FareHarbor pricing and FareHarbor fees, including the booking fee your customers pay

FareHarbor charges operators no monthly subscription and no setup fee. It earns from a booking fee added to your customer's checkout, reported at about 6% of the order on direct bookings (some 2026 guides say 6 to 8%), plus card processing that comes out of your payout and a fee of about 2% on bookings that arrive through partner sites. FareHarbor does not publish a rate card; the exact rate is set per account.

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Checkout, Saturday 7 pm game

6 players at 35 USD210.00 USD

Booking fee, about 6%12.60 USD

Customer pays222.60 USD

You receive before card processing210.00 USD

How much does FareHarbor cost?

FareHarbor costs the operator 0 USD a month. The money comes from each sale instead. Here is every line that shows up on a FareHarbor booking, who pays it and where the figure comes from.

FareHarbor's pricing page does not list rates, and its provider terms say fees are agreed per account. The figures above are from 2026 pricing guides by Bokun, CaptainBook and Automate Travel, which agree on the model and differ slightly on the percentage. Treat them as the starting point for your own quote.

So is FareHarbor free? For the operator's monthly bill, yes. For the business as a whole, no. Your customers pay the booking fee on every order you take through your own website, and every card payment still costs you processing. The model is popular because there is nothing to pay before you sell, which matters a lot to a new tour company in its first season.

What is the FareHarbor booking fee?

The FareHarbor booking fee is a percentage that FareHarbor adds to the customer's total at checkout, shown as its own line under the ticket price. On direct bookings it is reported at about 6%, and larger operators can negotiate it lower. A group of six on a 35 USD escape room ticket sees 210 USD for tickets and about 12.60 USD more as the booking fee.

The fee is separate from your price and goes to FareHarbor, not to you. If a customer cancels and you refund them, the booking fee is refunded to the customer too, but the card processing on the original charge usually stays with you. That is a small cost on any one refund and a real one for a venue that refunds 10 to 15% of bookings in a bad weather month.

Who pays the FareHarbor booking fee? On the standard setup, the customer does. You can keep the customer's total the same by lowering your ticket price to absorb it, but then it is your money. Either way the fee comes out of what customers are willing to spend with you. A player who compares two escape rooms in your town sees the final number, not your ticket price.

FareHarbor cost at three venue sizes

Here is what the booking fee adds up to in a normal month, next to a booking system with a flat monthly price. The ticket volume is what the venue sells online; walk-ins and phone sales are left out. Card processing is left out of both columns because you pay it on any system.

The FareHarbor column is paid by customers, not by the operator, so it is not a line on your profit and loss. It is still money leaving your customers' pockets on your behalf. A four room venue that switched to a flat plan could raise ticket prices by a few percent, keep the customer's total exactly where it was, and keep about 2,250 USD a month that used to go to the booking fee.

The break-even is low. At a 6% fee, a flat plan of 149 USD costs less than the booking fee as soon as you sell about 2,500 USD of tickets a month online. Billed yearly at 74 USD, it is about 1,250 USD.

What does FareHarbor include for that fee?

The fee buys more than a calendar. FareHarbor gives you a booking website, a checkout, a dashboard for staff, manifests and check-in, and next-day payouts. Its biggest asset is distribution: FareHarbor is owned by Booking Holdings, which bought it in 2018, and it connects to travel sellers and resellers, so your tours can be sold by partners as well as on your own site.

That distribution is the real reason to choose it. A boat tour in Key West or a walking tour in New Orleans gets a large share of bookings from visitors who find it on a travel site. For them the partner network pays for the fee. A neighborhood escape room or an indoor activity venue, where most players are locals who book from Google or Instagram, usually gets far less from it.

Two limits come up often in reviews. You cannot bring your own merchant account; FareHarbor processes all payments. And the website it builds lives on its platform, so if you leave, you rebuild your site. Price both into the decision, not only the percentage.

Is FareHarbor worth it?

FareHarbor is worth it for tour and activity operators that get a meaningful share of bookings from travel sites and partners, or that are new and want no fixed cost before the first sale. It is a weaker deal for local venues with steady volume, where 6% of every online order quickly passes the price of a flat plan.

A fair way to decide: take last month's online sales, multiply by 6%, and compare that with a flat plan at your size. Then ask how many of those bookings came from partners. If most came from your own site, Google and Instagram, the fee is mostly paying for a checkout you can get elsewhere for 74 to 149 USD a month. It is also worth checking where customers drop off before they pay; a short audit can check where players drop off on your booking page, and an extra fee line at the last step is a common reason.

FareHarbor alternatives with a flat monthly price

Our FareHarbor alternative page shows the switch step by step. Most alternatives flip the model: a monthly subscription for the venue, and no fee on the customer's receipt.

• Bookeo Tours plans run from 14.95 USD a month, with Standard at 39.95 USD for 1,000 bookings, no commission and a 30 day trial. It is the cheapest serious option for small venues.
• Resova costs 50, 90 or 135 USD a month for 100, 300 or 600 bookings (up to 20% less billed yearly), 20 cents per booking over the limit, with waivers and vouchers included.
• Xola has no subscription either and adds a partner fee to the customer's checkout, so it shares FareHarbor's model rather than replacing it. Peek Pro works the same way, with a reported 6 to 8% booking fee; see our Peek Pro pricing breakdown.
• Reserving costs 49 USD a month per venue, or 149 USD on Growth (74 USD billed yearly) with deposits by group size and time, two-way SMS reminders and a waiting queue, and no fee on bookings. It is built for venues that book rooms, bays or tables by the hour; see our escape room booking software page for how rooms, group sizes and reset time work.

Reserving does not connect to travel sites, sign waivers or sell gift vouchers. If you need any of those, Resova or FareHarbor fit better. If your bookings come from locals and the problem is empty weekend slots, deposit rules at one flat price are what you are paying for. Venues that also rent simulator bays can run both on one account, as on our golf simulator booking software page.

Questions to ask before signing with FareHarbor

• What is my booking fee rate on direct bookings, and is it written into my agreement?
• What is the API fee on partner bookings, and which partners does it apply to?
• What card processing rate will I pay, and is it different for international cards?
• Can I absorb the booking fee for some products, such as private events or gift cards?
• If I leave, can I export my customer list and booking history, and what happens to my website?

Get the answers in writing. Rates vary by account, and the number that matters is the one in your agreement, not the one in a pricing guide, including this one.

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