Your Custom Booking Website

Part of the guide: Getting direct bookings

Direct bookings — Your own branded booking page and website. Guests book directly with you — no OTA commission, no middleman.

Stop paying OTA commission on every booking

OTAs charge 15–20% per booking. For many hosts, that’s thousands per year going to platforms instead of into the business. Airflow gives every listing a booking page and embeddable widget, and the Website + Hosting add-on turns them into a professionally designed website under your own brand — where guests can find you, check availability, and book directly.

What your website includes

Your booking page and website come with:

Property listings — photos, descriptions, amenities, and location for each of your resources
Live availability calendar — real-time availability pulled from your Airflow bookings (including OTA bookings, so there’s never a double-booking)
Book Now checkout — a smooth, mobile-friendly booking flow
Your branding — your logo, cover image, colours, and custom domain
SEO-ready pages — proper metadata, structured data, and fast loading times

How the booking flow works

When a guest visits your website and decides to book:

They select dates on the availability calendar — unavailable dates are automatically blocked
Pricing calculates instantly — base rate multiplied by nights, plus seasonal adjustments, weekly/monthly discounts, cleaning fee, and any addons
They enter their details — name, email, phone, number of guests
They choose a payment method — Stripe card payment, Paystack (for supported regions), or manual payment options like bank transfer or M-Pesa
Booking is confirmed — a unique confirmation code (AF-XXXXXX) is generated

The entire flow is designed to feel as smooth as booking on Airbnb — but the money goes to you.

Payment options

Airflow supports multiple payment processors to match your market:

Stripe — card payments via your connected Stripe account
Paystack — cards and M-Pesa for East & Southern African hosts
Manual methods — bank transfer or M-Pesa with your account details displayed to the guest
Inquiry mode — for properties that prefer to confirm manually before taking payment

You can offer deposit payments (a percentage upfront, balance due before check-in) or full payment at booking.

Double-booking protection

Before any booking is confirmed, Airflow checks the requested dates against all existing bookings — including those from OTAs that you’ve forwarded in by email. If the dates overlap, the booking is blocked, so a guest can’t book dates that are already taken.

Custom domains

With the Website + Hosting add-on (pricing), your website can run on a custom domain (e.g., book.yourvilla.com). Airflow handles the SSL certificate and DNS configuration through Cloudflare. Your guests see your brand, not ours.

The booking enters Airflow automatically

Once a guest completes a direct booking, it flows into exactly the same pipeline as an OTA booking:

A booking record appears in your portal
A draft invoice is created in your accounting software (if connected)
The guest receives a confirmation email with a link to their guest portal
The dates are marked as booked, so your website won’t take an overlapping booking

The difference? No OTA commission. Just a small Airflow commission per booking, which falls as your plan grows — see pricing.