Which booking channel actually earns you the most? How to calculate net revenue per channel

Ask an owner which channel performs best, and the answer almost always comes from the same box: the one that brings in the most bookings. Usually that is a large platform. And on the revenue report it does sit at the top, by a wide margin.

But that report shows gross. And between gross and what actually stays on your bank account sits a very different amount of leakage per channel. Anyone who never works out that leakage is steering their occupancy on a number that does not answer the question.

What disappears between gross and net

Four items, and they differ sharply per channel.

Commission. The best known, and the only one most owners do factor in. How much it is exactly and what it is calculated on — including or excluding VAT and tourist tax — is covered in how much commission Booking.com actually charges.

Channel discounts. This is the item that gets forgotten most often, and frequently the heaviest one. Programmes for returning platform users, mobile discounts, country-specific deals: those percentages stack up before commission comes off. A room you priced at €120 can land at €102 with the guest — and commission is then calculated on what the guest paid, not on what you had in your calendar.

Payment and payout costs. If you are paid out through a virtual credit card, your terminal or payment provider keeps a percentage of it. Direct bookings with online payment cost something too, but usually less. A small amount per booking, but it counts once you put channels side by side.

Drop-off. Bookings that cancel or fail to show up. This is not a cost but a correction: a channel with 30% cancellations delivers far fewer realised nights per hundred bookings than a channel with 5%. So always calculate on realised nights, never on booked ones.

The calculation, in four steps

Take one closed quarter. Not last month — too little data, too much coincidence.

Step 1 — gross per channel. For each channel, add up the accommodation revenue of all realised bookings. Accommodation only: leave breakfast, tourist tax and extras out for now, because they distort the comparison.

Step 2 — subtract the leakage. Per channel: commission, the channel discounts you actually allowed, and payment costs.

Step 3 — divide by realised nights. That gives you your net ADR per channel: what one night sold through that channel effectively brings in.

Step 4 — put them side by side. Only now do you have a comparison.

A concrete example with round numbers, for a €120 room:

• Through a large platform, with a discount programme active. Guest pays €108. Commission of 15% on that is €16.20. Payout by virtual card costs about €1.60. Net: roughly €90.
• Through your own website, paid online. Guest pays €120. Payment costs about €2. Net: €118.

That difference of almost thirty euros a night is not abstract. Across two hundred nights a year shifted from one channel to the other, it is the kind of amount that renovates a bathroom.

Two numbers to put right next to it

Net ADR on its own is still not the whole story. Add two things per channel.

Average length of stay. Every booking costs you a fixed parcel of work, regardless of its length: arranging arrival, turning the room, doing laundry, invoicing. So a channel that mainly delivers one-night bookings costs you more work per night than one with three-night stays — even when net ADR is identical. More on that in length-of-stay discounts.

Cancellation rate. A channel that looks good on paper but where one in three bookings falls away is still blocking your calendar in the meantime. Those blocked nights have a price, even though it never shows up as a cost anywhere.

The trap: this is not an argument for dropping channels

The temptation after this exercise is strong: the platform costs me thirty euros a night, so out it goes. It rarely works that way.

Those channels also give you visibility you could not buy yourself for what they cost. Part of your direct bookings comes from guests who first saw you on a platform and then googled your name. That effect appears in no report, but it is real — cut the channel and a slice of your direct flow disappears with it.

So the right conclusion is not "cancel", but steer. Concretely:

• Make sure the guest who lands on your own site can actually book and pay there without a detour — see a booking system on your own website.
• Give your direct guest something a platform cannot: a free late check-out, a bottle of wine, a discount from three nights. Something small, something that costs you less than the commission.
• Switch channel discounts on and off deliberately per period, rather than leaving them running because they were once ticked. In your busiest weeks you do not need that extra visibility.
• Use your low season to actually exploit that expensive visibility, and your high season to take your margin. More on that in driving direct bookings.

How to track this in BedFlow PMS

In BedFlow PMS you record the commission per channel once, on the channel itself, so every incoming booking immediately knows what it effectively yields. Your revenue figures therefore show not only gross but also net per channel — including the distinction between what the guest paid and what reaches you.

Because cancellations and no-shows sit in the same booking stream, you can filter them out without counting by hand. Next to your net ADR you get occupancy, ADR and RevPAR, so you can see straight away whether a more expensive channel is carrying your occupancy or mainly eating your margin — what those three numbers mean is explained in occupancy, ADR and RevPAR. Where exactly you set the channel margins is covered in the documentation.

In short

Gross revenue per channel is a popularity number, not a profitability number. Subtract commission, channel discounts and payment costs, divide by your realised nights, and you finally have a net ADR you can compare channels with. Put length of stay and cancellation rate beside it, and the picture holds up.

And use that picture to steer, not to cut: apply discounts more deliberately, make direct bookings more attractive, and choose per season where your occupancy comes from.

Want to see net per channel without keeping a spreadsheet for it? Try BedFlow PMS free for 30 days — no credit card required. The pricing is right there on the site.