Theybook vs Checkfront
The commission-free alternative to Checkfront
Checkfront is a flexible reservation and inventory system used across rentals, tours and accommodations. It's configurable and has been around a long time. Theybook does the same core jobs for a flat monthly fee — with 0% commission and payouts straight to your own Stripe.
- Pricing
- $99 / month, flat
- Commission
- 0% — always
- Payouts
- Your own Stripe
- Setup
- Self-serve, same day
At a glance
The difference is the meter
Checkfront runs on tiered subscription + booking limits. Theybook charges one flat monthly fee, so your most successful months don't become your most expensive.
Checkfront · on $300k
Varies by tier
Skimmed from a year of bookings
Theybook · on $300k
$0
Commission — just one flat fee
Illustrative, based on a commission of roughly 6% on $300,000 of annual bookings. Your exact savings depend on your volume and the fee you pay today.
Why operators switch
What you gain moving from Checkfront
Keep 100% of every booking
Theybook charges one flat monthly fee. No commission, no per-ticket cut — ever.
Paid direct to your Stripe
Money lands in your own account on your own payout schedule. We never hold your funds.
A booking page that looks like you
A full design studio with 110+ controls — not a locked template with someone else's branding.
Runs the whole operation
Checkout, automated emails, manifest, CRM, reviews, waivers and analytics in one place.
Line by line
Theybook vs Checkfront
| theybookTheybook | Checkfront | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat monthly fee | Tiered subscription + booking limits |
| Commission per booking | 0% — always | A cut of every order |
| Who holds your money | You — direct to your Stripe | Routed through the platform |
| Cost as you grow | Stays flat | Rises with every sale |
| Booking page design | Full studio + custom CSS + your domain | Limited templates |
| Customer data ownership | 100% yours, CSV export anytime | Limited / platform-held |
| Add-ons & tiered pricing | Included | Varies |
| Gift cards & promo codes | Included | Varies |
| Automated emails & waitlist | Built in | Varies / add-on |
| Setup | Self-serve in minutes | Often a sales call |
Where we differ
Three reasons to choose Theybook
No booking caps
Theybook's flat fee doesn't meter your bookings. Sell as many seats as you can fill without watching a counter.
A modern, designed storefront
Checkfront's booking pages can feel utilitarian. Theybook ships a design studio focused on conversion and brand.
Guest lifecycle built in
Automated reminders, post-trip review requests and an auto-filling waitlist come standard rather than as add-ons or integrations.
In fairness
What Checkfront is good at
Checkfront is strong on inventory/rental logic and has broad payment-gateway support and a long track record.
The honest answer: if a per-booking fee is quietly costing you thousands and you'd rather own your booking page, your data and your guest relationships, Theybook is the better economic and strategic fit for most operators.
Checkfront pricing, explained
Checkfront uses paid subscription tiers, often with caps on the number of bookings or items per plan — so growth can push you into a higher bracket.
The structural issue isn't the exact percentage — it's that the cost scales with your revenue forever. A commission acts like a tax on growth: every marketing dollar you spend, every new departure you add, every price increase you earn sends a slice to the platform in perpetuity. Budgeting is harder too, because your software cost swings with seasonality instead of being a known line item.
Theybook charges a flat $99/month (or $83/month annually) with every feature included. On $300,000 of annual bookings, that's the difference between roughly thousands in platform costs and $996 — money that stays in your business instead of funding someone else's marketplace.
Who holds your money — and why it matters
With many commission platforms, guest payments route through the platform's merchant account before reaching you. That means their payout schedule, their reserve policies, and their leverage if you ever dispute a fee or decide to leave.
Theybook connects to your own Stripe account, so cards are charged directly in your name and funds settle to your bank on Stripe's standard schedule. You see every transaction in your own Stripe dashboard, refunds are under your control, and if you ever cancel Theybook, your payment processing relationship — history, saved customers, everything — is untouched.
Your brand and your data stay yours
Booking platforms built around marketplaces have a quiet conflict of interest: every guest who books your trip is also a lead for their marketplace, where your competitors are listed one tap away. Your customer list becomes their asset.
Theybook has no marketplace and no reseller network. Your booking page lives on your own domain, designed in a studio with 110+ controls so it's unmistakably your brand. Every customer record — email, phone, booking history, lifetime value, tags and notes — is yours and exports to CSV anytime. The product's only job is to make your direct channel stronger.
When Checkfront might still fit — an honest take
Checkfront is strong on inventory/rental logic and has broad payment-gateway support and a long track record.
If those strengths are central to how you sell — and the per-booking economics genuinely work at your volume — staying put can be rational. But for operators whose growth comes from their own website, social channels and repeat guests, paying a percentage on direct bookings is pure leakage. Most Theybook customers keep their OTA listings for discovery and route everything direct-bookable through their own commission-free page.
