Online booking software and keyless technology for serviced apartments
- 25%
- rise in direct revenue
- 7x
- growth in self check-ins after app launch
Hospitality Booking System Development
OTA commissions are a distribution cost. A direct booking system reduces them.
OTA commissions are a real line item. Booking.com's standard commission starts around 15% and rises with its Preferred Partner Programme; Expedia's rates run in the same band (per each platform's published commission model). On a property doing $500,000 a year, a 15% blended rate is $75,000 in commissions. A direct booking platform doesn't end OTA dependency overnight, but it gives guests a reason to book direct. Custom systems also handle workflows standard widgets don't: long-stay pricing, corporate account management, multi-property inventory, and payment flows that don't match what Booking.com expects.
Direct booking platform with real-time availability and dynamic pricing
Corporate account management with negotiated rates and billing
OTA channel synchronisation to prevent overbooking across all channels
PMS integration for automated reservation management
Bring the problem, the current workflow, or the existing code. We reply with a practical next step within one business day.
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The brief
Start with what is not working.
Good software decisions begin with the constraint, not a list of features or a preferred technology.
01
OTA commissions climbing every time you push more volume through Booking.com and Expedia?
02
Generic booking engine widgets not supporting your specific property types, rate structures, or corporate requirements?
Plain answer
RaftLabs builds custom hospitality booking systems: direct booking platforms for hotels, serviced apartments, and boutique properties with real-time availability, dynamic pricing, payment processing, and PMS integration. We shipped a direct booking and keyless check-in system for City Break Apartments, a Dublin serviced-apartment operator. A first booking module scopes from $20,000; we launch a validated v1 in 8 to 14 weeks at a fixed price, then grow it.
What to remember
- A single atomic inventory counter per room type per date, backed by Redis, prevents double-booking when simultaneous reservations arrive across direct and OTA channels.
- The gap most booking widgets can't close for serviced apartments is extended-stay pricing: weekly and monthly rate tiers with distinct cancellation rules.
- We design two-way channel-manager sync (SiteMinder, RateGain) to push availability updates in under a minute, and tokenise cards at Stripe or Adyen so card data never touches your servers (PCI DSS SAQ-A).
- A first booking module scopes around $20,000 to $50,000; a full multi-property platform with corporate accounts and OTA sync grows to $50,000 to $120,000 over time.
Proof
- Since 2015
- shipping production software for hospitality and consumer operators
- RaftLabs delivery record
- 4.9/5
- average client rating across delivered projects
- Clutch, verified reviews
- Fixed price
- scope and cost agreed in writing before any development starts
- Every RaftLabs engagement
OTA commissions are a distribution cost. A direct booking system is how you reduce them.
Booking.com's standard commission starts around 15% and rises with its Preferred Partner Programme; Expedia's rates run in the same band (per each platform's published commission model). On a property doing $500,000 a year, a 15% blended rate is $75,000 in commissions. A direct booking platform doesn't end OTA dependency overnight, but with the right guest experience and pricing incentives, a meaningful share of guests will book direct.
Custom systems are also built for workflows standard widgets don't support: long-stay pricing, corporate account management with negotiated rates, and multi-property operators managing consolidated inventory.
Capabilities
What we build
- 01Direct booking platform
Real-time availability against a live inventory pool with atomic decrement preventing double-booking. PCI DSS SAQ-A card tokenisation keeps card data off your servers, with authorisation holds available for pay-on-arrival properties and automated confirmation and pre-arrival emails via SendGrid or Postmark.
- Built with
- Stripe · Adyen · Redis
- 02Rate and availability management
Dynamic pricing rules for occupancy-based rate steps and last-minute discounts, plus length-of-stay pricing critical for serviced apartments. Rate parity monitoring flags violations before OTA commission clawbacks, and GDS distribution via Amadeus, Sabre, and Galileo runs through your channel manager's gateway.
- 03Corporate and group booking
Corporate accounts carry negotiated rates by room type and duration, with authorised bookers seeing them automatically on login, no rate code needed. Group bookings run a room-block model with rooming-list management and an automatic release date returning unsold rooms to general inventory.
