FareHarbor alternatives for charters and tours (and when to stay)
Peek Pro, Xola, Rezdy, Checkfront, Bókun, FishingBooker and Bookeo compared on pricing, who pays the fee and Google Things to Do, plus when to stay put.
Jon Persson
Co-founder, Websites & Systems ·
If you run charters or tours in the US, there’s a good chance your “Book now” button already opens FareHarbor. When we looked at 6,093 Florida charter and tour operators this month (our own research, September 2026), 1,242 were on FareHarbor. Peek had 181, FishingBooker 122 and Xola 72. Another 935 had no website at all.
So when an owner asks me about FareHarbor alternatives, something is usually bugging them: a guest asked about the fee at checkout, support was slow in July, or the setup doesn’t fit a rental fleet. Below is how the main options charge, who ends up paying, and what each one is good at.
One disclosure up front: we build every client site on FareHarbor, and I’ll explain why near the end. The others get a fair shake here, and for some operators one of them is the better call.
Why operators look for FareHarbor alternatives
The fee lands on your guest. FareHarbor is free for you because the guest pays a booking fee at checkout. FareHarbor doesn’t publish a rate card, but its help center’s own examples use a 6% fee, and its customer terms say booking fees are non-refundable. On a $1,200 private charter, that’s $72 on the guest’s card. Most guests never blink. Some owners hate it anyway.
Support. If you’ve waited on an answer in peak season, that outweighs any pricing chart. Whatever you demo, ask how support works in July: phone or ticket, what hours, and whether you get a named person.
Rentals. Hourly pontoons, jet skis and kayaks run on inventory more than on departure times. If rentals are most of your revenue, put Checkfront and Peek on your demo list; both pitch themselves to rental businesses.
Fishing. A lot of captains don’t want booking software so much as they want anglers. That’s a marketplace, which is a different thing (more on FishingBooker below).
The best booking software for tour operators, side by side
Most tour booking software charges one of three ways: a fee the guest pays at checkout, a monthly plan plus a percentage of each booking, or a flat monthly plan. Prices below come from each vendor’s own site in September 2026, in US dollars. “Who pays” means who covers the platform’s fee on an online booking. Ask every vendor for its card processing rate too; Xola is the only one here that puts it on its pricing page.
| Platform | Pricing model | Who pays the platform fee | Best for | Google Things to Do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FareHarbor | No monthly fee; booking fee added at checkout (6% in FareHarbor’s own examples) | Guest | Tours and charters that want no monthly bill | Yes, free, with the “Official Site” badge |
| Peek Pro | Custom quote, commission-based | Set in your quote | Tours and rentals that want lots of automation | Yes |
| Xola | No subscription; 6% service fee on online card bookings | Guest or you, your choice | Direct online sales | Yes, through its app store |
| Rezdy | $49 to $249/mo plus 3% per online booking, $0.70 to $1 per offline or agent booking | Your choice | Operators who sell a lot through agents and resellers | Yes |
| Checkfront | $99/mo plus 3% per online booking; no fee on offline bookings | Your choice | Rentals and mixed inventory | Yes, no extra fee |
| Bókun | Free plan (manual bookings only); $49 to $499/mo plus 1% to 1.5% per booking | Your choice | Operators who get most of their bookings from Viator | Yes |
| FishingBooker | Free to list; 10% to 30% commission per completed trip | You, out of the trip price | Fishing charters that want marketplace demand | Doesn’t apply (it’s a marketplace) |
| Bookeo | $14.95 to $119.95/mo flat, sized by bookings per month; no commission | You (subscription only) | Small operators who want a fixed bill | Through a connectivity partner |
The alternatives, one by one
Peek Pro pricing: quote only
Peek doesn’t publish rates. Peek Pro’s site says pricing is custom, quote-based and commission-based, and that the company is independently owned. For the money you get abandoned-booking recovery, automated waitlists, dynamic pricing, point of sale and waivers. Go into the demo with last year’s online revenue and ask for three things in writing: the fee as a percentage, who pays it, and card processing.
Xola pricing: no subscription, a fee per booking
Xola charges no monthly subscription. Instead, its help center describes a 6% service fee on online card transactions, which the guest pays on the Guest Pays setup or your business absorbs on the Company Pays setup. Card processing is 2.39% plus $0.30 per transaction in the US, per Xola’s pricing page. It’s the closest thing to FareHarbor on this list, with a choice of who pays.
