Methodology

How we modelled the numbers on our comparison pages

Every dollar figure that names a competitor on this site — the "real bill" and "their own variable fees" blocks on each /compare page — comes from the working below. Assumptions, formulas, every vendor's sum shown longhand, a confidence level per figure, and what we genuinely could not verify. Nothing here is a quote. Check it, and then check it against the vendor directly.

1. The shared assumption set

One property, seven vendors, identical inputs

Every vendor is modelled on exactly the same modelled property — a 30-room Australian independent operator — so the seven are comparable to each other, not just internally consistent. Where a vendor's own materials used different numbers for illustration, we recomputed on the inputs below rather than mixing bases.

Property	30 rooms, Australian independent
Occupancy	65%
Room-nights/yr	30 × 365 × 0.65 = 7,117.5
Average daily rate	A$180/night
Gross accommodation revenue/yr	7,117.5 × A$180 = A$1,281,150
Gross accommodation revenue/mo	A$1,281,150 ÷ 12 = A$106,762.50
Average length of stay	2.0 nights
Bookings/yr	7,117.5 ÷ 2.0 = 3,558.75 (≈3,559)
Bookings/mo	3,558.75 ÷ 12 = 296.56
Online share of bookings	65% → 2,313.19 (≈2,313) online reservations/yr, 192.77/mo; the remaining 35% (≈1,246/yr) are phone or walk-in
FX rate	Real market spot, AUD/USD 0.6973 as at 24 July 2026 (i.e. AUD = USD ÷ 0.6973). Source: Lodgify's own pricing profile, corroborated by exchangerates.org.uk/Wise
EUR figures (Mews only)	EUR 1 = AUD 1.635 — not a 24 Jul 2026 spot rate. This is Mews' own "mid-July 2026" rate (MTFX/CoinCodex); no dated EUR/AUD spot for 24 Jul 2026 exists in our research, so this rate is carried forward and flagged as a research assumption, not verified as spot
Basis	All figures ex-GST
Card-settled share of room revenue	90% — our stated assumption, applied uniformly wherever a vendor charges a payments margin
Baseline interchange / card-scheme fees	Excluded from every vendor's fee line — charged by every processor regardless of platform, so not a platform-specific cost. Only a platform's markup on top of interchange counts as a hidden fee here.
One-off fees	Amortised over the vendor's own minimum or typical contract term where one is documented (RMS Cloud 36 months — their own North American sales-order term; Newbook 12 months — their own terms' minimum; Cloudbeds and Mews 24 months — our assumption, stated as such, since neither vendor publishes a term)

Why these assumptions. They describe a plausible, mid-sized Australian independent property — not the cheapest or most expensive case we could have picked. A smaller, larger, higher-occupancy or lower-ADR property will produce different dollar figures under every vendor's own pricing structure; the structure of each vendor's fees (flat licence, per-booking, percentage-of-gross, transaction margin) does not change with property size, but the dollar amount it produces does. Run your own numbers through the same formulas below before treating any figure here as what you would pay.

2. The formula for each fee type

Five shapes of fee, one formula each

Percentage-of-gross

Monthly room revenue × fee rate

Little Hotelier Basics: A$106,762.50 × 1% = A$1,067.63/mo

Per-booking

Bookings per month × fee per booking, converted to AUD

Newbook (contested): 296.56 × US$2.00 = US$593.13/mo ÷ 0.6973 = A$850.60/mo

Per-online-reservation

Online bookings per month × fee per online booking, converted to AUD

RMS Cloud (contested): 192.77 × US$1.00 = US$192.77/mo ÷ 0.6973 = A$276.45/mo

Transaction / payments margin

Monthly room revenue × card-settled share (90%) × markup rate

Cloudbeds: A$106,762.50 × 0.90 = A$96,086.25 card volume × 1.2% = A$1,153.04/mo

Amortised one-off

One-off fee (converted to AUD) ÷ contract term in months

RMS Cloud implementation: US$4,500 ÷ 0.6973 = A$6,453.46 ÷ 36 months = A$179.26/mo

3. Every vendor's working, longhand

The sum behind every "their own variable fees" figure

These match the "their own variable fees" block on each vendor's comparison page exactly — this is that block's arithmetic shown in full, with a confidence level on every line.

