Direct bookings
Airbnb vs Own Website, and Why Most Owners Use Both
Airbnb finds you new guests and your own website keeps the money from the ones who come back.
You’ve got a glamping listing earning bookings, and every one of them costs you a slice of commission. So you’re weighing up Airbnb vs your own website, and wondering if a site of your own would do better.
The honest answer is that the two do different jobs. Airbnb is good at finding new guests, and your own website is good at keeping more of the money from guests who already know you. Most owners end up best off with both, then shifting more bookings direct over time.
Airbnb vs own website, side by side
Airbnb gives you an audience and your own website gives you control. Here’s how they compare on the things owners ask about most.
| Airbnb | Your own website | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per booking | A fee on every stay | A small card processing fee |
| New guests | Built in, with a huge audience | You have to earn them |
| Repeat guests | You can’t easily rebook them direct | You can offer a better deal |
| Rules and pricing | Set mostly by Airbnb | Set by you |
| Look and story | A standard listing layout | Your photos, your words, your place |
| Main risk | Fee and rule changes, account problems | Quiet at first until people find you |
| Effort to start | Low | Higher, once |
What each one costs per booking
Airbnb takes a fee from every booking, and a website takes far less. How much Airbnb takes depends on how your account is set up. Many hosts pay a single host-only fee of about 15.5%. Others are on a split fee, where the host pays 3% and the guest pays a separate service fee on top, which pushes your price up in search.
Here’s what that looks like on a real stay. A shepherd’s hut at £120 a night for three nights comes to £360. At a 15.5% fee, Airbnb keeps about £55.80 of it. Do that across a season and it adds up to a lot of nights worked for nothing.
On your own website, the main cost per booking is the card processing fee, which is a small percentage. You also pay for the website itself. Our plans start from £19 a month, so one or two direct bookings a year can cover it.
Airbnb fee details accurate as of October 2026.
Millie the Hut’s website brought 42 direct bookings in its first year, saving the owners over £3,000 in commission.
Control over rules, pricing and your brand
On your own website, you decide the rules. You set the minimum stay, the midweek and weekend rates, the deposit, the cancellation terms and what the booking page says.
On Airbnb, you work inside the platform’s framework. Your listing looks like every other listing, your cancellation options come from a menu, and your rules can change when Airbnb updates them. That’s a fair trade for the audience, but it does mean you can’t tell your story the way you’d like.
A website lets you show what makes your place different. That might be the hot tub on the shepherd’s hut deck, the stargazing field or the walk to the village pub. Guests can see all of it on one page, with your photos and your words.
The risk of relying on one platform
The main risk with Airbnb is that so much rests on a platform you don’t control. If fees rise, search rankings shift or a listing is paused, your bookings drop and you can’t do much about it. Nobody is saying this will happen. It’s just a lot to rest on one company.
Your own website has a different risk. It’s quiet at first. A new site has no reviews, no history on Google and no regulars, so it won’t match the traffic of a busy listing for a while.
That’s why spreading the load works better than choosing a side. A website that sits alongside a listing builds up slowly and takes some pressure off the platform.
What Airbnb does well
Airbnb is very good at getting your listing in front of people who’ve never heard of you. Guests already trust the platform, they know how to book on it, and the reviews on your listing do a lot of persuading.
For a new glamping site, that matters. Three pods on a farm, with no website and no Google presence, can fill dates on a listing much faster than they could from a standing start. A website can’t buy you that kind of reach on day one.
So there’s no need to be anti-Airbnb. The point is to use it for what it’s good at, which is finding new guests, and not to rely on it for everything.
Why using both works
A listing finds the guest and a website keeps the relationship. You get new guests through the platform, then give happy ones a reason to book direct next time.
There’s also a pattern worth knowing. Even when a guest finds you on Airbnb, many go on to search for your own website, hoping for a better deal or because they know the owner keeps more of the money. If your website isn’t there, or looks dated and slow on a phone, they go back to the listing. If it’s there and looks good, they can book with you.
A listing finds the guest. A website keeps the relationship.
A plan for shifting bookings direct
You don’t need to leave Airbnb to move bookings direct. You need a website that makes booking easy, then a few small habits that point returning guests towards it.
- Get a website that takes bookings. It should have a calendar, a short enquiry form or online payment, and your rates on one page. Calendars can sync with Airbnb, Booking.com, Canopy & Stars, CoolStays and others, so you aren’t juggling separate diaries. If you run safari tents or bell tents, see our safari tent and bell tent sites. For cabins, see our lodge and log cabin sites.
- Make it good on a phone. Guests often browse on mobile, so pages need to load quickly and the booking step needs to be simple.
- Offer a reason to book direct. That could be a slightly better rate, a late checkout, a bottle of wine or a flexible date change. It doesn’t have to be a big discount.
- Tell guests about your site while they’re staying. Put a card in the hut, a line in the welcome book and a thank-you note when they leave. Airbnb’s terms don’t allow steering guests off the platform before they’ve booked, so keep this to guests who’ve already stayed.
- Be easy to find on Google. Make sure that searching your site’s name brings up your website, with your location and unit type on the page.
- Keep a list of past guests. Ask for a name and email at the end of a stay, with their say-so, and let them know when you open new dates.
Here’s one tip on where to begin.
Most owners should not leave Airbnb
Most glamping owners shouldn’t leave Airbnb. Dropping a listing that works takes away your best source of new guests, and a new website can’t fill that gap right away.
A better question is how much of your income you’d like to come direct in a year or two. If it’s a few repeat guests, a simple site with a calendar, photos and an enquiry form is good enough. If you want most of your bookings direct, you’ll want a stronger site, good Google presence and a way to stay in touch with past guests. You can build up to that in stages.
Doing it yourself is also fine. A one-page site with your best photos, rates and an enquiry form beats having nothing, and you can grow it later. Our approach to building sites is the same, starting small and adding what bookings need.
FAQs
Can I have an Airbnb listing and my own website at the same time?
Yes, and most glamping owners do. The listing brings in new guests and the website takes direct bookings from people who already know you. The one thing to get right is availability. Use a calendar that syncs with your listings, so a night booked in one place is blocked in the other and you avoid double bookings.
Is a direct booking website cheaper than Airbnb?
Per booking, usually yes. Airbnb takes a fee from every stay, while a website has a monthly cost plus a small card processing fee. A site only works out cheaper once it brings in bookings, so it makes sense to treat it as a way of earning repeat and direct guests, not a replacement overnight.
Should I leave Airbnb for my own website?
For most glamping owners, no. Airbnb is still good at putting your hut, pod or tent in front of guests who have never heard of you. A better move is to keep the listing, build a website alongside it, and gradually move repeat and returning guests across to book direct.
Will guests actually find my own website?
Some will come from Google, some from social media, and many from your Airbnb listing itself. Guests often look up the owner’s name after finding a listing, hoping for a better deal. If your website shows up when they search, they can book with you directly.
Send us your website and we’ll tell you, for free, what’s stopping it getting bookings. Get your free website audit, or get in touch if you’d rather talk it through.