Rezdy pricing: a monthly plan plus 3%
Rezdy’s pricing page lists three plans at $49, $99 and $249 a month. Each adds 3% per online booking, which you absorb or pass on, and $0.70 to $1 per offline or agent booking. Rezdy’s strength is selling through agents and resellers. It merged with Checkfront and Regiondo in 2023, so Rezdy and Checkfront are now part of the same company.
Checkfront: one plan, built for rentals too
Checkfront has one plan: $99 a month plus 3% on online bookings, absorbed or passed on. Offline bookings carry no fee, and neither do bookings that come in from Google Things to Do, Viator or its reseller network. It’s set up for rentals and accommodation as well as tours.
Bókun: free to $499 a month, no Bókun fee on Viator bookings
Bókun has a free plan for manual bookings, then $49, $149 and $499 a month plus 1.5%, 1.25% or 1% per booking. It charges no Bókun fee on Viator bookings or offline bookings. Tripadvisor, Viator’s parent company, bought Bókun in 2018. For balance: Booking Holdings bought FareHarbor the same month. If most of your trips already come through Viator, Bókun is built around that.
Bookeo: flat fee, no commission
Bookeo’s Tours & Activities plans run $14.95 to $119.95 a month, sized by bookings per month ($39.95 covers up to 1,000). Bookeo takes no commission on payments. For a small operator who wants a calendar, a checkout and nothing extra on the guest’s bill, it’s the most predictable cost on this list. Google Things to Do runs through a connectivity partner rather than directly.
Fishing charter booking software vs. FishingBooker
FishingBooker isn’t booking software. It’s a marketplace: anglers find you there, and it takes a cut. Listing is free, and you set your commission anywhere from 10% to 30% in 5% steps (FishingBooker). The commission is collected as the guest’s deposit, and FishingBooker keeps the deposit after the trip. It says the captains who get the most bookings from it tend to pick 15% to 20% (FishingBooker, 2025).
Say you run a $900 half-day offshore trip at 20%. FishingBooker keeps $180. For an angler who never would have found you otherwise, that can be a fair price.
Fishing charter booking software does a different job. It takes bookings from people who already found you, on your own site, for a monthly fee or a guest-paid fee instead of a cut of the trip. You don’t have to pick one. Keep FishingBooker for new anglers, and give your regulars, their referrals and anyone who searches your boat’s name a Book now button on your own site. FishingBooker syncs with your other calendars, so the same trip doesn’t get sold twice.
When to stay on FareHarbor, and why we build on it
Stay if the fee isn’t costing you trips and support has been fine. Switching eats a season’s worth of attention, and the booking engine rarely decides whether a guest books with you.
Here’s why we put every client on it:
- No monthly bill. You pay nothing in January when the phone isn’t ringing. For a seasonal business, that matters.
- It works on any website. FareHarbor’s Lightframe opens the booking calendar over your own page, so the guest never leaves your site.
- Free Google Things to Do. FareHarbor connects you at no cost, with the “Official Site” badge. More in our Google Things to Do guide.
- The basics are built in: abandoned-cart emails, post-trip review request emails and Tripadvisor Review Express.
- Everyone knows it. More than 20,000 companies use it (FareHarbor, 2026), so your crew and a lot of your guests have seen it before.
If you want the numbers on the fee itself, I broke them down in FareHarbor pricing.
Any tour operator booking software on this list can take a booking. The bigger question is where the guest ends up. Viator will keep sending you guests you’d never have met, and that’s worth its commission. The trips worth winning back are the ones where someone searched your business by name and still booked through Viator. That’s where a fast site with a Book now button on every trip page earns its keep, and our monthly report shows what you saved by not paying Viator’s commission on the trips that booked direct.
A short switching checklist
If you do switch, away from FareHarbor or onto it:
- Export your customer list and every future booking before you touch anything.
- Rebuild trips, prices, customer types and add-ons in the new system, then book a test trip on your phone.
- Decide how you’ll handle bookings already paid on the old system: refunds, reschedules and gift cards.
- Reconnect Viator, GetYourGuide and any other channels, and check that availability matches everywhere.
- Replace every Book button: website, Google Business Profile, Instagram bio, confirmation emails.
- Reconnect Google Things to Do.
- Switch in the shoulder season, not the week before your busiest month.
If you’d rather not handle any of this yourself, our booking website puts FareHarbor’s Book now button on every trip page, and if you’re not on FareHarbor yet, we set you up on it free. You can see how the build works, or book a call and we’ll look at your current setup together.
