When does a hotel need custom software instead of Opera, Mews, or Cloudbeds?

When your operation has requirements the platform's configuration cannot support: loyalty mechanics beyond its built-in module, a guest app the platform doesn't offer, or multi-property management with consolidated reporting. If the gap is a configuration issue, we'll tell you to configure it.

How does a direct booking platform actually reduce OTA dependency?

By making direct booking visibly better: a loyalty rate below the OTA rate, a booking experience as fast as the OTA, and abandoned booking recovery. The loyalty program is the most impactful piece, because a guest with points to earn has a financial reason to skip the OTA next time.

Can you build a loyalty program that works across multiple properties and F&B outlets?

Yes. One points ledger per member, earning rules that apply at any participating property or outlet, and real-time point-of-sale integration so balances are accurate when guests check them.

What does hospitality software cost, and how long does it take?

A direct booking engine typically runs 12 to 14 weeks ($45K to $95K); a guest experience app $40K to $80K. Multi-property platforms are scoped after discovery. Fixed cost, agreed before development starts.

We already have a PMS. What would you actually build?

The layers your PMS will not give you: the direct booking experience, the guest app, the loyalty program, and the operational views across properties. If what you need is a configuration inside software you already own, we'll tell you that instead.

How do you handle migration from our current PMS?

With a parallel run: old and new systems operate together while channel connections are validated for rate and availability parity, staff are trained, and data is migrated property by property. The cutover happens when the new system is already proven, not on faith.

Can we phase the investment across seasons?

Yes. Most groups start with the direct booking engine before peak season, when every direct booking pays back fastest, then add the guest app and loyalty layers. Each phase is scoped and priced separately.

Hospitality Software Development Company

Every booking through an OTA costs 15 to 20% in commission, and the platform keeps the guest relationship. We build the direct booking engines, loyalty programs, and operational software that bring those bookings, and those guests, home.

Direct booking platforms with loyalty pricing that make booking direct visibly better than the OTA
Property management with reservations, housekeeping, and F&B in one operational view
Guest apps with mobile check-in, service requests, and loyalty in the guest's hands
Loyalty programs that earn across stays, dining, and spa, not just room nights

3+ years RetentionWeek 1 First milestoneFixed price Pricing

The problem

Sound familiar?

Paying 15-20% OTA commission on bookings that could have been direct, if your website had a booking experience worth using instead of defaulting to Booking.com?
Running housekeeping, maintenance, and F&B on disconnected tools, so your team coordinates over WhatsApp while guests wait?

Short answer

RaftLabs builds custom hospitality software for hotels, resorts, and serviced apartment groups: direct booking platforms, property management systems, guest experience apps, and loyalty programs. Every build targets the same outcome: shifting bookings from commission-paying channels to your own. Most projects deliver in 12 to 14 weeks ($45K to $95K) at a fixed cost agreed before development starts.

Who this is for

Hospitality teams we build for

Hotels

Direct booking engines and custom PMS work that makes OTA share shrink every quarter.

Resorts

Guest apps with mobile check-in, F&B ordering, and loyalty guests can see without asking at reception.

Serviced apartment groups

Multi-property platforms covering booking, loyalty, guest app, and housekeeping.

Hotel groups and portfolios

Loyalty programs that work across properties and F&B outlets.

01 Diagnosis

Problems we solve in hospitality

01
Problem
OTA commission has become a fixed tax
Solution
Fifteen to twenty percent per booking, more once Genius discounts and visibility boosters stack, and the platform keeps the guest relationship. Most owners have come to treat it as fixed. It is not. Direct bookers return at roughly four times the rate of OTA guests, which means every booking you shift to direct compounds. We build direct booking engines with loyalty pricing that make booking direct visibly better than the OTA, plus abandoned booking recovery for the guests who start but don't finish. The result is revenue that stays with you and guests you actually own.
02
Problem
Your website is why guests book on the OTA
Solution
It is not a loyalty problem, it is a UX problem. The typical independent property site loads slowly, asks for five fields before showing a price, and breaks on mobile, while the OTA listing is fast, complete, and trusted. Guests find you on the OTA and never leave it. We rebuild the booking experience to compete head-on: real-time availability, transparent pricing with a visible direct advantage, and a mobile flow that works. The result is guests who found you on Booking.com but book with you.
03
Problem
Operations run on a tangled stack
Solution
Reservations in one system, housekeeping updates by phone, service requests over WhatsApp, post-stay surveys from a fourth tool. There is no unified guest record, so a guest who complained about their room mid-stay gets a generic satisfaction survey the next day with no acknowledgment. That is a preventable bad review, and every disconnected touchpoint is staff hours spent copying information between systems. We unify the operational view: reservations, housekeeping, F&B, and maintenance in one place, with a single guest record underneath. The result is complaints recovered before they become reviews.
04
Problem
Housekeeping status is stuck on paper
Solution
When room status travels by paper sheet and phone call, checked-out rooms block new arrivals. Front desk staff spend half an hour per shift on status calls instead of checking guests in, and on a busy weekend that compounds into a lobby queue. We put a real-time status app in housekeeping's hands: rooms update as they are cleaned, faults route to maintenance with photos, and the front desk sees true availability without a single call. The result is faster check-ins and no guests waiting on rooms that are already clean.

