No commission
We don't take a percentage of your bookings, whether a guest books one night or a two-week retreat.
One trip, or a repeatable business
Thinking about moving from SquadTrip? You're not the first organizer whose retreats or trips grew into a business. SquadTrip is a booking and payment plan tool for group trip organizers: travel creators, destination wedding planners, family reunion organizers, and retreat hosts running occasional retreats. Once the money is in, running the stay is up to you: the room plan, who sleeps in which bed, the activity schedule, the dietary list for the kitchen. Usually that ends up in a spreadsheet. Bookinglayer covers all of that; it runs the whole business, with its booking engine, backoffice, payment solutions, and customer portal.
Packages
Rooms and activities booked in one flow
A guest shouldn't book a room on one page and then email you for the surf lessons.
Bookinglayer
With the Package Builder, guests book the room and activities in one flow, and you choose how to sell them: as a program with one price, a room with add-ons like a massage, or a bundle.
SquadTrip
SquadTrip sells packages on a trip page: price tiers with room types and add-ons, for one trip with fixed dates. If some guests stay fewer nights, SquadTrip advises creating a separate package with shorter dates.
Activities
Booked up front, with a time slot and a limit
The 7 am surf lesson takes 8 people. So does the 10 am one. Someone has to know who is in which.
Bookinglayer
Each activity has its own time slots, a capacity limit, and an instructor. Guests choose their sessions while booking, so you know who’s on the schedule before they arrive. The Session Planner shows every session with its assigned instructor, and the Capacity Manager stops booking when each session is full. After booking, guests can schedule or reschedule their sessions in the Customer Portal, within the rules you set.
SquadTrip
SquadTrip's add-ons can have a quantity, and it stops selling them when they run out. We found no activity time slots, no instructor scheduling, and no way for travelers to reschedule an activity in its help center.
Repeatable products
Build it once, or duplicate the whole trip
When the airport transfer goes up by ten euros, how many places do you need to change it?
Bookinglayer
In Bookinglayer, you build a product once: a room, an activity, a transfer or a package. Then you use it in as many bookings and dates as you need. Running the same retreat again means adding a new date, not rebuilding it. When the price of the sunset yoga class changes, you edit that one product, and every package that uses it follows.
SquadTrip
A SquadTrip trip page is built for one trip. To run it again, you duplicate the whole trip, which copies the packages, room types, itinerary, add ons and payment plan into a new trip. We found no way in its help center to reuse just one item, like the airport transfer or the massage, across your other trips.
Backoffice
Where your team runs the operation
Collecting the money is one job. Running the week is another: who arrives today, who sleeps where, who surfs at 7 am, who is vegetarian.
Bookinglayer
With Bookinglayer backoffice, your team sees every reservation on a room calendar, moves guests between rooms, checks today's arrivals, and has the activity schedule and dietary list ready for the kitchen. Payments and reports sit in the same place, filtered by location if you need.
SquadTrip
SquadTrip's dashboard shows your trips, your travelers, and their payments. We found no room calendar, no arrivals list, and no daily schedule in its help center. Team members get one of two levels, view-only or edit, for every trip or only certain trips, and company settings stay with the main account owner.
Customer Portal
Paying the balance, or managing the whole stay
After the deposit, guests still have questions, forms and changes of plan.
Bookinglayer
Bookinglayer’s Customer Portal allows guests to fill in their personal data through a check-in form. It includes dietary needs, signing waivers, adding an extra activity or massage, and sharing flight and transfer details. They can also move an activity to another day within the rules you set. Thanks to the Customer Portal, 27% of guests with portal access add something extra after booking.
SquadTrip
SquadTrip's traveler dashboard covers payments, balances, receipts, card changes, registration forms, and the group chat. At checkout, you can ask your own registration questions, like dietary needs, and collect passport photos. A traveler can share a room link so friends book into the same room, and travelers sign your waiver electronically before their booking is confirmed. SquadTrip can let travelers move a payment date, if you turn that on.
Payments and Payment Plans
SquadTrip's home ground
Group trips are paid over months. Whoever collects the installments without chasing anyone wins.
Bookinglayer
Bookinglayer lets you take a deposit at booking and set the balance due date relative to arrival. Reminders go out on your schedule and include a payment link. Bookinglayer Pay lets you charge installments to the saved card on the configured date. Guests can also pay by bank transfer, PayPal, Apple Pay, or with Klarna, Afterpay or Affirm or through other gateways, depending on what you turn on.
SquadTrip
Payments are where SquadTrip is strongest. You set a deposit and a final date, and SquadTrip works out the installments and charges them automatically. If a card fails, it tries again every two days, up to four times. Reminders go out five days before each payment by default, and late fees are optional. Travelers can pay by card, Apple Pay, or with Klarna, Afterpay or Affirm.
Selling and Community Tools
Built for selling to your own audience
If your guests come from an Instagram following, the tools around the trip page matter as much as the page itself.
Bookinglayer
Bookinglayer can send SMS through a Twilio integration that our sales team turns on and you connect to your own Twilio account. Affiliate tracking is possible through Google Tag Manager, but it needs a technical setup and has no dashboard or automatic commission. Referrals, a group chat and a ready made affiliate program have no built in equivalent on Bookinglayer.
SquadTrip
SquadTrip is built for selling a trip to your own audience. It has trip pages, a traveler referral program, an affiliate program with tracking links, a group chat where travelers can talk to each other and to you, and scheduled emails and text blasts for announcements. Scheduled communications and text blasts are on the paid plan, and text blasts only go to US and Canadian numbers.
