Overview
ProhostAI includes a built-in direct-booking site — a hosted website where guests browse your listings and book directly, with no OTA commission. It has a drag-and-drop editor, your branding and colors, and accepts payments through Stripe, so you can capture commission-free bookings without building a separate website.
ProhostAI ships with a built-in direct-booking site — a hosted website where guests can browse your listings and book directly, without OTA fees. Drag-drop editor, branded with your colors, accepts payments through Stripe.
Direct booking vs OTA bookings
| Capability | ProhostAI direct-booking site | OTA listing (Airbnb, etc.) |
|---|---|---|
| Commission / platform fee | 1% per booking (3% on the free plan) | Typically 14–15%+ in host and guest fees |
| Own your guest relationship | Yes — you keep guest contact details | Limited — the OTA mediates the relationship |
| Branding | Your colors, logo, and domain | The OTA's branding |
| Payments | Stripe Connect, paid out to you (or owners) | Handled and held by the OTA |
| Calendar sync | iCal import + connected PMS block dates | Channel-managed |
Most hosts run both — the direct-booking site captures commission-free repeat guests while OTAs drive new discovery.
What's included
- Multi-listing landing page — grid of all your properties, filterable
- Single-listing pages — photos, amenities, calendar, instant booking
- Checkout flow — guest details, payment, confirmation email
- Contact page — custom form for inquiries
- Custom slug pages — about us, FAQ, anything else you want to write
Building the site
Open Direct Booking in the side menu. The editor lets you:
- Pick a theme and brand colors
- Reorder sections (hero, listings, testimonials, FAQ)
- Edit copy in place
- Upload your logo and OG image
- Preview as a guest before publishing
Listings on your site
By default, every listing in your account is shown on the direct-booking site. Hide individual listings, or only opt-in specific ones — useful if some listings are OTA-only.
Payments
Direct-booking payments run on Stripe Connect. Connect your account under Settings → Payments (this is the payouts onboarding flow — it's not the same as the Stripe tile under Settings → Connections, which links Stripe for accounting/expense sync). You complete Stripe's hosted onboarding once; you get a full Stripe dashboard, and ProhostAI can charge guests on your behalf only after Stripe marks your account ready.
Once you're set up, ProhostAI runs the whole booking flow: it builds the price quote, authorizes the guest's card at booking, captures on confirmation, creates the reservation, and sends the confirmation email.
What guests pay and what you keep:
- Platform fee — 1% per booking on a paid plan, 3% on the free plan. ProhostAI waives this fee entirely ($0) for connected accounts in Brazil, India, Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.
- Stripe's processing fees are paid by your connected account, on top of the platform fee.
- Multi-currency — each listing charges in its own currency, so international guests pay in the listing's currency.
Supported countries. Direct-booking payments work wherever Stripe Connect is available — you choose your country during Stripe onboarding. As of mid-2026, that's:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire†, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana†, Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India‡, Indonesia‡, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya†, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria†, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa†, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.
† On Stripe's extended (cross-border) network — availability may be limited. ‡ In preview / early access.
Stripe adds and changes markets regularly, so treat Stripe's global availability page as the live, authoritative list.
Paying owners directly (per-owner payouts): if you manage listings for different owners, you can route each listing's revenue straight to that owner's own Stripe account instead of a single consolidated account. See Owner Statements.
At checkout, ProhostAI also handles:
- Taxes — occupancy, lodging, sales, and other taxes computed per listing. See Tax Settings.
- Extra fees and discounts — cleaning, pet, resort, and parking fees, plus coupon/promo codes.
- Security deposits — collected as a pre-authorization hold (not an upfront charge), with damage-claim capture, partial capture, and automatic release after checkout.
- Cancellation policy — configure your own refund windows; the policy is stored with each booking.
- Optional guest verification — turn on Stripe Identity per listing, and damage waivers as an alternative to a deposit.
Not supported today: request-to-book / host approval (bookings are instant), payment plans or installments, automatic length-of-stay discounts, per-extra-guest fees, and one-click guest refunds.
Calendar sync — avoid double bookings
Your direct-booking calendar should reflect bookings from every channel so the same night is never sold twice.
- Import external calendars (iCal): in the web app, open a listing's settings → Calendar feed → Add iCal URL, and paste the iCal link from Airbnb, VRBO, Google Calendar, etc. ProhostAI then blocks those dates on your direct-booking calendar. Feeds re-sync roughly hourly. (Available for manually-created listings today.)
- Connected PMS / channel manager: if your listings sync through a PMS like Hostaway or Guesty, reservations from those channels already block direct bookings automatically — no iCal needed.
- Double-booking protection: at the moment a guest confirms, ProhostAI re-checks availability against all known reservations regardless of source and refuses a booking that would overlap a confirmed stay. Protection is only as fresh as your last sync, so for iCal-only setups a booking made on another channel in the last hour may not be reflected yet.
For managing reservations and blocks across all your properties, see Calendar Management.
Going live
The site is published to a *.prohost.ai subdomain by default. To use your own domain, see Custom Domain.
What's next?
- Custom Domain - Point your own domain at the site
- Tax Settings - Configure occupancy and sales tax per region