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FareHarbor pricing and fees, worked out for boat rentals

No monthly fee, a booking fee at checkout, and what that adds up to on a boat: per trip, per season, and after a refund.

By Iwan de Ploeg10 min read

Two rental RIBs side by side on clear blue water, seen from above

FareHarbor charges you no monthly fee. Its usual model is a booking fee that your customer pays on top of your price, at checkout. FareHarbor publishes no rate, but a customer story on its own site mentions “the 6% online booking fee”. On a $550 pontoon day, that’s $33 at checkout.

This guide works out what that means for a boat rental: per trip, per season, and in the parts you don’t see at checkout, like card processing, refunds and leaving. Every fact about FareHarbor comes from its own pages, read on 30 October 2026.

A word about who’s writing. We make Let’s Book, booking software for boats, so our prices are in here too, next to theirs. FareHarbor is the big name in our trade. It does a lot more than we do, for plenty of tours and attractions we don’t focus on, and it has an office in Amsterdam, one canal over from ours. Where we differ most is the price, and how you find out what it is.

What is FareHarbor?

FareHarbor is booking software for “tours, activities, rentals and attractions”. It was founded in Hawaii in 2013, has been part of Booking Holdings, the owner of Booking.com, since 2018, and counts more than 23,000 companies as its customers (about FareHarbor).

Did you book a boat trip and see FareHarbor on your receipt? Then the company you booked with takes its bookings through FareHarbor. You may have paid two amounts: the price of the trip to that company, and a booking fee to FareHarbor.

FareHarbor pricing and fees: how the model works

FareHarbor has no price list. Its page for boat tours says “No monthly fees” and “No setup fees. A small charge only on confirmed bookings” (boat tours). How that charge works is in its terms for providers, last modified on 1 January 2025 (provider terms). They describe two models:

  • Your customer pays a booking fee. At checkout your customer pays two separate amounts: your price, and a booking fee that goes to FareHarbor. This is the one the marketing pages describe: “A small fee is applied during checkout, so your guests cover the cost.”
  • You pay a commission. Your customer pays one price, and FareHarbor charges you a monthly commission, a percentage “to be communicated separately”.

Neither percentage is in the terms. The one rate we found on a public FareHarbor page is in a customer story, where the general manager of Northern Lights Village says: “We were skeptical at first about the 6% online booking fee” (customer story, May 2025). The sums below use that 6%. Your rate may be different, so ask FareHarbor for it in writing.

That makes FareHarbor hard to price before you talk to them. The booking fee, the processing fee and the API fee all have a rate that FareHarbor doesn’t publish, so you hear yours from their sales team. Ours is on our pricing page, the same for everyone: $30 a month plus 2.5%, or $175 a month plus 1%.

For you, the trade-off is simple. You pay no monthly fee, and your customer sees a higher total at checkout than the price on your website.

What FareHarbor costs a boat rental, worked out

A percentage grows with the price. So the same 6% is a bigger number on a $550 pontoon day than on a $40 walking tour.

The sums below use these assumptions:

  • FareHarbor: a booking fee of 6%, paid by your customer.
  • Let’s Book Standard: $30 a month plus 2.5% of every booking.
  • Let’s Book Pro: $175 a month plus 1%.
  • With Let’s Book you choose who pays the percentage: you, or your customer at checkout.
  • Card processing isn’t in the tables, and you pay it with both. FareHarbor runs the card payment for you and takes its processing fee off your price. With Let’s Book you connect your own Stripe or Mollie account and pay their rate to them. So add your card rate to both sides when you compare.

Per booking

Example prices for a rental in the US:

Booking Price FareHarbor, 6% (your customer pays) Let’s Book Standard, 2.5% Let’s Book Pro, 1%
Jet ski, 1 hour $120 $7.20 $3.00 $1.20
Pontoon, half day $350 $21.00 $8.75 $3.50
Pontoon, full day $550 $33.00 $13.75 $5.50
Private charter, 4 hours $1,500 $90.00 $37.50 $15.00

Per season

The monthly fee of Let’s Book is included here: $360 a year on Standard, $2,100 on Pro.

Bookings a year FareHarbor fees, 6% Let’s Book Standard Let’s Book Pro
$150,000 $9,000 $4,110 $3,600
$400,000 $24,000 $10,360 $6,100

What the two tables show:

  • With FareHarbor, your software bill stays close to zero. The cost sits on your customer’s checkout, as a separate line.
  • Your customer sees that line. A family that books a $550 pontoon day pays $583.
  • With Let’s Book the percentage is lower, and it’s your call. Pay it yourself, or add it to your customer’s total, like FareHarbor does.
  • Card processing comes on top of both. FareHarbor takes it off your price; with Let’s Book, Stripe or Mollie charges you directly.
  • Pro costs less than Standard from about $9,700 in bookings a month, roughly $116,000 a year. Below that, Standard is cheaper.

These are sums on stated assumptions, not a quote. Put in your own prices, and the rate FareHarbor gives you. Our pricing page does the Let’s Book side for your own numbers.

Card processing, refunds and the contract

The booking fee is the cost everybody talks about. FareHarbor’s terms have a few more, and two of them, refunds and leaving, come up often on the water.

