Methodology

How we modelled the numbers on our comparison pages

This is the working behind the "their own variable fees" block on each/compare page: assumptions, formulas, every vendor's sum shown longhand, a confidence level per figure, and what we could not verify. The "real bill" blocks use the same assumptions, but their "cost to match" lines and the thirteen-tool stack figure are our market-rate estimates for buying each capability elsewhere, and are not itemised here. 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 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: exchangerates.org.uk, corroborated by Wise
EUR figures (Mews only)	EUR 1 = AUD 1.635, which is not a 24 Jul 2026 spot rate. It is a mid-July 2026 rate from MTFX/CoinCodex, carried forward from our research because we had no dated EUR/AUD spot for 24 Jul 2026, and flagged as an 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. Every processor charges them regardless of platform, so they are 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. 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

Illustration only, at a fee of $1.00 a booking: 296.56 × $1.00 = $296.56/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, if it applies: 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

Licence: quoted in a call. SiteMinder's pricing page publishes starting prices for a 5-room property only: A$135/mo, or A$195/mo on SiteMinder Plus, the plan with a booking page (28 October 2026, monthly per property, ex tax). It says your actual price depends on your room count and the products you use, and that a rep confirms it in a call, so there is no 30-room licence to build on and we don't model one. Guest Engagement, for guest messaging and upsells, is an add-on on both plans.

Transaction fees on metasearch (Demand Plus), the channel marketplace (Channels Plus), hotel payments (SiteMinder Pay) and Dynamic Revenue Plus

SiteMinder discloses no per-property rate for any of these four; its pricing page describes them as usage-based (a per-payment fee for payments, a commission on completed stays for metasearch and its channel marketplace). What is disclosed, in their FY26 results to the ASX (August 2026): group-wide average monthly revenue per property, across all its properties worldwide including Little Hotelier, is A$429, split A$250 subscription + A$179 transaction (about 41% of the total). This is an average across their whole customer base, not any customer's bill. With no published 30-room licence to apply it to, we don't turn that ratio into a dollar figure.

No rate is published, so there is nothing to multiply. For scale only: A$179 ÷ A$429 = about 41% of group-wide average revenue per property came from transaction products (FY26).

Confidence: HIGH that these fees exist and are usage-based (SiteMinder's own pricing page and its ASX results). No dollar figure is stated, so there is none to rate.

Modelled all-in: not modelled. SiteMinder quotes the 30-room licence and doesn't publish its transaction rates, so the comparison page reads "Quote + usage fees".

Source: siteminder.com/en-au/pricing (plan cards, feature table and FAQ; the page was updated on 9 October 2026) and /guest-engagement, checked 28 October 2026; SiteMinder FY26 results to the ASX, checked 7 October 2026.

Little Hotelier

Published licence: A$49.00/mo (Basics plan, its published starting price, July 2026; on 28 October 2026 the page showed Basics from $49 and Pro from $179)

Booking fee: 1% on online and offline bookings

Little Hotelier's pricing FAQ: "Booking fee is the gross reservations profit from online and offline bookings. This excludes taxes, add-ons, and changes or cancellations made before check-out and does not adjust for any disputed payments or refunds made after check-out. The 1% booking fee is derived from this amount." We read "offline" as including walk-ins and phone bookings. Our model applies the 1% to all room revenue with no allowance for cancellations, so it is an upper estimate.

A$106,762.50/mo × 1% = A$1,067.63/mo

Confidence: HIGH on the 1% rate (their own FAQ). MEDIUM on the dollar figure, which depends on our assumptions and on our reading of "offline".

Modelled all-in, on our assumptions: A$49.00 + A$1,067.63 = A$1,116.63/mo ≈ A$1,117/mo, before cancellations. Multiple of the $49 licence: 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 with no gap and no back-derived inputs required. Little Hotelier also sells a Pro plan (from A$179/mo, rising with rooms; A$345 at 30 rooms on their July 2026 pricing data; no booking fee) that beats us on price alone, and at 30 rooms a rational operator would pick Pro over Basics. We model Basics because it is the plan the 1% fee applies to and the price Little Hotelier leads with. Little Hotelier says it specialises in properties with 1–30 rooms, so 30 rooms is the top of its range.