Pricing
A percentage on every booking, or no commission
Free is easy to start with. Then a season of sold out trips arrives, and the fee on every deposit and every balance grows with it. With no commission, a full trip doesn’t raise your software bill.
Bookinglayer
Bookinglayer takes no commission on your bookings. Card processing is charged by the payment provider you connect.
SquadTrip
SquadTrip’s Starter plan is free, with unlimited trips and a 6% processing fee on payments, which includes Stripe’s card processing. Its paid plan keeps the same 6% fee. Many organizers build the fee into their trip price so travelers cover it.
When SquadTrip is the better choice
We'd rather tell you we're not the right fit than onboard you and find out two months later. Choose SquadTrip if you're running one trip: a destination wedding, a family reunion, a retreat you lead once a year. If there's no room calendar to manage and no activity sessions to fill, you don't need Bookinglayer yet. SquadTrip says you can create your first trip in about ten minutes, and its Starter plan is free to start. It's also the better choice if your buyers come from social media and you want referrals, affiliates and a group chat ready on day one, or if you sell in US dollars and want Affirm or Afterpay at checkout. The fit changes when the same trip runs several times a year, guests arrive on different days, activities have their own time slots, and your team grows past one person and a payment page.
“Bookinglayer gave us a lot of hours back to focus on more strategic business development rather than operational work. You have an onboarding specialist with you all the way to help with the setup and questions, which is extremely helpful.”
Inna R.
Manager @Lucky Surf Camp
Comparison Table
How we compare at a glance
| Feature | Bookinglayer | SquadTrip |
|---|---|---|
| Room inventory by date | Yes:Rooms and activity spots share one live availability calendar | Partly:Counts rooms per room type for the trip, no night by night tracking in their docs |
| Activity time slots with capacity | Yes:Session Planner, with a set number of spots per session | Partly:Add ons have a quantity limit, no time slots in their docs |
| Reuse one product across trips | Yes:Build a room, activity or package once and reuse it with no limit | Partly:Only by duplicating a whole trip |
| Custom staff roles | Yes:Build your own roles and limit users to certain locations with different access | No:Two fixed levels, view-only or edit, per trip |
| Partner login | Yes:Partner role sees only its own bookings | Partly:Not in their public docs |
| Multiple locations in one account | Yes: Each location has its own rooms and activities, with shared reporting | Partly:Each brand can run as its own workspace, with separate trips, settings and payouts |
| Electronic waivers | Yes:Signed in the Customer Portal and stored with the booking | Yes:Signed at checkout, required before the booking is confirmed |
| Online check-in | Yes:Check-in form in the Customer Portal | Partly:Not in their public docs |
| Guest reschedules an activity | Yes: Within rules you set | Partly:Not in their public docs, travelers can move a payment date if you allow it |
| Automatic installment plans | Partly: Through Bookinglayer Pay, which needs a Stripe account | Yes:Auto billing with automatic retries on failed cards |
| Buy now pay later | Partly:Klarna, only through Bookinglayer Pay, which needs a Stripe account | Yes:Klarna and Afterpay on US dollar and pound trips, Affirm on US dollar trips, through Stripe |
| Affiliate program | Partly:Manual tracking through Google Tag Manager, no dashboard | Yes:Built in tracking links and commission tracking |
| Text messages to guests | Partly:Through your own Twilio account, turned on by our sales team | Yes:Text blasts on the paid plan, US and Canadian numbers only |
| No commission on bookings | Yes:Bookinglayer takes no commission | No:Charges a processing fee on every payment, which you can pass to travelers |
| No long contract | Yes:No annual commitment, no cancellation fees | Yes:Monthly or yearly plan, cancel anytime, paid fees are not refunded |
- 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
Five 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
Does Bookinglayer take a commission on bookings?
No. Bookinglayer takes no commission on your bookings. SquadTrip charges a processing fee on every payment, which includes Stripe’s card processing. Organizers can pass that fee on to travelers or pay it themselves.
What are the contract terms?
Bookinglayer has no annual commitment and no cancellation fees. SquadTrip’s paid plan bills monthly or yearly and renews automatically. You can cancel anytime and keep access until the end of the paid period, but subscription fees are not refunded.
Can I bring my data over from SquadTrip?
Yes. SquadTrip lets you export your traveler data, and your onboarding specialist helps you bring your guest details over, so you don’t start from an empty account. Importing bookings is only possible from Retreat Guru and Guestline for now.
What support do I get while I switch?
You get a dedicated onboarding specialist from the start, and many clients go live in two weeks.
Who should not switch from SquadTrip?
If you run one trip a year with fixed dates and no activity sessions to fill, stay on SquadTrip. The same goes for creators who sell mainly through referrals and affiliate links. Bookinglayer makes sense when the same retreat runs repeatedly, guests arrive on different days, you need activities with time slots, and your team needs their own accounts with different access.
Sources
- SquadTrip pricing(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip payments product page(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip terms(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: Sub Admin feature(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: duplicate a trip(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: room types(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: create a package(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: managing trip inventory(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: add ons(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: Group Chat(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: buy now pay later(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: installments and auto billing(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: payment options(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: affiliate program(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: referral program(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: text blasts(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: scheduled messages(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: sign waivers(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: traveler dashboard(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: registration information(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: room sharing(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: reschedule payment(opens in a new tab)
- SquadTrip help: multiple brands(opens in a new tab)
- Bookinglayer pricing(opens in a new tab)
- Bookinglayer payments(opens in a new tab)
- Bookinglayer backoffice(opens in a new tab)
- Bookinglayer Customer Portal(opens in a new tab)
- Bookinglayer help: capacities for activities(opens in a new tab)