What does a PMS cost for a B&B? The pricing models decoded (and the costs that never make the quote)

Sooner or later the same question shows up in every group of accommodation owners: "what are you actually paying for your booking system?" And the answers are always absurdly far apart. One owner mentions a few tens of euros a month, another quotes a four-figure annual fee, and a third says "nothing, it comes with my channel manager". All three are telling the truth.

That is not because one system is ten times better than another. It is because everyone counts differently. Until you can tell those counting methods apart, you are comparing apples to oranges — and you end up signing for something whose real cost only becomes clear after a year.

The five pricing models you will run into

1. Per room, per month. The classic hotel model. You pay an amount per room or unit, every month. Predictable, and fair if you are small — until you notice that a single-bed studio costs the same as your largest suite while earning half as much.

2. A flat price per property. One amount, no matter how many rooms sit behind it. Attractive once you have more than a handful of rooms, painful if you rent out two. Check what happens with a second property: sometimes it simply doubles, sometimes there is a discount, sometimes you get pushed into a more expensive plan.

3. A percentage of revenue, or an amount per booking. Appealing in a quiet month: no bookings, no cost. But this model scales with your success, not with the service delivered. A record summer suddenly costs you a multiple while the software does exactly the same work. Always run this model against your best year, not your worst.

4. Feature tiers. A cheap entry plan that happens to exclude the one thing you need — the accounting link, automated emails, or multiple users. The real price is almost always the second or third tier. So never read the cheapest column; read the column where your checkboxes are.

5. "Free", paid for through add-ons. The system itself costs nothing, but every channel connection, every payment, or every extra module is billed separately. This can work out well if you use one channel, and get expensive if you use four.

What is often not included

The number on the quote is rarely the number on your bank statement. Ask explicitly whether these are covered:

• The channel manager. With some providers, the connection to Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia is a separate module with its own price. That is the single biggest line item to verify.
• The booking engine on your own website. Which is precisely the part that saves you commission — see driving direct bookings.
• Online payments. The software may charge nothing, but your payment provider will: a fixed fee plus a percentage per transaction. That belongs in your calculation.
• Invoicing and accounting integration. Frequently a separate line, even though for a Belgian or Dutch operator it is hardly a luxury.
• Setup, migration and training. One-off, but sometimes substantial. Ask for the figure, even when it is "usually free".
• Extra users. Letting your cleaner or your partner see the calendar should not require an upgrade.
• Support. By phone or email only? Also at weekends, when your guests actually arrive?

The costs that appear on no quote at all

Two items genuinely cost you money and are listed nowhere.

The first is your own time. A migration costs you a handful of evenings: entering rooms and rates, reconnecting channels, checking that the calendar is right. That is a real cost, but a one-off one — and much smaller than the time you get back afterwards. What such a switch looks like in practice is covered in moving from a spreadsheet to a PMS.

The second is getting stuck. An annual contract that renews silently, a three-month notice period, or — worst of all — no decent export of your own data. Ask that question before you sign, not after: can I take my bookings, guests and invoices with me in a readable file if I leave? A supplier who gets vague there is telling you something important.

The only calculation that matters: cost per booking

Do not compare monthly prices. Compare what a system costs you per booking, and set that against what it returns.

An example, with round numbers you should replace with your own. Say: five rooms, roughly 350 bookings a year, a system at 600 euro per year including the channel manager. That is 1.70 euro per booking. Now put that next to what you get:

• One overbooking avoided per year. The cost of one is not just the refund, but the rehousing and the review you earn for it.
• Every booking that shifts from a platform to your own website. On a 300 euro stay, 15 percent commission is 45 euro — more than twenty times the per-booking cost above.
• The hours you no longer spend retyping calendars.

Framed that way, the question is rarely "is this expensive?" but "does this pay for itself with what I actually use?". A 200 euro system that fails to sync your calendar reliably is more expensive than a 700 euro one that does.

Seven questions to ask before you sign

1. Is the channel manager included, and for how many channels?
2. What happens to my price if I add a room or a second property?
3. Does it include a booking engine for my own website?
4. What do setup, migration and training cost as a one-off?
5. What is the contract term and the notice period?
6. How do I get my data out if I leave?
7. What has been deliberately left out of the entry-level plan?

How we do it ourselves

BedFlow PMS charges no commission on your direct bookings and simply publishes its rates on the pricing page — including a seasonal plan for owners who only rent out part of the year. The channel manager is part of the plan, not a separate module. What each feature does is written up in the documentation, so you can judge the fit before you ever book a demo.

And the best answer to "what does it cost?" is still: try it first. BedFlow PMS is free to try for 30 days at bedflow.eu, no credit card required. Put your real rooms and rates in, let it run for a month, then work out your own cost per booking. That number is the only one worth comparing with a competitor.