Source: Little Hotelier pricing page and its own Australian pricing data, accessed 26 July 2026; pricing FAQ wording checked 7 October 2026; pricing page, plan cards and FAQ rechecked 28 October 2026.

Cloudbeds

Modelled licence, our estimate: A$430–615/mo (midpoint A$523/mo). Pricing is quote-only, so this is interpolated from a single first-hand data point: an 80-room hotel reviewer paying US$350/mo on the One plan. Scaled to 30 rooms that puts One at roughly US$300/mo (≈A$430), and that same reviewer's reported Experience-tier uplift (+43%) gives the top of the range (≈A$615)

Payments markup: Cost+ pricing, 1.2% over interchange

Cloudbeds' own help centre gives interchange plus a 1.2% Cloudbeds markup as an example, and its payments page says pricing varies by property location (interchange itself excluded per the convention in §1). Every processor charges a margin of some kind; this figure is the one to compare against your own processor's margin, not an extra cost on top of zero.

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

Confidence: HIGH that 1.2% is Cloudbeds' own published example; MEDIUM on whether any given property is actually offered that exact rate. The dollar figure is ours.

Setup fee, amortised (modelled both ways)

Third-party estimate US$200–5,000+ (hotelminder.com and other aggregators), midpoint US$2,600; Cloudbeds doesn't publish a setup fee, and one first-hand reviewer (6hoteliers.com) reports it was waived on request.

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)

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

Modelled all-in: A$1,583–1,924/mo (midpoint A$1,753/mo). Multiple of our modelled licence: ~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", and cloudbeds.com/payments, checked 7 October 2026 and 28 October 2026; a single first-hand pricing reviewer (6hoteliers.com, updated 2 August 2026), accessed 26 July 2026 and checked 28 October 2026.

RMS Cloud

Licence, our conversion: A$129.07/mo (30 units × US$3.00/site/mo ÷ 0.6973, spot FX 24 Jul 2026). The US$3.00 comes from RMS's 2025 North American vendor guide, which prices per campground site and describes its figures as "estimated costs only"; we couldn't find that guide on RMS's site on 28 October 2026, so the figures are as downloaded on 26 July 2026. RMS's Australian pricing page asks you to request a quote.

Per-online-booking fee: CONTESTED, as 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, and no AUD card exists).

Implementation fee, amortised over RMS's own 36-month North American sales-order term (modelled both ways)

One-time US$4,500, invoiced on signing, per RMS's 2025 North American guide, which calls its figures estimates. RMS's Australian comparison pages for operators switching from other systems advertise free onboarding, and its Australian pricing page doesn't publish a setup fee, so we model both.

If onboarding is free, as RMS's Australian switcher pages say: A$0/mo. If the guide's fee applies: US$4,500 ÷ 0.6973 = A$6,453.46 → A$6,453.46 ÷ 36 months = A$179.26/mo

Confidence: LOW that the North American estimate applies to an Australian property, given RMS's own Australian pages.

Modelled all-in: A$129.07–584.78/mo, 3-year amortised (midpoint A$356.93/mo). Multiple of the licence above: ~2.8×

Source: RMS "2025 Outdoor Reservation Software Vendor Comparison Guide" (North American, US dollars), accessed 26 July 2026; rmscloud.com/compare/rms-vs-newbook, accessed 26 July 2026 and checked 28 October 2026.

Newbook

Licence: not published, and not modelled. Newbook quotes the software licence for a property this size, and its published terms (§6.2, last updated March 2022) ask customers not to disclose what they pay to other businesses or competitors. The only package with a published price is Newbook Essentials, which it markets to small RV parks: $3.50 a booking, currency not stated. We used to model a licence range from a competing vendor's published estimates; that source now lists every Newbook figure as not published, so the range is withdrawn (see §5).