- 04OTA channel synchronisation
Two-way channel manager integration keeps availability consistent across direct and OTA channels, pushing updates within seconds of a direct booking. Channel-specific stop-sell commands let you pause Airbnb during a peak period while keeping the direct site and Booking.com open.
- Built with
- SiteMinder · RateGain
- 05PMS integration and reservation management
Completed bookings write directly into your PMS as reservations, with room types and rates mapped automatically. Modifications and cancellations apply to the PMS reservation in real time, so front desk always sees current state without manual updates.
- Built with
- Opera Cloud · Mews · Cloudbeds
- 06Guest communication and pre-arrival
Automated confirmation, pre-arrival information, and digital key delivery for properties with smart locks, all on a configurable trigger schedule. Post-stay review requests link directly to Booking.com, Expedia, or TripAdvisor, cutting the friction that stops satisfied guests from leaving reviews.
How we work
From scope to live booking system
- Week 101
Property and channel scoping
We map your property types, current PMS, and OTA channel mix. You leave week 1 with a written scope document and a fixed-price quote.
- Weeks 2-402
Rate architecture and PMS integration design
Rate structures, corporate account logic, and PMS/channel-manager integration designed against your actual systems.
- Weeks 5-1103
Build and integrate
Booking platform, channel sync, and PMS integration built in parallel, tested against real inventory data.
- Final 2-3 weeks04
Launch v1 and grow
We launch a validated v1 with direct booking share tracked from day one, then grow the platform module by module.
Why us
Why hospitality operators choose RaftLabs
- 01Senior engineers build what they scope
The engineers who assess your distribution mix also build the solution. No bait-and-switch, no offshore handoff after the contract is signed.
- 02Fixed price before development starts
We scope the work, calculate the cost, and lock it in writing before any development starts.
- 03A decade of shipped products, real hospitality track record
Real engagements across SaaS, fintech, healthcare, and logistics, not every one published as a named case study. In hospitality, we built City Break Apartments a direct booking and keyless check-in platform, live in Dublin.
- 04Built to close the extended-stay gap
Weekly and monthly rate tiers with distinct cancellation rules are the gap most booking widgets can't model. We build for it directly.
- 05Double-booking prevention that actually holds
Atomic inventory decrement at the single source of truth, not a best-effort sync that leaves a race-condition window.
What clients say
What our clients say
Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.
Paula Castro
IrelandCo-Founder, City Break Apartments
RaftLabs delivered everything we asked for and more, going above and beyond to meet our expectations throughout the project.
Proof
Case studies
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Read moreFrequently asked questions
Standard booking engine widgets work for standard hotel room-night bookings. They don't handle extended-stay and long-stay pricing structures with weekly and monthly rates, corporate account management with company-specific rates and direct billing, multi-property operators with consolidated inventory, specific deposit and payment structures, or custom guest experience requirements. The practical test: if you've spent significant time trying to configure a booking engine widget to handle your rate structures or cancellation policies and concluded it can't be done, a custom build is the right answer.
We integrate with your channel manager (SiteMinder, RateGain, Cloudbeds) or directly with OTA APIs where available. When a direct booking is made, we design the sync to push availability updates to all connected channels in under a minute. When an OTA reservation arrives, it flows back via the channel manager into your PMS and blocks availability in your direct system. A single inventory counter per room type per date is decremented atomically on booking confirmation, preventing double-bookings across channels.
Yes. Multi-property booking is a common requirement for serviced apartment operators and boutique hotel groups. The platform shows all properties with their availability, lets guests search by location or property, and supports cross-property booking in a single transaction. The management interface shows consolidated inventory across all properties. Corporate accounts can access rates at all properties under a single account login.
We scope land-and-expand. A first booking module covering a single property type with real-time availability, dynamic pricing, payment processing, and basic PMS integration scopes around $20,000 to $50,000. From there, a full multi-property platform with corporate account management, OTA channel synchronisation, and extended-stay pricing grows to $50,000 to $120,000 over time. Cost depends on the number of properties, rate structure complexity, channel integrations required, and PMS integration depth. We agree scope and price in writing before development starts.
Work with us
Have a booking system project?
Tell us your property type, the booking workflows you need to support, and what your current system can't do. We'll scope the right platform and give you a fixed cost.
- 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.
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