted to.
The dates come off sale that second
Not overnight, not when something syncs. The night is locked while the card is being charged, so two people cannot buy the same Saturday while both are looking at it.
Everyone gets an email, and the calendar is right
Them a confirmation, you a note of who is coming. The calendar the site sells from is the one you look at, so there is nothing to reconcile and no spreadsheet to remember.
The bits you were about to ask about
Do I have to leave Booking.com?
No, and most people do not. Keep the listings that fill your quiet weeks and send everyone who already knows your name to your own page instead. Every one of those is a booking nobody takes a percentage of. You can point your calendars at each other so a booking on one closes the dates on the other.
I am not technical.
The setup is a form: what the place is called, what it sleeps, what it costs, when you change over. If you would rather not, we will do the lot for you for a one-off fee and hand it over finished — the form at the bottom is for that.
What if two people book the same week?
They cannot. The dates are locked in the database while the card is being charged, so the second person is told it has gone before they pay rather than after. That is the part we have tested hardest, because it is the one that costs somebody a holiday.
What if something goes wrong while I am out?
Coble keeps watch on the part that costs money. A card charged with no booking to show for it is on your Today page within half an hour, and on ours. Every payment is in your own Stripe account as well, so nothing is lost along with the website.
Where does the money actually go?
Into your own Stripe account, which is in your name and your bank details. Coble never holds it. If we disappeared tomorrow the money already taken would be exactly where it is now.
What if I stop?
It is monthly. Stop whenever you like and take your guest list with you — you can export the lot as a spreadsheet without asking us.
Who is behind it?
One person in Whitby, who will answer the phone. That is a genuine limitation and it is also why the software is built to keep working when nobody is watching it.
What it costs
By how many places you let, and nothing else. Not by how much you take, not by how many bookings, not by how good a month you had.
| Plan | Places | A month | A year |
|---|---|---|---|
| MooringA single let. The commonest case, and the one the whole thing has to be worth it for. | One cottage, room or hall. | £15 | £150two months less than monthly |
| HarbourA pair of cottages, or a small B&B. Roughly one booking a month pays for it. | Up to three. | £25 | £250two months less than monthly |
| CoastA guest house, or a handful of places across a village. | Up to ten. | £45 | £450two months less than monthly |
| FleetA small hotel or a managed portfolio. Above twenty-five, extra places are added as you go. | Up to twenty-five, then £8 each. | £69 | £690two months less than monthly |
Would you rather we built it?
The software is the same either way. What you would be paying for is somebody sitting down with your photographs, your prices and your rules, and setting the whole thing up properly — then handing you the keys.
A one-off fee, by the size of your plan, paid once. The monthly plan runs alongside it as normal, and there is nothing further.
- Mooring
- £195
- Harbour
- £495
- Coast
- £695
- Fleet
- £950
Less if a good deal of it already exists somewhere we can take it from. We will say so before you pay anything.
Whitby, North Yorkshire. Usually a reply the same day.