SiteMinder

Published licence: A$444.00/mo (SiteMinder Plus at 30 rooms, A$359/mo, plus the Guest Engagement add-on, A$85/mo — the tier combination needed to take a direct booking at all)

Transaction fees on Demand Plus, Channels Plus, SiteMinder Pay and Dynamic Revenue Plus

SiteMinder discloses no per-property rate for any of these four. What is disclosed, in their own half-year results to the ASX: group-wide average revenue per property is A$435/mo, split A$257 subscription + A$178 transaction (41% of the total). We build a proxy — the transaction-to-subscription ratio applied to our own subscription subtotal — and model both without and with it.

Without proxy: A$0/mo. Ratio: A$178 ÷ A$257 = 0.6926. With proxy: A$444.00 × 0.6926 = A$307.50/mo

Confidence: LOW–MEDIUM on the dollar figure (extrapolated from a group-wide average, not a per-property quote); HIGH on the underlying structure (the ASX filing itself).

Modelled true all-in: A$444–751/mo (midpoint A$598/mo) — multiple of the advertised price: ~1.7×

Source: SiteMinder pricing API and product pages; SiteMinder ASX H1FY26 half-year results. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Little Hotelier

Published licence: A$49.00/mo (Basics plan, flat, any room count 1–50)

Booking fee — 1% of gross reservation revenue, online and offline

Little Hotelier's own footnote: "$49/mo entry, plus 1% of every booking you take, online and offline, including walk-ins and phone calls." The fee base is the property's whole reservation revenue, not just direct-booking-engine sales.

A$106,762.50/mo × 1% = A$1,067.63/mo

Confidence: HIGH — the highest-confidence figure in this document, cross-verified against the vendor's own live pricing API.

Modelled true all-in: A$49.00 + A$1,067.63 = A$1,116.63/mo ≈ A$1,117/mo — multiple of the advertised price: 22.8×

The reconciliation, made explicit. A$1,067.63 is the fee alone; A$1,117 is the fee plus the A$49.00 subscription. A$1,067.63 + A$49.00 = A$1,116.63, which rounds to A$1,117 — no gap, no back-derived inputs required. Little Hotelier also sells a Pro plan (A$345/mo flat, no booking fee) that genuinely beats us on price alone; it is a different product tier to Basics and is not the plan this page models, because Basics is the one that carries the fee this methodology exists to expose.

Source: Little Hotelier's own pricing footnote and live pricing API. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Cloudbeds

Modelled licence: A$430–615/mo (midpoint A$523/mo) — pricing is 100% quote-gated; interpolated between a single first-hand 80-room reviewer figure (US$300/mo, converted) and that same reviewer's Experience-tier uplift (+43%)

Payments margin — Cost+ pricing, 1.2% over interchange

Cloudbeds' own help-centre worked example: interchange plus a 1.2% Cloudbeds markup (interchange itself excluded per the convention in §1).

A$106,762.50 × 90% = A$96,086.25 card volume → A$96,086.25 × 1.2% = A$1,153.04/mo

Confidence: HIGH on the rate (Cloudbeds' own published example); MEDIUM on whether any given property is actually offered that exact rate.

Setup fee, amortised — modelled both ways

Third-party estimate US$200–5,000+, midpoint US$2,600; the most credible first-hand reviewer had it waived entirely.

US$2,600 ÷ 0.6973 = A$3,728.67 → A$3,728.67 ÷ 24 months = A$155.36/mo (or A$0/mo if waived, the more commonly reported outcome)

Confidence: LOW — a single anecdotal midpoint, amortised over our own 24-month assumption since Cloudbeds publishes no term.

Modelled true all-in: A$1,583–1,924/mo (midpoint A$1,753/mo) — multiple of the advertised price: ~3.4×

Conceded, not attacked: Cloudbeds' commission-free booking-engine claim is true and is credited as such throughout our comparison pages.

Source: Cloudbeds Payments help centre, "Cost+ Versus Blended Rate Pricing"; a single first-hand pricing reviewer. Accessed 26 July 2026.

RMS Cloud

Published licence: A$129.07/mo (30 units × US$3.00/site/mo ÷ 0.6973, spot FX 24 Jul 2026)

Per-online-booking fee — CONTESTED, RMS's own two documents disagree

RMS's 2025 rate-card PDF states a US$1.00 fee per online reservation. RMS's own live/compare/rms-vs-newbook page states "no booking fees." Both are RMS's own material and they disagree — this is presented as a documented disagreement, dated and quoted, never asserted as settled current fact.

