More direct bookings for your yacht charter, less commission

It’s twenty to eleven at night on Paros. A message comes in on WhatsApp: is the boat free on Thursday for eight people, and what does it cost? You read it the next morning, after the first trip. By then they’ve booked another boat on a marketplace.

If you run one to five boats in the Mediterranean, you know this story. Your guests come from everywhere, they plan on their phone, and they book with whoever answers first. You can be the one who answers first, without giving up the channels that bring you new guests.

What a booking through someone else costs you

Brokers, marketplaces and agents bring you guests you’d never reach on your own. They also take a share of every trip:

Where the booking comes from	What it costs you
A charter broker (MYBA member)	Generally 15% to 20% of the gross charter rate (Allied Yachting)
Getmyboat	11.5% on US bookings, 14.5% on international ones, like a booking in euros (help center)
Boatsetter	11.5% to 35% of the list price, depending on your boat and insurance plan (fee policy)
Click&Boat	A commission that depends on your contract with them (terms)
Your own website with Let’s Book	Standard: $30 (€25) a month plus 2.5% per booking. Pro: $175 (€150) a month plus 1%. Plus the fee of Stripe or Mollie.

We read their fees on October 1, 2026.

An example with round numbers: on a day charter of €2,000, a 15% commission is €300. Sell ten of those in a season, and that’s €3,000 for trips you could have sold yourself. When the same guests book on your own website, Let’s Book Standard costs €25 a month. On each trip you pay a €50 booking fee, plus the fee of Stripe or Mollie. You can also add the booking fee to what the guest pays.

So keep the channels that bring you new guests, and make the next booking come direct: the guest who already found you, the one who writes on WhatsApp, the one who comes back next summer.

Answer before they have to ask

Most WhatsApp messages ask the same four things: what does it cost, what’s included, where do we meet, and what if it’s windy. Put all four on your own website, and a guest can book at eleven at night without waiting for you.

• Your trips, with a price. A half day, a full day, a sunset trip, each with what it costs.
• What’s included. The skipper, the fuel, drinks, snorkel gear, towels. Say what’s extra too.
• Where you leave from. The name of the harbor and a map pin.
• The weather policy. What happens when the wind keeps the boats in.

Our article on pricing a day charter helps you set those prices.

Make booking direct as easy as sending a message

The booking form of Let’s Book runs on your own website. The guest picks a day and a trip, sees what’s free, and pays in a few taps. The form comes in English, Dutch, German, French and Spanish, all reviewed. Danish, Greek, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish are machine-translated. So a family from Munich and a couple from Chicago both book in their own language.

Guests will keep writing on WhatsApp, and that’s fine. Answer with a link instead of a price:

• A pre-filled booking link opens the form with the boat already chosen. The guest picks the day and the trip, and pays.
• A payment link. You enter the booking in Let’s Book, so the boat is booked for this guest at once. Then copy the payment link into the chat.

So the chat stays where your guest already is, and the booking lands in your calendar with the money in your own Stripe or Mollie account.

Let hotels and villa managers sell for you

The concierge of the boutique hotel up the hill, the agent who rents out villas, the beach club where your guests have lunch: they’re asked about boat trips every day. Give them a reason to send those guests to you.

With partner bookings in Let’s Book, every partner gets a booking link of their own. They book at the rate you set for them, and Let’s Book counts which bookings came through whom. At the end of the month you filter the bookings by partner and settle their commission yourself, at the rate you agreed.

Turn every guest into the next direct booking

The guest who had a great day on your boat is the easiest booking of next summer. Make sure that booking comes to you direct.

• The day after the trip, Let’s Book sends a follow-up email. You write it yourself, so ask for a review and their best photo.
• Fifty weeks after their trip, a win-back email goes to guests who haven’t booked again: two weeks before the date they sailed last year.
• Guests from a marketplace. Read the platform’s terms first. Click&Boat, for one, forbids arranging a later trip with its guests outside the platform (article 5.5 of their terms, read on October 1, 2026). Do you enter their bookings in Let’s Book? Then turn off “Notify customer” when you confirm the booking, so Let’s Book sends that guest no emails. Win back the guests who found you on their own.

Get found where people search

A guest on the island searches on Google Maps for “boat trip” or “yacht charter”. Put your business on Google Business Profile with good photos, your opening hours and a link to your booking page. Ask every happy guest for a review there.

Give every trip its own page on your website, in the words people search for: “Day cruise from Paros to Antiparos”, “Sunset trip from Naxos”. Our step-by-step guide to your boat rental website walks you through it.

Where a broker still earns their fee

For a crewed yacht by the week, at the top of the market, a good broker brings clients you won’t find on Google. Keep working with them. Don’t depend on them for every week of the season, though, because on every booking that comes direct, you pay no broker’s commission.