Marketplace commission eats margin
Your cottages may be full, yet a large share of each booking goes to the marketplace. That cost becomes especially painful during shorter stays, lower seasons and last-minute discounts.
Direct booking for holiday cottages & lets
A direct booking website for holiday cottages and lets, built around the booking system you already use. Take more bookings, keep the guest relationship and rely less on listing sites. Direct Booking websites start from £2,495, excluding VAT.
From £2,495
Direct Booking build
£3,995
Booking Growth build
£59 a month
Required Website Care
£169 a month
AI Receptionist
Every booking through a large marketplace comes with a cost. Those sites typically charge suppliers around 20 to 30 per cent of each booking. If your cottages or lets sell £50,000 a year through those channels, that can mean £10,000 to £15,000 paid away in commission.
Your own website gives guests another way to book. They can check availability, see your best photos, read reviews and pay a deposit without leaving your business. You keep more of the booking value and build a direct relationship for future stays.
The problem
Your cottages may be full, yet a large share of each booking goes to the marketplace. That cost becomes especially painful during shorter stays, lower seasons and last-minute discounts.
Your current site may show rooms and photographs but send every serious visitor back to a listing site. The guest books there, and you lose the relationship, data and future booking opportunity.
Cleaning, laundry, maintenance and guest arrivals all happen at once. Calls go to voicemail while you work, then the caller books somewhere else or forgets to try again.
What you get
Every client also takes Website Care at £59 a month. Everything else is modular.
Pricing
For tour operators, attractions, activity providers, accommodation and leisure businesses. Built to reduce how much of your business depends on the big booking marketplaces.
£2,495
A conversion website wrapped around the booking system you already use.
Best for: Small operators already on a booking platform such as Bokun, FareHarbor, Rezdy, Checkfront, Bookeo or Freetobook.
£3,995
Built to shift demand away from the marketplaces and onto your own site.
Best for: Operators with several tours or experiences who want a direct sales channel they own.
Everything in Direct Booking, plus:
From £5,995
For operators with real inventory and operational complexity.
Best for: Multi-location operations, accommodation, packages, ticketing and larger inventories.
Everything in Booking Growth, plus options such as:
Genuinely bespoke platforms move into custom travel and booking development, quoted separately from £10,000.
Hosting, SSL, daily backups, security monitoring, software updates, uptime monitoring, up to 30 minutes of content changes each month and email support.
All prices exclude VAT.
Monthly
Website Care is required for every client. Add anything else when you need it, and drop it when you do not.
£59 a month
Hosting, SSL, daily backups, security monitoring, software updates, uptime monitoring, up to 30 minutes of content changes each month and email support.
£169 a month
Answers every call 24/7 in your business name, takes the job details, qualifies the caller and texts you immediately.
A human receptionist costs £24,000 to £28,000 a year. A live answering service runs £200 to £450 a month.
Price on application
Answers visitor questions on your site around the clock, using only what it has been taught about your business, and captures the enquiry before they leave.
Most visitors will not ring and will not fill in a form. They ask one question, get no answer, and leave.
£449 a month
Campaign management, bid and budget optimisation, ad copy testing, negative keyword management, landing page optimisation and a monthly reporting call.
Your ad spend goes direct to Google and is never marked up. Minimum recommended spend is £400 a month.
£249 a month
Two optimised pages or articles a month, local SEO, Google Business Profile posts, citation building, rank tracking and monthly reporting.
£99 a month
Plans, writes and posts your social media to Facebook and Instagram. You approve a month of content in one sitting.
£49 a month
A marketing plan built around your business, broken into weekly tasks, so you always know the next thing to do.
£75 a month
An additional 2 hours a month for changes, new pages and seasonal updates.
Bundles
The same modules, priced lower when taken together.
£199 a month
Saves £29
£595 a month
Saves £82
£795 a month
Saves £141
No Upfront Option
No setup fee. A template site built for your trade, with hosting, care and the AI receptionist included. For businesses who want to start now without the upfront cost.
Start with no upfront costQuote request
Two minutes of questions and we will send back a real number, not a range. Website packages start at £1,295, ecommerce from £2,495, and there is a no upfront option at £199 a month.
The result
Guests can find the right property, check dates and book without leaving your website. You keep more of the booking value and have a direct route to future stays.
You collect useful details and communicate directly before arrival. That makes it easier to answer questions, offer extras and encourage guests to return next year.
The AI Receptionist answers while you manage the property. It records the dates and requirements, sorts urgent issues and texts you a useful summary.
01
Your holiday let website should do more than display attractive photographs. It should show availability, explain your rooms or cottages clearly, answer practical questions and send guests into your existing booking system. We connect the parts, so your website supports bookings while you handle changeovers, maintenance and guests.