Per their live claim: A$0/mo. Per their 2025 PDF: 192.77 online bookings/mo × US$1.00 = US$192.77/mo ÷ 0.6973 = A$276.45/mo

Confidence: HIGH on structure (the disagreement itself is documented); MEDIUM on the AU dollar figure (the rate card targets the North American market — no AUD card exists).

Implementation fee, amortised over RMS's own 36-month North American sales-order term

One-time US$4,500, invoiced on signing — RMS's own rate card.

US$4,500 ÷ 0.6973 = A$6,453.46 → A$6,453.46 ÷ 36 months = A$179.26/mo

Confidence: HIGH — RMS's own published rate card.

Modelled true all-in: A$308.33–584.78/mo, 3-year amortised (midpoint A$446.56/mo) — multiple of the advertised price: ~3.5×

Source: RMS "2025 Outdoor Reservation Software Vendor Comparison Guide"; rmscloud.com/compare/rms-vs-newbook. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Newbook

Modelled licence: A$717.05/mo (US$500/mo ÷ 0.6973, spot FX 24 Jul 2026) — Newbook's AU list price for the Signature tier a 30-room property would buy is never published anywhere, and their own terms (§6.2) contractually forbid customers from disclosing what they pay, so this figure is competitor-published, LOW confidence

Payment gateway + EFTPOS terminal hire — published, structural charges beyond the card rate

The underlying 1.65% + $0.30 card rate is excluded per §1 — it sits at or below standard AU processing and is not a Newbook-specific charge. The gateway and terminal-hire fees are Newbook-specific and published.

Gateway A$22.95/mo + EFTPOS terminal hire A$29.99/mo = A$52.94/mo

Confidence: HIGH — published on-page.

Per-booking fee — CONTESTED, whether Signature carries one at all is UNVERIFIED

First-party confirmed only for the Essentials tier (US$3.50/booking) — not the Signature tier a 30-room motel would buy. A competitor source claims roughly US$2/booking on Signature; this is unverified either way, modelled both ways rather than assumed to be zero.

Without the fee: A$0/mo. With the fee: 296.56 bookings/mo × US$2.00 = US$593.13/mo ÷ 0.6973 = A$850.60/mo

Confidence: LOW — a competitor claim, not first-party Newbook material.

Onboarding, setup, training and migration, amortised over Newbook's own 12-month minimum term

Competitor-published range US$1,000–3,000, midpoint used.

US$2,000 ÷ 0.6973 = A$2,868.20 → A$2,868.20 ÷ 12 months = A$239.02/mo

Confidence: LOW–MEDIUM — the term itself (12 months) is Newbook's own published minimum; the dollar range is competitor-published.

Modelled true all-in: A$1,009–1,860/mo (midpoint A$1,434/mo) — multiple of the advertised price: ~2.0×

Source: newbook.cloud payments and terms pages; keeprstay.com competitor-published estimates. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Lodgify

Published licence: A$831.09/mo (Ultimate tier, billed per bookable unit, 30 units at US$579.52/mo ÷ 0.6973, spot FX 24 Jul 2026 — matches Lodgify's own profile figure of A$831/mo, converted the same way). Whether a 30-room property is actually billed as 30 separate units or fewer via pooled room types is unverified in Lodgify's own documentation — this models the worst case for Lodgify (30 billed units) and says so, rather than picking the flattering reading.

Booking fee

RETIRED — confirmed dead. Do not resurrect: earlier internal material cited a 1.9% Lodgify booking fee. Lodgify's live pricing API shows all tiers at 0%, no legacy fee plan exists, and their own /terms/booking-fee/ page 404s.

A$0/mo — no booking fee, confirmed

Confidence: HIGH.

FX surcharge — the one real variable cost

Lodgify cannot bill in AUD — their pricing API returns HTTP 400 for an AUD currency code, USD/EUR/GBP only. An AU card issuer typically adds a ~3% international transaction surcharge on a recurring USD charge. This is a structural cost of how Lodgify bills, not a Lodgify-imposed fee, but it is real.

A$831.09 × 3% = A$24.93/mo

Confidence: MEDIUM — a typical AU card-issuer surcharge rate, not Lodgify-specific data.

Modelled true all-in: A$856.02/mo — multiple of the advertised price: ~1.03×, by a wide margin the smallest gap in this set, because there genuinely isn't a hidden fee here. Lodgify's real story is the per-unit meter, not a hidden charge.

