No commission
We don't take a percentage of your bookings, whether a guest books one night or a two-week retreat.
The difference is in the activities
Thinking about moving from Cloudbeds? You're not the first boutique or experience hotel to ask. If you don't just sell a room but a whole experience, Bookinglayer makes the difference. Cloudbeds is a PMS and channel manager. Everything is built around the room night: filling rooms and running the front desk. Activities came later, as upsells and partner apps. Bookinglayer was built as a reservation and operations software for overnight experiences. A room, a surf lesson, a massage and an airport transfer are all inventory on our platform, sold together in one booking, either as a package or as extras on the stay.
The stay
The room, the activities and the transfer in one booking
Most booking software handles accommodation. Some handle activities. Very few combine both in one booking, and even fewer keep the booking flow short.
Bookinglayer
The Package Builder is the core of Bookinglayer. It combines separate items into one booking with one price: a room, a surf lesson, a yoga class, a massage, a meal plan, a rental board or an airport transfer. Each item keeps its own availability.
Packages can run on fixed dates, like a surf week, or with a flexible arrival, like a hotel stay. And if a guest only wants a room, they can still book the room and add a yoga class or a massage on the side.
Cloudbeds
In Cloudbeds, a package is a room rate with add ons. Its own help center gives the example: "If the room costs 100 per day with a special offer and you add 'Breakfast' as an add-on to the package, the guest should pay 100 for both the room and breakfast."
An add on can have a date range, a charge type and a total stock limit, but no time slot and no limit per session. That works well for breakfast or an airport transfer. It doesn't describe a week of surf lessons.
Activities
Activities based on time slots and capacity
A guest adds a 6 pm massage on Tuesday, two weeks before arrival. The spa team sees it without anyone forwarding an email.
Bookinglayer
Bookinglayer treats each activity as its own inventory item: a real-time slot, a capacity limit, and an assigned instructor or practitioner.
The Session Planner groups guests into a class or session and tracks capacity across the day, so a treatment room or a studio is never booked twice.
With the Capacity Manager, you choose how each activity is limited: no cap at all, a fixed cap (the 7 am surf lesson always closes at 8 surfers), or a cap you set day by day.
Cloudbeds
Cloudbeds does technically offer activities, but through a third party upsell integration rather than natively.
This means Cloudbeds cannot sell scheduled activities with real-time slots, and guests can’t reschedule themselves based on availability. There is no capacity or inventory manager for services and activities, and no availability sync behind an add-on. Add-ons work like a checkbox, like breakfast or late check-out.
Booking Engine
A booking process that looks and feels like your own
The experience starts at booking, and when your booking page looks different from your website, guests hesitate. And hesitation costs conversions.
Bookinglayer
The Booking Engine works with any website. Colors, typography and layout follow your brand, and each step of the booking flow, including activities, add ons, payment structure and guest data fields, can be customized to fit how you actually sell. The seamless handover from your website reduces drop offs and lifts conversion.
A guest picks the room, the surf lessons and the transfer in one flow. A deeplink takes a guest from an email, an ad or a social media post straight to the start of the booking process.
Cloudbeds
The Cloudbeds booking engine still looks like a third party booking tool, with limited customization. Its dated interface works well for a three star hotel that only sells rooms. The moment you want to add experiences, the process gets clunky and sometimes confusing for the guest.
It is built to sell rooms and rate plans, with add ons offered alongside the stay.
Customer Portal
What guests can do after booking
A portal that does more than take the balance means fewer emails with questions or requests to change a reservation.
Bookinglayer
Bookinglayer's Customer Portal is built around automating and reducing admin work. Guests enter their personal details, dietary needs, or surf level, sign digital waivers, and purchase an extra massage or the transfer they forgot*. It reminds guests when a payment is due, and lets them download invoices and revisit their itinerary.
You can add your own pages too, like a packing list or a FAQ, so the back-and-forth emails answering the same questions disappear.
*27% of guests with portal access add something extra after booking.
Cloudbeds
On any plan, guests can view their booking in a basic portal and cancel a direct booking. Cloudbeds collects signed documents and terms at check in, and its digital check in can scan a passport or ID and capture a signature.
But paying the balance online, digital keys, an upsell store, an AI chatbot, a kiosk and one inbox for email, SMS, WhatsApp and OTA messages come with Guest Experience, which is part of the Experience plan, not Flex or One.
Payments
Your gateway, your schedule
A week-long holiday is rarely paid in a single payment. Take a deposit now, collect the rest before arrival, and stop chasing every balance.
Bookinglayer
Choose from 35+ payment gateways and accept payments in 140 countries, including local gateways. Often, you can keep the provider you already use. Deposits and payment plans run on schedule, and reminders go out automatically, in your tone of voice.
With Bookinglayer Pay, our built-in payment gateway, you can manage every payment from your backoffice, create your own payment plans, and cut down on the number of tools you need.
Cloudbeds
Payments are native to every Cloudbeds plan and are processed through its own payments product at a blended rate. Third-party estimates put that at roughly 2.9% plus USD 0.30 per transaction, with about 1% more for international cards.
Only guests on the Experience plan can pay their balance online.