Switching is easy
Move off Checkfront in an afternoon
- 1
Recreate your experiences
Add each tour, charter or activity with pricing, capacity and duration. Tiered pricing and add-ons take seconds to set up.
- 2
Set your availability
Create repeating schedules and one-off departures. We generate dated, seat-limited slots for the next 90 days automatically.
- 3
Design your booking page
Pick a preset, drop in your logo and photos, tune colors and sections, and connect your own domain.
- 4
Connect Stripe & go live
Link your Stripe account, paste the embed widget on your existing site, and take your first commission-free booking.
Before you sign anything
Eight questions to ask any booking platform
Put these to Checkfront, to Theybook, to anyone. The answers decide what you'll actually pay — and who owns your business.
“Do you take a percentage of my bookings?”
The single most expensive line in the contract. "Free software" funded by a 6% booking fee costs $18,000 a year at $300k of sales. Theybook: 0%, ever.
“Who holds my money between the guest and my bank?”
If payments route through the platform's merchant account, so do your payout schedule, reserves and leverage. Theybook connects your own Stripe — funds never touch us.
“Can I export my customers and bookings anytime?”
Your guest list is your most valuable marketing asset. If exporting is hard, leaving is hard — that's the point. Theybook: one-click CSV, always.
“Is there a contract, minimum term, or cancellation penalty?”
Lock-in is a substitute for being worth staying for. Theybook is month-to-month; annual billing exists only as a discount.
“Are bookings or features capped by plan tier?”
Tier ladders are commission in disguise — you pay more precisely when you grow. Theybook has one plan with everything in it.
“Will my guests be charged a booking fee at checkout?”
Guest-paid fees quietly raise your real price against competitors and depress conversion. With Theybook there's nothing to pass on.
“Does my booking page live on my domain, with my brand?”
A generic widget on a platform subdomain builds their brand, not yours. Theybook is white-label on your own domain with a full design studio.
“Can I set it up myself, today?”
If going live requires a sales call and an onboarding queue, so will every change after. Theybook is self-serve — most operators are bookable the same afternoon.
On the record
Operators who made the switch
We were handing our old platform almost $1,500 a month in fees. The switch paid for itself inside the first week — and the booking page is genuinely nicer than what we had.
Reminders cut our no-shows in half and the waitlist quietly refills cancellations. It runs the boring parts of the business so we can run the trips.
Questions, answered
Checkfront vs Theybook FAQ
01Is Theybook simpler than Checkfront?
For tour, charter and activity operators, yes — Theybook is opinionated around selling seats on scheduled departures, with a guided setup and a polished booking page out of the box.
02Do I get inventory and capacity controls?
Yes — per-experience capacity, per-departure seat limits, closures, and a shared-resource lock that prevents double-booking the same boat or guide.
03Is Theybook cheaper than Checkfront?
For most operators with meaningful volume, dramatically. Checkfront uses tiered subscription + booking limits, so the cost rises with every sale; Theybook is a flat $99/month ($83 annually) regardless of volume. At $300k of annual bookings, the difference is typically five figures per year.
04Can I import my data from Checkfront?
You recreate experiences and schedules in Theybook (usually under an hour), and you should export your customer and booking history from Checkfront before cancelling. Going forward, Theybook maintains your customer list automatically with full history and CSV export.
05Will I lose reviews or rankings by leaving Checkfront?
No — your Google reviews, Tripadvisor presence and OTA listings are independent of your booking software. Theybook also collects first-party reviews after each trip and publishes the ones you approve directly on your booking page.
06How long does switching from Checkfront take?
Most operators complete the move in a single afternoon: account, experiences, availability, design preset, Stripe connection, then point existing "Book now" links at the new page. There's no data migration project and no downtime for guests.
07How much does Theybook cost?
Theybook is a flat $99/month (or $83/month billed annually) with every feature included — unlimited bookings, unlimited experiences, the full design studio, automated emails, waivers, gift cards, CRM and team accounts. There is no commission, no per-booking fee, and no setup fee. The only other cost is Stripe's standard card-processing rate, which is paid to your own Stripe account like any other payment processor.
08Do you really take 0% commission?
Yes — zero, permanently. Commission platforms typically take around 6% of every order, which on $300,000 of annual bookings is roughly $18,000 a year. Theybook's flat fee means a record month costs exactly the same as a quiet one, so every additional booking you win is pure margin.
09Who processes the payments?
Your own Stripe account. Guests pay by card at checkout and the money settles directly to your bank on Stripe's normal payout schedule. Theybook never holds, routes or touches your funds — if you ever leave, your payment history and customer relationship with Stripe remain entirely yours.
Compare with other platforms
Keep what Checkfront would take.
Set up your booking page in minutes. No card, no contract, no commission.
Flat fee · 0% commission · Payouts to your own Stripe · Cancel anytime