Source: Lodgify live pricing API; lodgify.com/terms/booking-fee/. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Mews

Modelled licence: A$441–731/mo — no vendor-confirmed AU number exists anywhere; this is the working band from published third-party sources (Hotel Tech Insight, HotelMinder, Amenitiz). Low band uses the carried EUR 1 = AUD 1.635 rate (not a 24 Jul 2026 spot — see §1); high band converted at market-spot FX (AUD = USD ÷ 0.6973, 24 Jul 2026)

Payments margin — Mews' own published worked example, "1.1%++"

Mews' own rate is negotiated, so both the published rate and a plausible negotiated floor are modelled — their own consultancy source calls 1.1%++ "3–4× higher than we typically see."

Card volume: A$96,086.25 (same convention as Cloudbeds). Published rate: A$96,086.25 × 1.1% = A$1,056.95/mo. Negotiated floor: A$96,086.25 × 0.5% = A$480.43/mo → A$480.43–1,056.95/mo

Confidence: HIGH on the rate (Mews' own published example); LOW–MEDIUM on the dollar figure any given property is actually offered.

Marketplace stack required to reach feature parity — not optional

Essentials has no native email/SMS/WhatsApp campaign tool and no reputation-management tool. Matching what Accommador bundles costs, per Mews' own marketplace listings and HotelTechReport category bands: CRM/email A$86–430/mo, SMS/WhatsApp A$258/mo, reputation management A$107–258/mo, RMS/dynamic pricing A$324/mo.

A$86–430 + A$258 + A$107–258 + A$324 = A$775–1,270/mo

Confidence: MEDIUM — marketplace-listed prices for named comparable apps, not a Mews-quoted bundle.

Implementation fee — modelled both ways

Existence is HIGH confidence (Mews' own pricing page lists "no implementation fees" as an Enterprise-only benefit, implying lower tiers carry one); the amount is unverified.

Excluded (amount genuinely unknown): A$0/mo. Third-party estimate ~A$1,400, amortised over our 24-month assumption: A$1,400 ÷ 24 = A$58/mo

Confidence: LOW on the dollar amount; HIGH that some fee exists at non-Enterprise tiers.

Modelled true all-in: A$1,696–3,116/mo (midpoint A$2,406/mo) — multiple of the advertised price: ~4.1×

Source: mews.com/en/legal/payments-fees and Master Terms v5.0; mews.com marketplace listings; HotelTechReport category bands. Accessed 26 July 2026.

4. What is unverified, and why

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

A number we could not find is never presented on our comparison pages as "this vendor charges nothing." Every line below is named, not priced, and excluded from the relevant vendor's total.

SiteMinder — real per-property rates for Demand Plus, Channels Plus, SiteMinder Pay and Dynamic Revenue Plus are never published; our A$307.50/mo figure is a modelled proxy from a group-wide ASX average, not a quote. Setup and plan-change fees are confirmed to exist (gated API endpoints) but the amount is unpublished and excluded from the total, not assumed to be zero.
RMS Cloud — whether the per-online-booking fee currently applies at all is contested between RMS's own two documents (see §3). Add-on modules (email marketing, interactive maps, owner/trust accounting, SMS metering, RMS Pay margin) are not published anywhere and are excluded, not zeroed.
Newbook — the AU software licence price has never been published or leaked anywhere; every Newbook dollar figure in this document is either first-party but currency-unstated, or competitor-published. Their own terms (§6.2) contractually forbid customers from disclosing what they pay.
Cloudbeds — the licence figure is interpolated from a single first-hand data point (one 80-room reviewer); the setup fee is modelled both waived and charged because the most credible source reports it commonly waived, not because we assume it is always zero.
Mews — no vendor-confirmed AU licence number exists anywhere; every licence source is third-party. The implementation-fee amount is genuinely unknown, not zero — its existence at non-Enterprise tiers is inferred from Mews' own pricing-page wording.
Lodgify — whether a 30-room property is billed as 30 separate units or fewer via pooled room types is undocumented anywhere in Lodgify's own material; we modelled the higher, worse-case-for-Lodgify reading and said so.

5. Correction log

Where our own earlier figures were wrong, and what changed

FX rate — corrected from a house rate to market spot (27 July 2026)

Every USD-sourced figure on this page previously used a house rate of AU$1 = US$0.65. That rate overstated every USD-sourced competitor figure by roughly 7% — the wrong direction for a page that publishes competitor cost figures. It is retired in favour of the real market spot rate, AUD/USD 0.6973 as at 24 July 2026 (i.e. AUD = USD ÷ 0.6973), sourced from Lodgify's own pricing profile and corroborated by exchangerates.org.uk/Wise. Every RMS Cloud, Newbook, Cloudbeds, Lodgify and Mews figure derived from a USD conversion has been recomputed. The clearest proof the correction was needed: Lodgify's own published material independently converts its Ultimate/30-unit price at this same spot rate to A$831/mo — this page's own figure, previously A$891.60 under the retired house rate, now also lands at A$831.09, matching rather than overstating the vendor's own number.

