Hostli vs relying on OTAs alone
An OTA is the easiest channel a hotel will ever have: list, wait, pay. The commission comes off every stay, the guest’s details stay with the OTA, and the rate you can offer is the rate they let you offer. Hostli does not replace the OTAs. It builds the direct channel beside them, from your own reviews and bookings, and charges a success fee only on the direct bookings it can show you.
Start freeSide by side
Every line on the right describes how that option is bought and run, not a price. Every line on the left describes what the platform does today.
Cost
What you pay per booking
Hostli: Nothing per booking on Deluxe, which is $100 a month flat. A success fee of 2% to 2.2% on direct bookings we can show you on the managed plans.
OTAs only: A commission on every booking, typically in the 15% to 25% band, with no ceiling as volume grows.
Who sets the price
Hostli: You. Direct rates, packages and promotions are yours to set and to advertise.
OTAs only: Rate parity clauses and ranking pressure decide what you can offer where.
Speed
Filling a soft week
Hostli: A campaign for the right persona, built and approved in minutes, paced to the month.
OTAs only: A discount visible to everyone, including the guests who would have paid full rate.
Control
The guest relationship
Hostli: Guests message you on WhatsApp and Instagram and book on your site. The relationship is yours.
OTAs only: Masked emails, OTA-owned messaging, and a guest who remembers the OTA’s brand, not yours.
Your ranking
Hostli: Your own channel does not rank you against the hotel next door.
OTAs only: Visibility depends on commission tier, review score and how the OTA’s algorithm feels this season.
Proof
Knowing where a booking came from
Hostli: Attribution reconciled across Meta, Google and your site, each booking counted once.
OTAs only: The OTA’s dashboard, which credits the OTA.
Coverage
Reviews
Hostli: Google reviews answered in your voice, from the facts of the stay, in the reviewer’s language.
OTAs only: Reviews live on the OTA’s page and build the OTA’s listing.
Search and AI answers
Hostli: Audits of what Google and AI assistants say about your property, and what to fix.
OTAs only: The OTA outranks your site for your own name, by design.
When the OTAs are the right call
Nobody should switch the OTAs off, and Hostli is not built to.
International guests who have never heard of you. The OTA’s reach is real, and a direct channel grows beside it, not instead of it.
Last-minute inventory on a quiet night. Sometimes the commission is the cheapest marketing there is.
A brand-new property with no reviews, no photography and no booking history yet. Hostli builds from your data, and there has to be some.
What Hostli costs
Start free on your own data, no card required. Deluxe is $100 a month flat with no success fee. Superior and Signature add a person accountable for your bookings, with a success fee of 2% to 2.2% charged only on direct bookings we can show you: tagged clicks, campaigns that started the visit, and the organic social channel Hostli runs for you. Each reservation counts once.
Questions hoteliers ask at this point
How does Hostli help me increase direct bookings?
Every booking that lands on your own booking engine instead of an OTA keeps the 15% to 25% commission in your pocket. Hostli sends travellers straight to your site with a different ad for each guest type, so the message fits and the page converts. On Deluxe there is no success fee at all; on the managed plans it is 2% to 2.2%, charged once.
Can the system help me reduce dependency on OTAs?
An OTA takes 15% to 25% of every stay it sends you. Hostli is $100 a month flat on Deluxe, or 2% to 2.2% on the managed plans, charged only on bookings it can show you by reservation ID. The gap between those two numbers is the margin you get back. Hostli builds and keeps running the Meta and Google campaigns that route travellers to your own booking engine, so the direct channel grows without you hiring anyone.
My campaign only brought in 3 bookings. Did it fail?
Not if those three stays cover what the campaign spent, which is the number Hostli shows you. A hotel stay is a large purchase, so it also counts the smaller signals on the way there, such as a date check or a visit to the booking page, and keeps improving the campaign while the booking count is still small.
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