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

A gateway fee of $22.95 a month per Newbook instance, and terminal hire at $29.99 per terminal. The page states neither currency nor the terminal-hire period; we read both as monthly Australian dollars. The underlying 1.65% + $0.30 card rate is excluded per §1.

Gateway $22.95/mo + one terminal at $29.99 (read as monthly) = $52.94/mo

Confidence: HIGH that these fees are published on-page; MEDIUM on the dollar figure, since the currency and the terminal-hire period aren't stated.

Published fees we can add up: $52.94/mo, on top of a licence Newbook quotes. There is no multiple to show, because there is no licence figure.

Source: newbook.cloud/newbook-payment/, /solutions/newbook-essentials/ and terms and conditions, checked 28 October 2026.

Lodgify

Published licence: A$950.81/mo (Ultimate plan, priced by number of properties, 30 properties at US$663/mo on monthly billing, read from the number-of-properties selector on lodgify.com/pricing on 28 October 2026, ÷ 0.6973, spot FX 24 Jul 2026). Billed yearly, Ultimate at 30 was US$530 a month. Whether a 30-room property counts as 30 properties is unverified in Lodgify's own documentation; this models 30 and says so.

Online payment transaction fee: 1% of guest payments taken through a gateway

Lodgify's pricing FAQ says a 1% transaction fee applies to payments guests make online through a payment gateway such as Stripe or PayPal, and that the gateway charges its own processing fee separately (excluded per §1). There is no booking fee and no setup fee. Modelled from no guest paying online through Lodgify up to every online booking doing so.

Lower bound: A$0/mo. Upper bound: A$106,762.50 × 65% online share × 1% = A$693.96/mo

Confidence: HIGH on the rate (their own FAQ); MEDIUM on the dollar figure, which depends on how many guests pay online through Lodgify.

FX surcharge

Lodgify doesn't bill in AUD: the currency selector on its pricing page offers US dollars, euros and pounds only, and its FAQ says the amount due follows the exchange rate at payment time. An AU card issuer typically adds a ~3% international transaction surcharge on a recurring foreign-currency charge. This is a structural cost of how Lodgify bills, not a Lodgify-imposed fee.

A$950.81 × 3% = A$28.52/mo

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

Modelled all-in: A$979.33–1,673.29/mo. Multiple of the licence above: ~1.03–1.76×.

Source: lodgify.com/pricing (number-of-properties selector, plan prices, FAQ and billing currencies), checked 28 October 2026.

Mews

Modelled licence, our estimate: A$490–731/mo. We couldn't find a vendor-confirmed AU number, and Mews' pricing page shows no figures (it asks for your details and says prices are per room); this is the working band from third-party reporting that predates Mews' current Core and Pro plans: HotelMinder's €300/month floor for the old Essentials tier (€300 × 1.635 = A$490.50) up to Hotel Tech Insight's US$17 per room (30 × US$17 ÷ 0.6973 = A$731.39). The low band uses the carried EUR 1 = AUD 1.635 rate (not a 24 Jul 2026 spot, as §1 explains)

Payments fee: Mews' own published example, "1.1%++"

Mews' own payments-fees page gives 1.1%++ as its example; Mews now lists that page among its legacy documents for contracts signed before 1 October 2026. The rate is negotiated, so both that rate and a 0.5% floor (our assumption) are modelled. Merchant Cost Consulting, a US payments consultancy that sells fee reduction, calls 1.1%++ "3-4x higher than we typically see for any type of integrated or embedded setup". Every processor charges a margin of some kind, so compare this against your own processor's.

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 apps to reach feature parity (our estimate)

On Mews Core, their entry plan, we couldn't find a native email/SMS/WhatsApp campaign tool or a reputation-management tool in their published material. (Mews Pro adds revenue management and AI guest messaging via WhatsApp and SMS, at a higher licence.) Our estimate of matching what Accommador bundles, 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, revenue management/dynamic pricing A$324/mo.

