Eat The Middleman
The tools to replace them already exist.
Thousands of them. Most free, or close to it. Booking engines, payment gateways, reminders, connectors. All of it there, waiting to be assembled into something that belongs to you.
Which raises a question about the 15 to 35% you hand over every month.
The deal seemed fair at the start. The platform had an audience. You had availability. A percentage of something beat all of nothing.
Then the customers became regulars. They know your name, your address, and which treatment they want. You are still paying to be reintroduced to them every time.
That is not a marketing cost. It is rent on a relationship you already own.
What the introduction costs.
Indicative ranges, being replaced with sourced figures before launch.
Treatwell
20–35%
New-customer bookings sit at the top of that range.
Booking.com
15–25%
Plus visibility programmes that raise it further.
Civitatis
€2.50
Per person, on every seat of every departure.
GetYourGuide
20–30%
Higher for anything promoted in app.
Fresha and similar
0–20%
Free until the new-client fee arrives.
Your own system
0%
Payment processing only, usually under 2%.
200 bookings a month at £45, at 20% commission, is £21,600 a year paid for an introduction you no longer need.
Businesses that took the channel back.
Ritual Massage & Beauty moved onto its own booking system and grew in organic search. Treatwell is now a marginal channel rather than the business.
Nobody sensible switches off overnight.
We build the direct channel alongside the platform, not instead of it. A booking system on your own domain, with payment and reminders. Local search so the people already looking for you land on your site rather than a listing page. A customer list that belongs to you, which is the one thing a platform is designed to withhold.
Then the volume moves across gradually. You decide when to stop paying the meter, and you keep the platform for whatever it is still genuinely worth.
How to break up with the middleman.
What the commission really costs you, what to build first, and how to move the volume across without losing a month of bookings.
- The commission maths, done on your own numbers
- The four pieces a direct channel needs
- A 90 day sequence for shifting volume safely
- What to keep the platform for, permanently