Five numbers in, one uncomfortable number out: what the online travel agencies cost your hotel every year — and what winning back direct share is worth.
Defaults are a plausible independent property, not your property. Swap in your own numbers — nothing you enter leaves your browser.
The commission line is the point. It is money that leaves before payroll, utilities, or a single renovation dollar — and unlike those, it scales up automatically every time you get better at filling rooms through third parties. The five-year figure is usually the one that changes an owner's mind: commission is not a marketing expense that ends, it is a permanent percentage claim on your revenue for as long as the mix stays where it is.
The recovery figures show the other side. Shifting share to direct is not free — it takes a website that converts, a booking engine without friction, and demand channels you control. But those costs are largely fixed while the savings are a percentage of revenue, which is why the math tends to favor direct more the longer you run it. For the full argument, read how to reduce OTA commissions without losing bookings and the direct booking playbook.
It is arithmetic, not a prediction. It multiplies your inputs — rooms, average daily rate, occupancy, OTA share, and commission rate — into an annual commission figure. The output is exactly as accurate as the numbers you enter, and every hotel's real mix varies month to month.
Booking.com and Expedia standard agreements for independent properties commonly run 15 to 18 percent, and visibility boosters or preferred programs push effective rates higher. If you know your blended rate from your statements, use it. If not, the 18 percent default is a reasonable middle of the commonly cited 15 to 25 percent range.
There is no OTA commission, but direct is not free: you pay for the website, the booking engine, and the marketing that feeds it. The difference is that those are mostly fixed investments that compound, while commission is a percentage taken from every booking forever. The calculator shows the gross commission side of that trade.
It shows what happens if part of your OTA-sourced revenue arrived through your own website instead — 10 and 18 percentage points of channel share. Those are illustrative shifts, not promises. What a specific hotel can move depends on its market, rate strategy, and how good the direct path is.
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A free proposal includes a commission analysis from your actual channel mix — and the plan to shrink it.
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