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

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

Implementation fee (modelled both ways)

When we checked in July 2026, Mews' pricing page listed "no implementation fees" as an Enterprise-only benefit, which suggested lower tiers carry one. The current page doesn't show that line. 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; LOW–MEDIUM that a fee applies at non-Enterprise tiers.

Modelled all-in: A$1,745–3,116/mo (midpoint A$2,431/mo). Multiple of our modelled licence: ~4.0×

Source: mews.com/en/legal/payments-fees, mews.com/en/legal and mews.com/en/pricing, checked 28 October 2026; Mews Master Terms v6.0 (effective 1 October 2026), read 28 October 2026; mews.com marketplace listings, HotelTechReport category bands, HotelMinder, Hotel Tech Insight and Merchant Cost Consulting, 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: we couldn't find published per-property rates for Demand Plus, Channels Plus, SiteMinder Pay and Dynamic Revenue Plus, and it publishes no licence price above 5 rooms, so we no longer put a dollar figure on these fees. SiteMinder's pricing page says any additional setup costs depend on your property and are confirmed in your contract, without publishing an amount, so it is 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). We couldn't find published prices for the add-on modules (email marketing, interactive maps, owner/trust accounting, SMS metering, RMS Pay rates), so they are excluded, not zeroed. The setup fee comes from a North American guide, and RMS's Australian switcher pages advertise free onboarding, so it is modelled both ways.
Newbook: we couldn't find a published Australian software licence price, so we don't model one. The figures Newbook does publish (Essentials at $3.50 a booking, the gateway and terminal fees) don't state a currency. Their published terms (§6.2) ask customers not to disclose what they pay to other businesses or competitors.
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: we couldn't find a vendor-confirmed AU licence number; every licence source is third-party and predates Mews' current plans. The implementation-fee amount is unknown, not zero, and whether one applies at non-Enterprise tiers was inferred from pricing-page wording that is no longer on the page. The 1.1%++ payments example sits on a page Mews now lists among its legacy documents.
Lodgify: we couldn't find whether a 30-room property counts as 30 properties in Lodgify's own material; we modelled 30 and said so. We also couldn't confirm whether Lodgify's own payments product is offered in Australia.

5. Correction log

Where our own earlier figures were wrong, and what changed

SiteMinder: repriced on its current pricing page (28 October 2026)

SiteMinder restructured its pricing page on 9 October 2026. It now shows starting prices for a 5-room property only, from A$135/mo or A$195/mo on Plus, and says larger properties are priced in a call. The 30-room and 80-room figures we had taken from its July 2026 pricing data can't be checked against anything it now publishes, so we removed every one of them, along with the licence subtotal, the modelled fee range and the real-bill total built on them. The real bill now shows our estimate of the tools to match us on top of SiteMinder's quote, and its own fee lines are named but not priced.

Newbook: modelled price range withdrawn (28 October 2026)

We had modelled a monthly price range for Newbook's software at 30 rooms, using fee estimates published by a competing vendor. That vendor's comparison page (updated 1 October 2026) now lists every Newbook figure as not published, so the range no longer has a source. We removed it everywhere and now show only the fees Newbook itself publishes.

Lodgify: repriced on its current pricing page (28 October 2026)

Lodgify rebuilt its pricing page around the number of properties you manage, so our July per-unit figures could no longer be reproduced. Every Lodgify figure now comes from the page as read on 28 October 2026, converted at AUD/USD 0.6973, and we now include the 1% fee its FAQ applies to guest payments taken online through a gateway.