Card processing

FareHarbor runs the card payments for you. Its terms call the cost a processing fee: you pay it, it is separate from the booking fee, and it comes off your price before the money reaches your Stripe account. The terms give no rate. The booking fee goes to FareHarbor’s own account, and FareHarbor may hold back your payout until the trip has happened (provider terms).

With Let’s Book, you connect your own Stripe account (or Mollie, in Europe), and your customer pays into it. Stripe or Mollie charges you its own rate, which is on its website, and Let’s Book takes no share of it. That rate isn’t in our 2.5% or 1%, so count it in when you add up.

Refunds

On a full refund, FareHarbor’s terms say it may pay the booking fee back to your customer. On a partial refund, FareHarbor keeps the whole booking fee (provider terms).

That one comes up on the water. Say the wind picks up and you bring a $550 pontoon back halfway, and refund half. The $33 booking fee stays with FareHarbor. Let’s Book keeps its fee too, also when the whole booking is canceled: if a booking is canceled later, you still pay our booking fee on it.

API fees

FareHarbor has separate terms for an API fee, worked out from its price sheets for online travel agencies and invoiced every month. They give no rate either (API fee terms).

If you sell through Viator or GetYourGuide, those platforms also take their own commission. That one isn’t a FareHarbor fee, so keep the two apart when you add up.

Leaving

FareHarbor’s terms have no end date. Either side can end them with 15 days’ written notice (provider terms).

Let’s Book has no setup fee and no minimum term, and you cancel by the month. When you come over from another system, we help you switch for free, your existing bookings included.

Is FareHarbor legit?

Yes. FareHarbor has been around since 2013, is part of Booking Holdings, and is used by more than 23,000 companies, by its own count. For what operators think of it, read the reviews on Capterra or G2, where the score is current.

Does FareHarbor do waivers?

Yes. In May 2024 FareHarbor announced its own waiver tool on its blog, free of charge (FareHarbor blog).

In Let’s Book, waivers run through WaiverForever, on your own account, which you pay them for. Your customer signs at home, with the details of the booking already filled in. More about that on our page about waivers, and on what goes in a boat rental waiver.

Is FareHarbor a good fit for a boat rental?

FareHarbor does a lot. It’s built for “tours, activities, rentals and attractions”, its API fee terms show it connects to online travel agencies, and it has many more features than we do. For a lot of businesses that’s exactly right. For a boat rental, weigh three things:

  • The fee on a bigger ticket. The tables above show what 6% is on a pontoon day or a charter.
  • Refunds after weather. On a partial refund, the booking fee stays with FareHarbor.
  • Planning by the boat. We found nothing on FareHarbor’s pages about picking the actual boat at handover, or about a customer starting the boat from their phone. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there, so ask about it in their demo.

Let’s Book does less, and only for boats. Rentals, tours, charters and boat clubs run on one planning, on the same boats, so nobody books a boat twice. Tickets per seat are coming, but not live yet.

FareHarbor alternatives for boat rentals

What each vendor publishes, read on 30 October 2026. “Not published” means the number isn’t on their site.

Tool Monthly Per online booking Who pays the fee
Let’s Book $30 or $175 2.5% or 1% You, or your customer
FareHarbor None Not published; 6% in a customer story Your customer, or a commission for you
Peek Pro Quote only Not published Not published
Rezdy $49, $99 or $249 3% You, or your customer
Checkfront $99, varies by region 3% You, or your customer
Bookeo €10.95 to €89.95, tours plans None Nobody

Sources: Let’s Book, FareHarbor, Peek Pro, Rezdy, Checkfront, Bookeo. Card processing comes on top with all of them.

We compared two of them in more depth: Peek Pro and Rezdy. Twelve tools side by side are in our guide to the best boat rental software.

Frequently asked questions about FareHarbor pricing

How much does FareHarbor charge?

FareHarbor publishes no rate. Its usual model is a booking fee that your customer pays at checkout, and a customer story on its own site names 6%. On a $550 pontoon day that’s $33. The worked-out numbers are above.

Who pays the FareHarbor booking fee?

Your customer, on top of your price. In FareHarbor’s other model, your customer pays one price and you pay FareHarbor a monthly commission.

Does FareHarbor have a monthly fee?

No. Its page for boat tours says “No monthly fees” and “No setup fees”.

Does FareHarbor keep its fee when I refund a booking?

On a partial refund, yes, in full. On a full refund, its terms say it may pay the booking fee back to your customer.

How do I leave FareHarbor?

Its terms let either side end them with 15 days’ written notice. If you move to Let’s Book, we help you switch for free, your existing bookings included.

Is FareHarbor worth it for a small boat rental?

That depends on your numbers. Take last season’s bookings, work out 6% of the total, and set that next to a monthly fee plus a lower percentage. The tables above show how.

Whatever you pick, get the rate in writing and run it on your own season. For the rest of the comparison, read FareHarbor and Let’s Book side by side.

Sources, all read on 30 October 2026:

Iwan, Berend and Robbe, our support team

Booking software for boat rental, tours and charters.

This article is from Let's Book, the software that lets your customers book and pay on your own website, and puts every boat on one planning. Made by people who rented out boats themselves.

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