02 What we ship

Hospitality software we ship

Direct booking platforms
Real-time availability, multiple rate plans, and loyalty member pricing that makes booking direct visibly better than the OTA. Photo galleries and comparison tools so guests never need Booking.com to evaluate the room. Upsells for upgrades, early check-in, and packages at the point of booking. Abandoned booking recovery emails for guests who start but don't finish. Two-way PMS integration posts confirmed bookings instantly. OTA share shrinks every quarter.
Property management systems
Custom PMS for hotels, resorts, and serviced apartments: reservations, front desk, room allocation, rate plans, and group bookings, with housekeeping status in real time and maintenance faults tracked to resolution. Night audit automation reconciles revenue without manual entry. Certified RMS Cloud integration and channel manager connectivity included. We know the difference between a PMS that demos smoothly and one that survives a fully booked Saturday. One operational view instead of four logins.
Guest experience apps
Mobile check-in, digital key where lock hardware supports it, and checkout without the front desk. Service requests route to the right department with status updates back to the guest. In-room F&B ordering with order tracking. Loyalty balance and redemption visible without asking at reception. Push notifications for room-ready alerts and in-stay offers. Post-stay surveys with a recovery workflow for unhappy guests. The front desk handles problems, not transactions.
Loyalty and rewards programs
Points earned across room nights, restaurant spend, spa, and ancillaries, not just room nights like OTA schemes, so you capture the spend your current program misses. Tier benefits that give high-value guests a visible reason to stay loyal. Coalition mechanics so points earned at one property redeem at any property in the portfolio. Partnership earning beyond the property. See our Loyalty Program Development page. Guests get a financial reason to skip the OTA.
Restaurant and F&B management
Restaurant operations integrated with the PMS for room charging: orders post to the folio without manual transfer. Table management, kitchen display routing, menu management by meal period, and bar stock reconciliation. F&B revenue rolls into consolidated hotel reporting. One revenue view for the GM, no checkout disputes between F&B and front desk.
Housekeeping and revenue operations
Housekeeping app with room assignment, real-time status, inspection checklists, and lost property logging. Faults found during cleaning route to maintenance with photos. Revenue tools with dynamic pricing rules and pickup pace reports. Channel integration keeps rate and availability in parity across Booking.com, Expedia, and Airbnb without manual extranet updates. Before a pricing build, check where the property stands with the free RevPAR calculator. Clean rooms turn faster, and rates get set on data.

Integrations

Works with the systems you already run

Configure the standard workflow first, build where the differentiation lives.

Property systems: Opera · Mews · Cloudbeds
OTA channels: Booking.com · Expedia · Airbnb
Included in our builds: RMS Cloud integration (certified) · Channel manager connectivity · Two-way PMS sync

Rate and availability parity across OTAs is a solved, bought problem. We connect it, not rebuild it.

03 Buy, build, or wait

What to buy, what to build, what to skip.

The question is not whether software helps. It is what to buy, what to build, and what to skip until the property can carry it.

Buy or configure

The PMS for standard operations
Opera, Mews, and Cloudbeds cover the standard workflow well. Configure them before you consider building.
Channel management
Rate and availability parity across OTAs is a solved, bought problem.
Off-the-shelf loyalty
If points on room nights is enough, buy it. Build only when the mechanics are the differentiator.

Build custom

Direct booking that beats the OTA
When the booking experience itself is the growth lever, it gets built, not configured.
Cross-portfolio loyalty
Earning across stays, dining, and spa with real-time POS posting is custom work.
The operational layer
Housekeeping, maintenance, and multi-property views shaped around your staffing, not a template.

Bottom line

Buy the operation. Build the differentiation. And never pay a percentage for software that should cost a flat fee.