A strong direct booking website gives people a clear reason to book with you. It can show your best rates, flexible extras, parking details, dog rules, access information and nearby places to visit. Guests get the facts before they call, while you receive fewer messages asking for basic information.
02
People search for places to stay by location, not just by property name. They look for holiday cottages near the coast, weekend lets near Durham, dog-friendly stays in Northumberland and accommodation close to a wedding venue. We build useful location pages that give those searches a clear path to your website.
We also improve the information around your Google Business Profile, which is the business listing shown in Google Maps and local results. Accurate details, fresh photographs, useful posts and a direct booking link help guests find you without relying only on a listing marketplace.
Your website can cover the places and reasons guests already search for. That might include a beach, national park, festival, wedding venue, walking route or business park. Each page gives visitors useful information, then points them towards availability and booking.
More detail
The rest of what holiday cottages & lets ask us, tidied away. Open what you need.
Not every guest is ready to book immediately. Some have unusual dates, several cottages to fill or questions about dogs, parking and accessibility. A useful enquiry form gathers the information you need to price the stay properly. It is far better than receiving a message that only says, "How much?"
We write forms around the way holiday lets operate. They can ask for arrival and departure dates, guest numbers, property choice, children, pets, access needs and extras. For group stays or tours, the form can collect activity dates, timings and requirements before you reply.
The result is a clearer conversation from the first contact. You can see whether the dates work, understand what the guest wants and send a suitable price. Booking conversion tracking can also show which pages and campaigns created real enquiries, rather than simply counting visits.
Guests often compare several cottages or lets that look similar in photographs. Reviews help them decide who feels reliable. Recent comments about clean rooms, simple arrival, helpful hosts and accurate descriptions can remove doubt before a guest ever calls.
We can build review requests into the process after each stay or completed booking. Guests receive a clear prompt at the right time, rather than you having to remember every departure. Positive feedback can support your Google Business Profile and appear across the parts of your website where people make decisions.
Reviews also show you where the experience needs attention. If guests repeatedly mention unclear check-in instructions or a missing kitchen item, you can fix the cause. That protects your reputation and gives future guests more confidence in booking direct.
Holiday lets rarely receive calls at convenient times. A guest may ring while you are stripping beds, meeting a cleaner, fixing a boiler or driving between properties. The AI Receptionist answers 24 hours a day in your business name, so callers are not left wondering whether anyone is listening.
It takes the caller's details, asks about dates and the type of stay, and sorts urgent matters from general enquiries. It can recognise a problem such as no heating or a lockout, then text you the details straight away. You can call back with the right information instead of starting from scratch.
The AI Receptionist costs £169 a month on its own. Website Care plus Receptionist costs £199 a month, which saves £29 compared with buying both separately. It does not replace your judgement. It makes sure missed calls become organised follow-ups instead of lost bookings.
When you want more demand quickly, Google Ads can place your holiday let pages in front of people searching for a stay. We build campaigns around location, dates, property type and the reason people travel. The adverts send visitors to focused pages, not a generic home page.
Google Ads Management costs £449 a month. It includes campaign management, bid and budget changes, advert testing, removal of poor searches, landing page improvements and a monthly reporting call. Your advertising spend goes directly to Google. We never add a mark-up to it.
The website records what happens after the click. You can see whether someone viewed availability, sent an enquiry, started a booking or completed payment. That helps us improve the campaigns around real bookings, rather than chasing clicks that never become guests.
A new website needs regular reasons for Google and guests to notice it. Our SEO and Content service costs £249 a month. It includes two useful pages or articles each month, local search work, Google Business Profile posts, mentions on relevant business directories, position tracking and a monthly report.
Content can cover walking routes, seasonal events, beach visits, family days out, local food, wedding venues and practical travel advice. These pages help guests plan their stay before they book. They also give you something useful to share with past guests and people considering a return visit.
Automated Social Media costs £99 a month and plans, writes and posts to Facebook and Instagram. You approve a month at one time. The Intelligent Marketing Coach costs £49 a month and gives you a weekly marketing plan, so you know what to do next without guessing.
Direct Booking costs £2,495 and suits an operator that wants a conversion website around an existing booking system. It gives guests a clear route from search to availability and booking. Booking Growth costs £3,995 and is the package most operators should take when they want stronger search pages, more booking support and a site built to shift demand away from marketplaces.
Tourism Pro starts from £5,995 for operators with real inventory, several properties, more complex booking needs or a larger content plan. Genuinely bespoke booking platforms are quoted separately from £10,000. We can work with Bokun, FareHarbor, Rezdy, Checkfront, Bookeo and Freetobook rather than forcing you to replace a system that already works.
