What's a good OTA commission rate?

OTA commission rates have ranges that depend on platform, property size, market, and negotiated terms. **Booking.com:** confirm your base commission, Genius or visibility-programme costs, mobile-rate discounts, payment-processing terms, and cancellation exposure in your own contract. **Expedia and related brands:** confirm the commission model, member-rate discount, travel-agent terms, and whether the booking is merchant or agency model. **Hotels.com / Vrbo (Expedia-owned):** Similar to Expedia. **Negotiation paths (rarely worth the effort for small properties):** - **Genius/Member+ enrolment** typically lowers effective rate while requiring discount funding. Math works for properties needing visibility boost; doesn't work for properties already booked solid. - **Account manager negotiation** depends on volume, market, and strategic value. Model the savings against the time and channel concentration required. - **Channel concentration** — if you concentrate share with one OTA, they may negotiate. Cost: less channel diversification. **The real lever:** shift share from OTA to direct booking rather than fight only for 1-2 percentage points of commission. Model the value with your own ADR, occupancy, commission rate, and repeat-booking behaviour before deciding which channel work matters most. **When to push direct:** Always. Even if you can't reduce OTA commission, you can grow direct share through better booking engine, value-adds on direct (without breaking parity), past-guest mailings, brand retargeting, and a guest portal that earns repeat-direct intent.