Cloudbeds' card-processing margin — recomputed at 65% occupancy

Cloudbeds' "real bill" card-processing margin previously cited "≈$1,160/mo" at a stale 60% occupancy scenario, left over from before canon occupancy moved to 65%. Recomputed on canon (65% occupancy, 90% card-settled share, A$180 ADR) using Cloudbeds' own documented 1.2% Cost+ markup, the figure is A$1,153.04/mo — the same figure already shown in §3 above. The "real bill" scenario text now states 65% occupancy to match.

Lodgify's 1.9% booking fee — RETIRED

Earlier internal material cited a 1.9% Lodgify booking fee. This is confirmed dead: Lodgify's live pricing API shows every tier at 0%, no legacy fee plan exists in that API, and Lodgify's own /terms/booking-fee/ page returns a 404. Accommador's comparison pages assign Lodgify a A$0 booking fee, full stop, and this must not be reintroduced in any future revision.

Cloudbeds' commission-free booking-engine claim — CONFIRMED TRUE

Cloudbeds' own booking engine genuinely charges no per-booking commission. This is conceded, not attacked, on our comparison pages and in the working above.

Little Hotelier's A$1,117 figure — reconciled, not fudged

An apparent ~A$49/mo gap between our published "A$1,117/mo" figure and a raw 1%-of-revenue calculation (A$106,762.50 × 1% = A$1,067.63) is not a discrepancy. A$1,117 was always the fee plus the A$49.00 Basics subscription, not the fee alone: A$1,067.63 + A$49.00 = A$1,116.63, which rounds to A$1,117 with no residual gap and no back-derived inputs anywhere. See the full working in §3 above.

6. Sources

Every source, dated

Every source used above was checked directly on the named vendor's own public pages, unless otherwise noted as competitor-published or a third-party estimate. All accessed 26 July 2026.

SiteMinder pricing API and product pages (resources.siteminder.com; siteminder.com)
SiteMinder ASX H1FY26 half-year results (public company filing)
Little Hotelier pricing footnote and live pricing API (littlehotelier.com)
Cloudbeds Payments help centre, "Cost+ Versus Blended Rate Pricing" (cloudbeds.com)
Cloudbeds first-hand pricing reviewer account (single data point, flagged as such)
RMS "2025 Outdoor Reservation Software Vendor Comparison Guide" (RMS Cloud's own published PDF)
rmscloud.com/compare/rms-vs-newbook (RMS Cloud's own live page)
newbook.cloud payment and terms pages, including their own §6.2 confidentiality clause
keeprstay.com competitor-published fee estimates (third-party, flagged as LOW confidence)
Lodgify live pricing API and lodgify.com/terms/booking-fee/
mews.com/en/legal/payments-fees and Mews Master Terms and Conditions v5.0
mews.com marketplace listings; HotelTechReport category pricing bands
Third-party pricing aggregators (Hotel Tech Insight, HotelMinder, Amenitiz) for Mews' licence range, flagged throughout as third-party, not vendor-confirmed

Every figure on this page is a modelled estimate, on the assumptions stated below — not a quote, not an offer, and not what any particular property will pay.Where a figure is a range, an estimate or unverified, this page labels it as such rather than presenting it as fact.

Modelling assumes a 30-room Australian property at 65% occupancy, A$180 average daily rate, a 2.0-night average stay and a 65% online booking share, with United States dollar figures converted at the market spot rate of AUD/USD 0.6973 as at 24 July 2026, and stated ex-GST — see the full working, every vendor's longhand sum and what remains unverified at the methodology page. A different property's numbers will differ.

Every named source was checked on each vendor's own public pages and carries an access date of 26 July 2026. Pricing changes without notice — always verify current pricing directly with the vendor before making a decision.

Accommador has no affiliation with, endorsement by, or partnership with any vendor named on this page. All product names, company names and trade marks referenced are the property of their respective owners.

Read the full methodology and sources →

Honest comparisons

Found a figure you think is wrong?

Tell us and we'll check it against the source. Every number here is meant to be checkable — that's the point of publishing this page at all.

Book a 30-minute demo