Website Care is required for every client and costs £59 a month. It includes hosting, a security certificate, daily backups, security monitoring, software updates, uptime checks, up to 30 minutes of content changes each month and email support. If you want to start without the upfront cost, the no upfront option is £199 a month over 24 months, with no setup fee.
The honest comparison
It is a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a sales pitch.
If you simply need a basic online presence, a low-cost website builder may be enough. Somewhere to point people who already know your name. If that is genuinely all you need, do that and spend the money elsewhere. We would rather tell you that than take a fee for something you will not use.
Our websites are designed for established businesses that want Google traffic to turn into calls, enquiries and customers. Copy, tracking, conversion setup and ongoing management are built in. That is a different product solving a different problem, and it is priced accordingly.
A £199 builder site
Fine for a basic presence. Not built to win work.
A Look North website
Built so search traffic becomes booked jobs.
Who writes the words
A £199 builder site
You do, usually at 11pm, into a blank box.
A Look North website
We do. Copywriting for every page is included, written around the jobs you actually want.
Whether it shows up on Google
A £199 builder site
It will rank for your business name. Not much else.
A Look North website
A page for every service and every town you cover, structured so each one can rank.
What happens to an enquiry
A £199 builder site
A contact form emails you. If you miss it, you miss it.
A Look North website
Quote forms written for your trade, instant SMS and email alerts, and every enquiry stored so none are lost.
When the phone rings and you are on a job
A £199 builder site
It goes to voicemail. Most callers hang up and ring the next business.
A Look North website
Our AI receptionist answers 24/7 in your business name, takes the details and texts you straight away.
Knowing what is working
A £199 builder site
A visitor counter, if that.
A Look North website
Call tracking, conversion tracking and call attribution, so you know which clicks became real jobs.
Getting reviews
A £199 builder site
You remember to ask, sometimes.
A Look North website
Review generation set up so a request goes out after every job, with the results shown on your site.
What happens after launch
A £199 builder site
Nothing. It sits there until you cancel the subscription.
A Look North website
The Marketing Coach gives you a plan broken into weekly jobs, so the site keeps earning its keep.
Who owns it
A £199 builder site
The platform. Stop paying and it disappears.
A Look North website
You do. The code, the domain, the hosting account and the content are yours.
Speed on a phone
A £199 builder site
Template bloat, often slow, which costs you rankings and visitors.
A Look North website
Built mobile first, because that is where almost every local search happens.
When something breaks
A £199 builder site
A help centre article and a support queue.
A Look North website
Website Care at £59 a month: monitoring, backups, updates, and a person who answers.
If the upfront cost is the blocker rather than the quality, we do a no upfront option at £199 a month on a 24 month term. That is not a builder subscription. It is a real site built for your trade, with hosting, Website Care and the AI receptionist included, live in 5 working days. The difference between that and a £199 builder site is the difference between renting a van and renting a parking space.
What the difference buys
Not features. The things that change how much work comes in.
A missed call is a customer ringing your competitor. The AI receptionist picks up 24/7, qualifies the job and texts you. Most trades win back more than the cost of the whole website in the first few months.
One page cannot rank for eight services across twelve towns. We build a page for each, so you show up for the specific job someone is searching for right now.
Not "how much for a bathroom?" but property type, scale, access, timing and photos. You quote accurately, first, without a site visit.
A review request after every job. In a year you have the review count competitors cannot catch up with, and reviews are the last thing a customer checks before calling.
Copywriting for every page is included. No blank boxes, no writing your own service descriptions at 11pm, no page that sounds like everyone else.
Call tracking and conversion tracking show which clicks turned into jobs. You stop guessing which half of the marketing worked.
The Marketing Coach turns a strategy into weekly jobs small enough to actually finish. That is why our sites are still growing a year later.
Code, domain, hosting, content and your Google Business Profile. Nothing switches off if you leave, because nothing was rented to you.
If a basic presence is all you need, a builder is the sensible choice and we will say so. If you want the phone to ring more often, that is what we build. Get a fixed price.
FAQ
Price, timescales and ownership, answered for a holiday let.
Where we work
We build local landing pages for every town you cover. These are the areas we work in most often.
References
The bodies and tools a holiday let deals with, plus where to go next on our site.
External sites open in a new tab. We link to primary sources and accreditation bodies only.
Also built for
Closest to holiday cottages & lets in how they win work. Each gets its own page, quote form and set of searches.
Looking for a different sector? See all sectors we build for, or tell us your trade and we will quote for it.
Next step
Tell us the holiday let work you want more of and the towns you cover. We will send back a real number with a scope attached, not a range.
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