Hotel PMS pricing in the UK: what you should expect to pay
Hotel software pricing is unusually hard to compare. Some vendors publish a monthly figure, some quote per room, some take a cut of every booking, and a few will not tell you anything until you have sat through a demo. Here is what the market actually looks like for an independent UK property, and how to work out your own total.
The three pricing models
Flat monthly subscription
You pay a fixed amount each month, usually banded by room count. Predictable, easy to budget, and it does not punish a good year. This is the model most modern cloud systems use, and for a UK independent it typically lands somewhere between £70 and £300 a month plus VAT depending on size and modules.
Per-room, per-month
Common with larger international vendors: perhaps £3–£8 per room per month. For a 20-room hotel that is £60–£160; for 100 rooms it is £300–£800. It scales sensibly, but watch whether "rooms" means rooms you have or rooms you sell.
Commission or per-booking
The vendor takes a percentage of bookings, or a fee per reservation. This looks cheap when you are quiet and gets expensive exactly when you are busy. It is worth modelling against your real volume before agreeing to it — at 5,000 room nights a year, even £0.50 a booking is meaningful, and a percentage is far worse.
What is usually extra
The subscription is rarely the whole bill. Ask about each of these explicitly:
| Item | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Setup / onboarding | £0 – £1,500 | Often negotiable, sometimes waived on annual terms |
| Data migration | £0 – £800 | Ask what is actually migrated |
| Channel manager | £0 – £100/mo | Sometimes included, sometimes a separate vendor |
| Per-channel connection | £0 – £25/mo each | Adds up fast if you list on several OTAs |
| Booking engine | £0 – £80/mo | Watch for per-booking fees hidden here |
| Website | £0 – £150/mo | Or a one-off build elsewhere |
| Payment processing | 1.2% – 2.5% + 20p | Card acquiring, separate from software |
| Extra users | £0 – £15/user/mo | Check whether housekeeping needs a licence |
Work out your real number
Take the monthly subscription, multiply by twelve, and add every line above that applies. Then compare that annual figure to two things:
Your OTA commission bill. For a 20-room hotel at 75% occupancy and £95 ADR, with 40% of business through OTAs at 15%, commission is around £31,000 a year. Software at £1,400–£3,600 is a small fraction of that — which is why a system that helps you win even a handful of direct bookings a week pays for itself. The arithmetic is in what OTA commission really costs.
The staff time it saves. If it removes eight hours of duplicate admin a week, that is over 400 hours a year. Value it at whatever you actually pay, and the comparison usually settles itself. See where ten hours a week goes.
Questions that save money
- "What is the total first-year cost, including everything?" Get it in writing.
- "Is the channel manager included or a separate contract?" A separate contract means a separate price rise.
- "What is the annual increase?" Many contracts index to inflation; know the ceiling.
- "What is the notice period?" Three-year lock-ins still exist.
- "Are there per-booking fees anywhere at all?" Ask twice, including on the booking engine.
Is cheaper worse?
Not necessarily, but price usually tells you where the vendor's costs are. A very low price with no support line means you are the support. A very high price often buys integrations and account management that a 25-room hotel will never use. The mid-market — a flat fee, everything included, human support — is where most independents are best served.
The one thing genuinely worth paying for is onboarding. A system configured properly in the first fortnight will be used properly for years; one that is half set up never recovers.
A note on annual billing
Most vendors discount 10–20% for paying yearly. That is real money, but only take it once you are past the trial and a full seasonal cycle, so you know how the system behaves when you are full.
InnCloud is £70/month for up to 15 rooms, £120 for up to 50 and £300 for up to 150, plus VAT — channel manager, booking engine and website included, no per-booking fees. See what is in each plan.
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PMS, channel manager, booking engine and website — flat monthly price, no commission on your bookings.
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