What Viator actually costs, once you add it up

Viator publishes a range of 20 to 30 %. In practice new suppliers are onboarded at 25 %, and that is the number most operators quote when you ask them. GetYourGuide starts most new operators at 30 % and will negotiate down to 25–28 % once you have volume and reviews.

Where the extra points come from

• Paid placement. Viator’s Accelerate programme buys you position in search results. Operators who use it describe an effective rate of 30–35 %, because the placement fee sits on top of the commission rather than replacing it.
• Payout timing. GetYourGuide charges roughly 2 % extra for fortnightly payouts instead of monthly. If your cash flow needs the money sooner, that is what sooner costs.
• The second marketplace. Most operators are on two or three. Each has its own rate, and the one that sold the seat is the one that sets it — so your blended rate is whatever your mix happens to be that month.

For comparison: Klook runs 15–25 % and Airbnb Experiences a flat 20 %. In the rental world, where the same platforms sell apartments, the equivalent number is 15–17 %. Selling activities is simply more expensive than selling beds.

What that is per boat

Four seats at $85 is $340. At 25 % the marketplace keeps $85 of it — one of the four people on board is riding for the platform. At 30 % it is $102, which is more than one seat.

Run it across a season: a twelve-seat boat, 150 departures, selling an average of ten seats. That is 1,500 seats at $85, or $127,500. A quarter of it is $31,875.

Why this is still worth paying

Because a large part of that $127,500 would not exist without them. Someone who has never heard of your town, booking a trip three weeks before they fly, is not going to find your website. That booking costs 25 % and it is worth 25 %.

The question is not whether to pay commission. It is whether you are paying it on the guest who came back for the third time, the one the hotel concierge sent, and the one who typed your name into Google because a friend told them. Those are the ones you had already earned.

How to tell which is which

Ask the guests. Not with a survey — just ask, on the boat, how they found you. Operators who do this for one season are usually surprised by how many say “my hotel” or “we came last year”. That share is the one worth having a website for, and it is the number to put into the calculator.