Booking software for surf schools and tours compared

A surf school, a boat trip or a guided walk sells time slots, not rooms: a lesson at 10 o’clock with eight places, boards and wetsuits in the right sizes, an instructor, and a sea that may not cooperate. Booking software built for activities handles all of that, takes payment, and shows your availability on your own website and on marketplaces such as GetYourGuide and Viator.

The prices below are those each company published on its own website on 20 October 2026. Several show prices in dollars, or with a “$” sign and no currency, and some keep their per-booking fee behind a sales call. Check the current page before you sign anything.

Three ways of charging

1. A fee added to the guest’s price, no subscription. You pay nothing monthly; the guest pays a booking fee at checkout. Cheap to start, but your price looks higher to the guest unless you build the fee into it.
2. A monthly plan plus a percentage per online booking. Some tools let you absorb the percentage or pass it on to the guest.
3. A flat monthly plan, no commission. Predictable, and the cheapest once you take a lot of bookings online.

Card processing (Stripe, PayPal, SumUp and the like) usually comes on top, unless the tool includes its own payment service and says so.

The main tools

Tool	How it charges (as published)	Worth knowing
FareHarbor	No monthly fee; “a small fee is applied during checkout, so your guests cover the cost”. The percentage is not published.	FareHarbor B.V. (Netherlands) appears on its EU pages. Waivers, weather holds and rebooking, resource controls for boats and crews.
Rezdy	Foundation $49, Accelerate $99, Expansion $249 a month, plus a 3% online booking fee on every plan (“You can choose to absorb this fee, or pass it on to your guests”).	The page notes prices exclude Australian GST, so the “$” is probably Australian dollars. 21-day free trial. Payments powered by Stripe.
Bókun (a Tripadvisor brand)	Free plan ($0, manual bookings, no fees on Viator); Start $49 a month + 1.5%; Plus $149 + 1.25%; Premium $499 + 1%. No fee on offline bookings.	Booking widget from the Start plan. Channel manager, an Airbnb connection and a marketplace of 2,600+ OTAs and resellers. 14-day trial.
Checkfront	$99 a month plus a 3% online booking fee (“You can choose to absorb this fee, or pass it on to your guests”).	Built-in waivers at no extra fee; resource management; connects with GetYourGuide. The page says prices vary by region and currency.
TrekkSoft (Interlaken)	In euro, billed yearly: Starter €49 a month + 3% online; Accelerate €149 + 2.5%; Ultimate €249 + 2%.	Prices published in euro. Its own payment service costs 2.5% + €0.25 per card payment in Europe. Waivers from Accelerate. Viator, GetYourGuide, Google Things to Do.
Regiondo	In euro: Grow €59, Pro €99 a month (one-year contract); “small per-booking fee” on online bookings, amount not published.	Channel manager (GetYourGuide, Viator), booking widget, staff and equipment scheduling. States “Your data stays in Europe”.
TicketingHub (London)	No monthly fee: “3% per successful booking”, online or by card in person; cash sales free. You choose who pays it.	Card processing billed by your own Stripe, PayPal or SumUp account. Bookings from Viator, GetYourGuide and other resellers land in its calendar.
Bookeo	Flat plans in US dollars, from $14.95 a month (Solo) to $119.95; “Bookeo itself does not charge commissions on payments”.	Waivers add-on from $9 a month. 30-day free trial; an off-season freeze cuts the fee by 70%.

Others you will come across: Peek Pro and Xola (both US-focused, fees not published), TuriTop (Spain; its pricing page did not load when we checked), SimplyBook.me (a general appointment tool, cheap and simple, but without tour-marketplace connections), and Ventrata (built for large attractions, priced at several hundred euro a month).

What a small activity provider needs

A booking button on your own website. Every tool above offers a widget or a booking page you can link to. Put the button on every activity page, not only the home page, and check it works smoothly on a phone: many people book the same week, from the beach car park.

Capacity and equipment. If you rent boards, wetsuits, kayaks or bikes, look for resource or equipment management (FareHarbor, Bókun, Checkfront, Regiondo, TrekkSoft all mention it) so a lesson closes when the gear runs out, not only when the places do.

Weather. Cancellations for wind and swell are part of the job. FareHarbor is the only one in our list to describe weather holds and rebooking tools on its page; with the others, check how easy it is to cancel a session and move or refund everyone in one go. Whatever the tool, publish your weather policy clearly on your website.

Waivers and ages. Many tools collect waivers online before the session (FareHarbor and Checkfront built in, TrekkSoft from its Accelerate plan, Bookeo as a paid add-on). Ask for ages and swimming ability at booking, not on the beach.

Marketplaces. If you sell through GetYourGuide, Viator or Airbnb Experiences, the tool should sync your availability with them so you never overbook. Our guide to what activity marketplaces cost you explains their commission.

How to choose

• A handful of online bookings a month, mostly by phone and walk-ins? A no-subscription tool (FareHarbor, TicketingHub) or a small flat plan (Bookeo) keeps your fixed costs near zero.
• Busy season, lots of online bookings, some marketplace sales? A plan with a lower percentage (Bókun Plus or Premium, TrekkSoft Ultimate) or a flat plan with no commission becomes cheaper. Do the sum with your own numbers: monthly fee × 12 + percentage × your online sales.
• Passing the fee to guests? It keeps your margin, but the guest sees a higher total at checkout. Many operators prefer to build it into their advertised price.
• Data and contracts. If it matters to you that data stays in the EU, or that the contract is under EU law, ask: only Regiondo states the first on its pricing page, and FareHarbor’s EU pages carry the name of its Dutch company, FareHarbor B.V.

Fáilte Ireland’s free Online booking systems vendor selection guide, written for its Digital that Delivers programme (now closed), sets out the essential features to look for in a booking system and the steps to choose one.

Can a grant pay for it?

Possibly. The Grow Digital Voucher, run by the Local Enterprise Offices, lists “online booking, payments or appointments” software among the eligible costs. It pays 50% (from €500 to €5,000 in total, up to two vouchers), a subscription counts for up to one year, and you pay it before the grant is paid, and the software must be new to your business. You must have completed a Digital for Business project in the previous two years, and you must apply before you buy. Our Grow Digital Voucher guide has the details.

The software is half of it

Booking software takes the booking; your website has to make people want to book. Clear activity pages with times, prices, ages, what to bring and what happens if the weather turns, real photos, and a booking button on every page do more for your bookings than any setting in the software. To see what the platforms take from each booking, try our fee calculator with your marketplace’s rate.