04 How we work

How we build hospitality software

01
Operations mapping
We map your full flow: reservations, front desk, housekeeping, F&B. We find where systems fail to connect, measure your OTA versus direct split, and locate the commission that could stay with you. The risk this retires: building for the demo instead of the fully booked Saturday.
02
Architecture for 24-hour operation
Hospitality software has to work at 3am on a sold-out weekend. We design data models for your room types and rate plans, loyalty earn rules across outlets, and housekeeping workflows that match your staffing. Channel and payment integrations are scoped here. The risk this retires: the 3am failure nobody tested for.
03
Build with operations in the loop
Two-week cycles. Front desk, housekeeping, and revenue staff review working software at each stage, not specifications. Integrations are tested against realistic booking volumes. The risk this retires: software your staff can't or won't use.
04
Go-live with a parallel run
Staff training, channel connections validated for parity, then old and new systems run together until the new one is proven. We support directly through the first live weekend. The risk this retires: the cutover disaster, where migration happens on faith.

05 Track record

What we've shipped in hospitality

Loyalty platforms shipped across hospitality: 20+

Rise in direct revenue on our serviced-apartment booking platform: 25%

Growth in self check-ins after app launch: 7x

Cost agreed before work starts: Fixed

06 Case studies

Recent work

01
Booking Platform With RMS Integration and Keyless Mobile App Driving 25% Rise in Direct Revenue
Weekly self check-ins via mobile app
72+
Active users within 2 months of rollout
580+
Growth in self check-ins after launch
7x

07 Client voices

A client on the work

Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.

Paula Castro
Reservations Officer, City Break Apartments

08 Why us

Why choose us?

01
Every build targets direct bookings
Shifting bookings from commission-paying channels to your own is the outcome every build is pointed at.
02
Configure the PMS before you build
Opera, Mews, and Cloudbeds cover the standard workflow well. Build only when the mechanics are the differentiator.
03
Fixed cost, phased for the season
Fixed cost, agreed before development starts. Phased delivery: most groups start with direct booking before peak season.

What it takes

Typical cost and timelines by project type

Direct booking engine
Booking engine with PMS integration and loyalty.
- $45K to $95K
- 12 to 14 weeks
Guest experience app
Mobile check-in, F&B ordering, service requests.
- $40K to $80K
Full multi-property platform
PMS, booking, loyalty, guest app, F&B, housekeeping.
- Scoped after discovery

Fixed cost, agreed before development starts. Phased delivery available: most groups start with direct booking before peak season.

09 Questions

Common questions

: Off-the-shelf PMS platforms cover the standard workflow well. Custom software is right when your operation needs what configuration cannot deliver: loyalty mechanics beyond the built-in module, a guest app the platform doesn't offer, or multi-property management with consolidated reporting. If the gap is a configuration issue, we'll tell you to configure it. Custom PMS development is a significant commitment and isn't the answer when a platform with the right integrations would do.
: OTA dependence persists because guests default to the OTA for convenience and trust. Reducing it means making direct booking visibly better: a loyalty rate below the OTA rate, a booking experience as fast as the OTA, and abandoned booking recovery. The loyalty program is the most impactful piece. A guest with points to earn has a financial reason to book direct next time, and each direct booking reduces the OTA's share of that guest relationship over time.
: Yes. One points ledger per member, earning rules that apply at any participating property or outlet, and real-time point-of-sale integration so balances are accurate when guests check them. The operational design, which transactions earn at what rate, matters as much as the architecture, and we work through it in discovery.
: Fixed cost, agreed before development starts. A direct booking engine typically runs 12 to 14 weeks ($45K to $95K); a guest experience app $40K to $80K. Multi-property platforms are scoped after discovery. Phased delivery available: most groups start with direct booking before peak season.
: The layers your PMS will not give you: the direct booking experience, the guest app, the loyalty program, and the operational views across properties. If what you need is a configuration inside software you already own, we'll tell you that instead of selling you a build.
: With a parallel run. Old and new systems operate together while channel connections are validated for rate and availability parity, staff are trained, and data migrates property by property. The cutover happens when the new system is already proven, not on faith.
: Yes. Most groups start with the direct booking engine before peak season, when every direct booking pays back fastest, then add the guest app and loyalty layers. Each phase is scoped and priced separately, so you are never committing to the full platform at once.

Hospitality software by product

Related industries

Get a straight answer on your hospitality build.

Tell us your property type, your PMS, and your OTA versus direct split. We'll tell you whether to configure, build, or wait, and what it would honestly take.

Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
All conversations are NDA-protected.

Your name

Your work email

Please enter a valid email address.

Your phone number