RMS Cloud's setup fee, Mews' terms and rivals' features: corrected (28 October 2026)

RMS's Australian comparison pages advertise free onboarding, so its North American US$4,500 estimate is now modelled both ways and no longer leads the page. Mews replaced its Master Terms with version 6.0 on 1 October 2026; our renewal and billing claims now follow v6.0. We also corrected marks where a rival's own pages now show a feature we had said we couldn't find: SiteMinder's and Little Hotelier's review prompts and simple campaigns, Cloudbeds' guest CRM, Newbook's built-in campaigns and suggested alternative dates, RMS's next-available calendar, and the Google Analytics tracking RMS, Newbook and Lodgify offer. Two phrases we had put in quotation marks as SiteMinder's own words were ours, and are now paraphrased.

Little Hotelier's booking-fee wording: corrected (7 October 2026)

Our pages put our own one-line summary of the fee in quotation marks and presented it as Little Hotelier's footnote. Those were our words, not theirs. We now quote their pricing FAQ exactly, and say plainly that reading "offline" as including walk-ins and phone bookings is our interpretation. We also now say the A$1,117 figure is our upper estimate before cancellations, and that at 30 rooms their Pro plan is the cheaper choice.

SiteMinder: updated to FY26 results (7 October 2026)

Our SiteMinder figures used their half-year results (average revenue per property A$435/mo, A$178 of it transaction). Their FY26 results replaced those: A$429/mo, A$250 subscription and A$179 transaction, and we recalculated our transaction proxy on that split (the proxy was withdrawn on 28 October 2026; see above). We also stopped describing that average as any customer's bill: it is an average across their whole customer base.

Mews payments fee: one range, and the right source (7 October 2026)

Three different dollar ranges for the same Mews payments fee appeared on one page. They are now one range, A$480–1,057/mo, matching the working above. A quotation we had attributed to "their own consultancy source" is now attributed to its author, Merchant Cost Consulting. Claims about a plan named Essentials and an eight-integration cap were removed: Mews now sells Mews Core, Mews Pro and Enterprise, and advertises 1,000+ marketplace integrations.

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%, which is 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 exchangerates.org.uk and corroborated by Wise. Every RMS Cloud, Newbook, Cloudbeds, Lodgify and Mews figure derived from a USD conversion has been recomputed. For example, Lodgify's Ultimate plan at 30 units (US$579.52/mo) was A$891.60 under the retired house rate and is now A$831.09.

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. That is 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: no longer applies

Earlier material, including our own notes, cited a 1.9% Lodgify booking fee. Lodgify's pricing page shows a 0% booking fee on every plan (rechecked 7 October 2026), and their old/terms/booking-fee/ page returns a 404. Our comparison pages assign Lodgify an A$0 booking fee. Its separate 1% fee on guest payments taken online through a gateway, which its pricing FAQ now publishes, is modelled in §3 (28 October 2026).

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

Vendor sources are the named vendor's own pages, pricing data or published documents; competitor-published and third-party sources are marked as such. Each source shows when it was last checked: most were accessed on 26 July 2026, and those marked were rechecked on 7 October 2026.

SiteMinder's product pages (siteminder.com), accessed 26 July 2026; its July 2026 pricing data is no longer cited
SiteMinder FY26 results to the ASX (public company filing, August 2026), checked 7 October 2026
Little Hotelier pricing page and its own Australian pricing data (littlehotelier.com), accessed 26 July 2026; pricing FAQ wording checked 7 October 2026
Cloudbeds Payments help centre, "Cost+ Versus Blended Rate Pricing", and cloudbeds.com/payments, checked 7 October 2026
Cloudbeds first-hand pricing reviewer account, 6hoteliers.com (third-party, single data point, flagged as such), accessed 26 July 2026
RMS "2025 Outdoor Reservation Software Vendor Comparison Guide" (RMS Cloud's own published PDF, North American market, US dollars, described by RMS as estimates), accessed 26 July 2026
rmscloud.com/compare/rms-vs-newbook (RMS Cloud's own live page), accessed 26 July 2026; rmscloud.com/pricing-plans add-ons, checked 7 October 2026
newbook.cloud payment pages, accessed 26 July 2026; terms and conditions, including §6.2 and §8.9, checked 7 October 2026
keeprstay.com competitor-published fee estimates (a rival vendor), accessed 26 July 2026; no longer cited, because on 28 October 2026 its page listed Newbook's figures as not published
Lodgify's own July 2026 list prices, accessed 26 July 2026, now replaced by the 28 October 2026 figures below
mews.com/en/legal/payments-fees and mews.com/en/pricing, checked 7 October 2026; Mews Master Terms and Conditions v5.0, accessed 26 July 2026, now superseded by v6.0 (below)
mews.com marketplace listings; HotelTechReport category pricing bands; Merchant Cost Consulting (third-party), accessed 26 July 2026
Third-party pricing aggregators (Hotel Tech Insight, HotelMinder, Amenitiz) for Mews' licence range, flagged throughout as third-party, not vendor-confirmed, accessed 26 July 2026