When Cloudbeds is the better choice
We'd rather tell you we're not the right fit than onboard you and find out two months later. If most of your bookings come from Booking.com, Expedia or Airbnb and you mainly sell rooms, Cloudbeds is probably the better fit. Its channel manager connects to more than 450 channels. It also runs the hotel side in depth: live housekeeping status on mobile, automatic room assignment, door lock integrations, reputation management on the Experience plan, an open API, and 24/7 support on every plan. Bookinglayer connects to OTAs through Channex. Heavy OTA use doesn't rule Bookinglayer out. If you sell rooms through Booking.com but your guests also book surf lessons and yoga, it's worth comparing both.
“Bookinglayer allows us to manage accommodations, meals, and guided activities in one place, with a centralized calendar that makes daily operations much simpler. The flexibility is a big plus. We've been using it for years. ”
Mario V.
Manager @Mount Logan EcoLodge
Comparison Table
How we compare at a glance
| Feature | Bookinglayer | Cloudbeds |
|---|---|---|
| Packages of rooms and activities | Yes:Room, activities, meals, extra services and transfers in one booking process | Partly:Higher rate plans allow add-ons, like room plus breakfast |
| Activities with time slots | Yes:Yes, every activity can have its own sessions | No:Extras are sold through the upsell store or partner apps |
| Limit per session | Yes:Yes, Capacity Manager | No:Add-ons have a total stock limit, not a limit per session |
| Instructor scheduling | Yes:Yes, Session Planner | No:Not found |
| Guest picks activity time slot | Yes:Yes, upfront or in the Customer Portal | No:No, no time slot funcitionality |
| Group bookings | Yes:One main booking, and different rooms and activities per guest, if needed | Yes:Group profile, room blocks, group folio, private booking link |
| Online check-in | Yes:Customizable check-in form in the Customer Portal | Partly:A viewer area where they can cancel their booking |
| Selling extras after booking | Yes:Yes, in the Customer Portal | Partly:Upsell store, on the Experience plan or higher |
| Channel manager | Yes:Yes, through Channex | Yes:Built-in, 450+ channels |
| Housekeeping | Yes:Day Planner shows arrivals, departures, room transfers, and housekeeping needs | Yes:Live tracking "clean or dirty" status on mobile |
| Payment gateways | Yes:35+ global and local across 140 countries | Yes:8 native, unclear how many more through integrations |
| API | Yes:Yes, with webhooks | Yes:Yes, with webhooks |
- Yes
- No
- Partly
Make the switch
1
Request a demo
We look at how you sell, your rooms, activities, and packages. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you.
2
Onboard in two weeks
Most clients go live in two weeks, working one to two hours a day with a dedicated onboarding specialist.
3
Keep your data
Our technical team imports your guest data, so your history comes with you. Switchers also get a special discount.
Our pricing model
A fixed fee. No cut of your bookings.
Some booking software takes a percentage of every booking, so your bill grows with every guest you bring in yourself. Bookinglayer charges one fixed monthly fee, and what you earn is yours.
Know your cost upfront
One monthly fee, set by the size of your operation and the add-ons you choose.
No lock-in
No annual commitment and no cancellation fees. Stay because it works.
Our foundation
The core of Bookinglayer
The four core components are in every plan, at every size. They are not tiers. They are the foundation.
- Dedicated one-on-one onboarding
- 24/7 support
- Upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime
Comparisons
See how we compare
Two side-by-side comparisons, feature by feature. Where Bookinglayer is stronger, and where it honestly isn't. We'd rather you find out now than two months in.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Can I sell activities with rooms in Cloudbeds?
Partly. Cloudbeds lets you add extras to a room rate, like breakfast or a late checkout. Its add-ons have no time slots and no limit per session, so scheduled activities like surf lessons, yoga classes, or massages usually run through a partner app or a separate spreadsheet.
What is the best Cloudbeds alternative for hotels that sell activities?
If your guests book activities and rooms, Bookinglayer is built for that. Rooms, activities, meals, and transfers are sold together in one booking, with real-time slots, capacity limits, and instructors assigned to each session.
What is the key difference between Bookinglayer and Cloudbeds?
Cloudbeds is built around selling rooms across many channels, with activities handled by partner apps. Bookinglayer sells the room and the scheduled activities together in one booking, with sessions, instructors and capacity managed in the same place.
Can Bookinglayer be used for a hotel?
Yes. Bookinglayer works for boutique hotels, surf hostels, dive resorts, and wellness hotels, especially those that sell activities alongside the stay. Guests can book a room on its own, add a yoga class, a massage, or a surf lesson on the side, or book a package that combines the room and the activities at one price. You can keep selling rooms on Booking.com, Expedia, and Airbnb through Channex.
Can I keep selling on Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb if I switch from Cloudbeds to Bookinglayer?
Yes. Bookinglayer connects to Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, and other channels through Channex, so your OTA bookings keep coming in.
Can I keep my current payment provider If I switch from Cloudbeds to Bookinglayer?
Often, yes. Bookinglayer works with 35+ payment gateways and accepts payments in 140 countries, including local gateways.
Sources
- Cloudbeds Rate Plans and Packages(opens in a new tab)
- Cloudbeds add-ons(opens in a new tab)
- Cloudbeds Upsell / Tours & Activities API(opens in a new tab)
- Cloudbeds Pricing and Plans(opens in a new tab)
- Cloudbeds Guest Engagement(opens in a new tab)
- Cloudbeds Channel Manager(opens in a new tab)
- Cloudbeds Payment Gateways(opens in a new tab)
- Cloudbeds Terms(opens in a new tab)
- Bookinglayer Backoffice(opens in a new tab)
- Bookinglayer Booking Engine(opens in a new tab)
- Bookinglayer Pricing(opens in a new tab)