Week 45, late autumnSt Andrew’s Day (Scotland) Mon 30 Nov

New £7.99 booking system could save campsites thousands in commission

PitchDesk charges UK campsites a flat monthly fee instead of a share of every booking, in a market where listing sites take between 10% and 15%.

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Sites2 min read
A small campsite at sunset seen from a reception hut, with tents, a campervan and a caravan on grass pitches
Illustration: AI-generated

Promoted. PitchDesk is made by Coreter Limited, which also owns The Camping Fire.

A new online booking system for UK campsites charges a flat £7.99 a month and takes no commission on bookings.

PitchDesk, which launched in August, lets campsites, caravan parks, small certificated sites and glamping sites take bookings and card payments on their own websites. Guests' payments go straight into the campsite's own Stripe account rather than through PitchDesk.

The fee is the same however many pitches a site has or bookings it takes: £95.88 a year.

That compares with the commission charged by the listing sites many campsites rely on. Pitchup takes 15% of each booking it handles, including VAT. Hipcamp charges 12.5% plus VAT, with card fees on top, and Campsites.co.uk charges 10% plus VAT, according to the companies' own published rates.

On PitchDesk's figures, a 12-pitch site taking £23,725 a year would pay £3,558.75 in commission if every booking came through a listing site charging 15%. Its PitchDesk bill for the year would be £95.88, a difference of £3,462.87.

PitchDesk's comparison of what commission costs a 12-pitch site taking £23,725 a year
PitchDesk's own comparison of commission on a 12-pitch site.Image: PitchDesk

For bigger parks the gap is wider. A park taking £300,000 a year through a 15% listing site would hand over £45,000 in commission, about £3,750 a month.

The comparison assumes every booking would otherwise have come through a listing site, which is the worst case. Listing sites still bring in campers who have never heard of a site before, and PitchDesk does not run a marketplace of its own. The savings come from bookings a campsite would get anyway, such as returning guests who search for the site by name and still end up booking through a listing page.

Card payments still cost money. Stripe charges its standard rates directly to the campsite, for example 1.5% plus 20p on a standard UK card, so a £180 booking costs £2.90 in card fees. PitchDesk adds nothing on top.

Owners set up their pitch types, seasonal and weekend rates, minimum stays, arrival days and extras such as electric hook-ups, firewood and dogs. Sites can take a deposit or payment in full, and set their own terms and cancellation policy.

The booking form is added to an existing website by pasting one line of code, which works on WordPress, Wix and Squarespace sites. Sites without a website get a hosted booking page.

PitchDesk's demonstration booking page, with a calendar for May 2027 and the guest numbers
The booking form guests see, on PitchDesk's demonstration campsite.Image: PitchDesk

Guests can choose a named pitch from a plan of the site. Staff can have their own logins with different levels of access, and there are reports on occupancy and takings.

Calendars can be linked to listing sites including Pitchup, Airbnb and Booking.com to help stop double bookings, although the links update every few hours rather than instantly.

New users get 30 days free without giving card details. There is no contract or setup fee, and owners can cancel from their account settings and export their bookings. PitchDesk says it will help sites load the bookings they already hold when they move over.

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