What is indirect-channel dependency actually costing you?
Most operators track OTA commission carefully and underestimate what they pay travel agents and resellers. Drag six sliders. We show you what each channel costs and what you'd reclaim by cutting combined indirect share to 25%. The maths is on the page below — no black box.
- Gross revenue (all channels) £0
- Bookings via OTA £0
- Bookings via travel agent £0
- Bookings direct £0
- Revenue routed through OTA £0
- Revenue routed through travel agent £0
- Total commission at goal (25% indirect) £0
Four lines of arithmetic. Posted, like everything else.
# 1. ota_revenue = bookings × avg_value × ota_share # 2. agent_revenue = bookings × avg_value × agent_share # 3. commission_paid = (ota_revenue × ota_cut) + (agent_revenue × agent_cut) # 4. reclaimable = commission_paid − (bookings × 25% × avg_value × blended_cut)
Why 25% as the goal?
Sub-25% combined indirect share is where direct channels reliably out-earn platform and agent fees for accommodation. Below 10% is achievable in 18 months with the full Direct Booking OS.
Why two indirect channels?
Most operators track OTA commission carefully and underestimate what they pay travel agents and resellers. Both are doing the same job — taking a cut to deliver a customer the operator never owns. Splitting them out is the only way to see the full leak.
What is the blended_cut?
The weighted average of your OTA and travel-agent commission rates, weighted by each channel's current share of bookings. blended_cut = ((ota_share × ota_cut) + (agent_share × agent_cut)) ÷ (ota_share + agent_share). It's what you'd be paying on average per indirect booking — which is what determines the reclaim figure when indirect share falls to 25%.
What's missing from the maths?
Cancellation rates, refund chargebacks, paid-ad spend on OTA listings, the lifetime value of a guest you can email directly, plus agent net rates vs gross rates where applicable. The audit covers all of these.
Are these numbers conservative?
The 17% Booking.com default is the headline rate — many independents pay 19–22% after Genius and visibility programmes. Travel-agent commissions vary widely; 15% is the floor, 20–25% is common.
Plug in your real numbers. We'll find the rest.
The Deep Insight Audit pulls your actual bookings, OTA mix, agent-commission records and booking-flow drop-offs into a 30-page document. £97. Two weeks. You keep the doc whether we continue together or not.