Pitchup alternative? Keep Pitchup for new guests, book regulars direct
Pitchup finds you new guests for 15% commission. PootlrHost takes your own bookings for £1 each. What each costs, rate parity and how to run both.
Updated . Pitchup’s details checked
Pitchup and PootlrHost do different jobs. Pitchup is a booking site: it lists your campsite in front of its own guests, and takes 15% commission, including VAT, on each booking it brings. PootlrHost is booking software: your own website and online booking, at £1 a booking, or Pro at £25 a month with no booking fee (or £225 for a year paid upfront). Most small sites don’t choose between them. They keep Pitchup for guests who’d never have found them, and take bookings from people who already know them direct.
We make PootlrHost, so read this knowing that. Pitchup’s figures below are from its own pages as we read them on 23 October 2026, for our guide to what booking sites charge. Its pages wouldn’t load for us when we went back on 25 October 2026, so check your own Pitchup agreement before you rely on them.
At a glance
| PootlrHost | Pitchup | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Your own website and booking system | A booking site that lists your campsite to its guests |
| What you pay | £1 a booking, or Pro at £25 a month with no booking fee (or £225 for a year paid upfront); £20 a month for a CL or CS (or £200 for a year paid upfront). No VAT to add. Bookings you add yourself are free | 15% commission on each booking it brings, including VAT. VAT-registered UK sites can reclaim 2.5%. No listing fee |
| On a £90 booking | £1, plus Stripe’s card fee of 1.5% + 20p (£1.55) | £13.50 |
| New guests | Only those who find your website | Pitchup says it gets 63 million visits a year |
| How the guest pays | A deposit and the balance from their saved card before arrival, the full amount upfront, or on arrival. It goes to your own Stripe account. On Pay As You Go, the £1 comes out of a card payment, or goes on your card on the 1st of the month for a booking paid on arrival | A 15% deposit to Pitchup, which is its commission. You collect the balance, on arrival or through Pitchup’s Payup card service, which has its own charges |
| Your prices | Yours to set | Rate parity: you can’t sell the same pitch, dates and party size for less elsewhere, including your own website and phone |
| Availability | Yours to set | Pitchup asks for a reasonable level of availability, including weekends and peak season |
| Cancellations | Your own policy, with refunds from the booking | The deposit is usually non-refundable, and Pitchup won’t let you take a second deposit |
| The guest’s details | On your own guest records, with their past stays and club number | Pitchup’s booking. Connected by API key, PootlrHost gets the guest’s name, email and phone |
| Fixed costs | None on Pay As You Go. Pro is monthly, with no contract (or £225 for a year paid upfront) | None: free to list, with no set-up fee |
Running both, with PootlrHost’s Pitchup sync
You don’t have to leave Pitchup to take bookings direct. Connect it to PootlrHost with your Pitchup API key, which is under My Details in Pitchup’s manager portal, and link each of your pitch types to its pitch type on Pitchup.
- Pitchup bookings come in within a couple of minutes, with the guest’s name, email and phone, on a free pitch of the linked type. New dates and cancellations made on Pitchup follow the same way.
- Pitchup hears about yours. When a booking or closure changes your availability, PootlrHost updates Pitchup straight away. Bookings from Hipcamp, Airbnb and other sites linked by calendar link reach Pitchup within about 15 minutes, as PootlrHost reads their calendars every 15 minutes.
- Clashes are flagged. If two sites sell the same night before they catch up, PootlrHost keeps both bookings, flags the clash on Today and emails you.
- Pitchup keeps its money. Guests pay Pitchup for Pitchup bookings, Pitchup handles any refund, and PootlrHost charges no fee on them.
- Some things stay on Pitchup. Pitchup bookings are cancelled on Pitchup, not in PootlrHost. Prices aren’t shared in either direction. And PootlrHost can’t open nights you’ve closed on Pitchup: open them in the Allocation tab of Pitchup’s manager portal.
- No API key? Link each pitch by its Pitchup calendar link instead, the same way as Airbnb or Hipcamp.
Connecting Pitchup in the help centre goes through it step by step, and Pitchup sync says what moves and when.
What it costs, worked through
Say a 30-pitch touring park takes 200 bookings a season through Pitchup, averaging £90. Eighty of them are guests who have stayed before.
Everything through Pitchup:
- 200 × £13.50 = £2,700 in commission, or £2,250 if you reclaim the VAT.
New guests through Pitchup, regulars direct on PootlrHost:
- The 120 new guests through Pitchup: 120 × £13.50 = £1,620.
- The 80 regulars booking on your website: 80 × £1 = £80 to PootlrHost, plus 80 × £1.55 = £124 in card fees.
- Together: £1,824, or £876 less for the season.
On Pro, at £25 a month or £300 for twelve months, there’s no £1 on any online booking. It costs less than Pay As You Go in any month you take 26 or more online bookings.
The Pitchup figures are commission only. If you take the £76.50 balance by card, you pay card fees on that too. Through PootlrHost, a standard UK card payment costs 1.5% + 20p (Stripe’s own price, with nothing added), and taking a deposit and a balance as two payments means paying the 20p twice.
Pitchup’s rate parity rule means you can’t offer a lower price for booking direct. The saving is yours rather than the guest’s, so give regulars other reasons to book with you: an easy website, their details filled in from last time, and a guest guide with the gate code.
When Pitchup is worth it
- Finding new guests. Pitchup’s reach is something few small sites can buy. One owner on its join page put it as “85% versus an empty pitch earning 0%.”
- Quiet dates and a new site. You pay only when a booking arrives, so there’s nothing to lose on dates that would otherwise sit empty.
- Guests who like to book on one site. Some campers only ever look on Pitchup. Keep your listing for them.
When booking direct is better
- Guests who already know you. A repeat guest who books on Pitchup out of habit costs you 15% you didn’t need to spend. Make sure they know your website before they leave.
- Your own website. PootlrHost gives you one with booking built in, on a free pootlrhost.co.uk address or your own domain.
- Taking payment your way. A deposit when they book and the balance from their saved card before they arrive, or pay on arrival, into your own Stripe account.
- CL and CS sites and club members. Ask for a Caravan and Motorhome Club or Camping and Caravanning Club membership number when guests book.
- Choosing their pitch. Guests can pick their pitch on a map you draw, and it’s theirs if it’s still free.
Rules to know before you start
- Parity covers your website and phone. Pitchup says it checks prices at random and will temporarily suspend listings that charge its guests more.
- Reviews. Pitchup asks you not to invite guests to contact you directly when you reply to reviews.
- Asking guests back. Collect marketing consent lawfully before you email guests about future stays, and follow Pitchup’s rules on its guests’ details.
Sources
Pitchup’s join page, questions for site owners, general questions and Payup costs, all read on 23 October 2026, as listed in our booking-site fees guide. Stripe’s card fee is on Stripe’s UK pricing page. How PootlrHost’s Pitchup sync works is in Connecting Pitchup. PootlrHost’s prices are on our pricing page.
Pitchup’s commission, deposit and rules on this page come from its join page and its questions for site owners, checked on 23 October 2026. PootlrHost links to Pitchup with your Pitchup API key, but isn’t part of Pitchup and isn’t paid by it. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email [email protected] and we’ll put it right.