Rechecked on 28 October 2026 for the comparison table on our best-of and alternatives guides, and for the matching rows on our comparison pages:

siteminder.com/en-au/pricing (plan cards from $135 and $195 for a 5-room property, feature table, add-ons, and the FAQ on setup costs, contract terms, support and transaction fees), /channel-manager, /guest-engagement and /hotel-payment-processing-solution; appstore.siteminder.com; SiteMinder FY26 Annual Report and FY26 results release to the ASX (August 2026), and its H1 FY26 release (February 2026), checked 28 October 2026
littlehotelier.com/pricing (Australian prices: Basics from $49, Pro from $179; feature table and FAQ) and /guest-engagement, checked 28 October 2026
cloudbeds.com/pricing, /channel-manager, /hotel-crm-solution, /payments, /integrations/xero and /contact-us; Cloudbeds help centre, "Cost+ Versus Blended Rate Pricing" and its Guest Experience messaging-pricing article; 6hoteliers.com Cloudbeds review, checked 28 October 2026
rmscloud.com/pricing-plans, /compare/rms-vs-newbook and /terms-and-conditions (last updated 15 December 2025); RMS help centre articles on Xero, the booking engine's Interactive Availability Calendar and Google Analytics 4, checked 28 October 2026, and its Google Tag Manager article (search excerpt)
newbook.cloud terms and conditions (last updated March 2022), Newbook Essentials page (price stated without a currency), /newbook-payment, /features/marketing-tools, /services/digital-marketing-services, /services/support, /integrations/google-analytics and /integrations/xero, checked 28 October 2026; Newbook's Essentials launch release (PR Newswire, 5 May 2025), checked 28 October 2026
lodgify.com/pricing (number-of-properties selector, plan prices, FAQ), /automation-tools, /task-management and /contact; Lodgify help centre, "Connect to Zapier", checked 28 October 2026; lodgify.com/integrations/google-analytics (search excerpt)
mews.com/en/pricing, /contact-us, /legal (including its legacy documents list), /legal/mews-master-terms-and-conditions (v6.0, effective 1 October 2026), /legal/payments-fees and /products/mews-channel-manager; Mews community post on the channel manager launch, checked 28 October 2026
keeprstay.com/compare/pricing (updated 1 October 2026), checked 28 October 2026, which is why the Newbook range was withdrawn
Not reloadable on 28 October 2026, so still cited at their original date: RMS's 2025 North American guide, Little Hotelier's July 2026 pricing data, and Little Hotelier's Xero help article

Figures on this page are prices a vendor publishes, figures from third parties, and our own estimates. We cite and date the first two, and label the third as estimates and work it through on the methodology page. None of them is a quote or what any particular property will pay.

Our estimates assume 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.

Vendor figures come from the vendor's own pages, its pricing data or its published documents, such as RMS Cloud's North American price guide; third-party and competitor-published figures are marked as such. Most figures carry the date they were last checked, next to their source. Most were first checked between May and July 2026, some were rechecked on7 October 2026, and many, including every cell in our shortlist guides' comparison table, were rechecked on 28 October 2026. Where a figure still rests on an older source, such as a vendor's July 2026 pricing data, it says so. 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.

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