SurfSlot pricing: no subscription, just a booking fee at checkout
Surf schools have a season. Software bills usually don't. SurfSlot has no monthly subscription, no setup fee and no lock-in contract. Instead, a SurfSlot booking fee is added to the customer's total at checkout, so we only earn when a customer books and a flat month costs your school €0. This page explains exactly how that works, what is included, how it compares with the other pricing models in the market, and how it differs in Australia.
Your bill from SurfSlot
- Setup fee
- €0
- Monthly subscription
- €0
- Lock-in contract
- None
- A month with no bookings
- €0
- Per booking
- SurfSlot booking fee, paid by the customer at checkout
How the SurfSlot booking fee works
- You set your prices. Lessons, packages, rentals, camps and gift cards are priced however you like, including seasonal prices.
- The customer sees the fee before paying. At checkout the customer sees your price, the SurfSlot booking fee and the total, before they enter any card details.
- Payment goes to your own Stripe account. SurfSlot is built on Stripe Connect, so the money lands in your Stripe account and the SurfSlot booking fee is collected automatically at the moment of booking, so there is no monthly bill to remember.
- You get a monthly statement. A monthly invoice lists the bookings and fees processed, for your accounts.
Outside Australia, the SurfSlot booking fee is 10% of the booking value, added on top of the price you set. On a €60 group lesson, the customer sees a €6 SurfSlot booking fee and pays €66. On a quiet Tuesday in January with no bookings, SurfSlot costs you nothing at all.
The fee is a charge for using the SurfSlot booking platform: the booking itself, the confirmation, the customer messages and the booking administration. It is not a card surcharge. It is not worked out from the cost of accepting cards, and it is the same whichever payment method the customer chooses. It sits in the same broad category as the guest-side fees on accommodation and travel booking sites.
Pricing for surf schools in Australia
From 1 October 2026, Australia's payment rules ban surcharges on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard payments, online as well as in person. The SurfSlot booking fee is not a surcharge, but we have set up Australian checkouts so that the line is clear for customers and schools.
For schools with an Australian Stripe account, the customer sees a 3.25% SurfSlot booking fee at checkout. On an A$90 group lesson that is A$2.93, so the customer pays A$92.93. The rest of SurfSlot's fee is taken from the booking through Stripe Connect before the payout reaches you, rather than being added to the customer's total.
Everything else is the same: no subscription, no setup fee, no lock-in and €0 (or A$0) in a month with no bookings. We will walk you through the exact split for your account on a demo call.
What's included
There are no plans, tiers or add-on packs. Every school on SurfSlot gets the whole platform, whether you run two lessons a week or twenty a day. If you would rather not set it up yourself, our team can do it for you during onboarding.
- Online booking widget and booking page
- Deposits, balances and payment chasing
- Digital waivers for every participant
- Instructor scheduling and auto-assignment
- Surf condition checks every two hours
- SMS and email confirmations and changes
- Gift cards and vouchers
- Surf and SUP rentals
- Seasonal pricing and closures
- Transport and pick-ups
- Hotel and partner referral tracking
- Equipment held against each lesson
What you still pay elsewhere: Stripe's standard payment processing fees, charged by Stripe to your own Stripe account, and the running costs of your own website and domain.
Subscription, commission or booking fee: how the pricing models compare
Almost every booking platform for surf and watersports schools uses one of four pricing models. The headline price matters less than how the model behaves across a seasonal year: what you pay in a dead month, what you pay in August, and whether your customer sees the fee.
| Model | How you pay | A month with no bookings | A busy month | Where the fee sits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly or annual subscription | A fixed fee every month, often with a 12-month minimum term | Full price | Same fixed price | Not shown to the customer |
| Percentage of revenue (commission) | The platform takes a percentage of every booking you take | Little or nothing | Grows with every euro you charge | Comes out of your lesson price |
| Subscription plus booking fee | A monthly fee and a smaller percentage on online bookings | The monthly fee | Monthly fee plus the percentage | Usually your choice to absorb or pass on |
| SurfSlot booking fee | No subscription; a SurfSlot booking fee is added at checkout | €0 | Paid by customers, per booking | Shown to the customer before they pay |
Subscriptions are predictable and suit businesses that trade evenly all year. For a school that is busy for five months, a twelve-month plan means paying for seven months of very little, and a minimum term means you cannot switch it off.
Commission costs nothing in a quiet month but grows with every booking and every price rise, and it always comes out of your lesson price.
A customer-paid booking fee, the SurfSlot model, costs nothing in a quiet month and does not take a cut of the price you set (outside Australia). The honest trade-off: your customer's total is a little higher than your listed price. If you compete in a crowded market purely on the visible price, weigh that up.
Published prices from other platforms (checked 20 October 2026)
These are the prices each vendor published on its own pricing page on 20 October 2026. Vendors change their pricing, VAT treatment differs, and some numbers are maximums or depend on billing period, so always check the vendor's page for today's figures.
| Platform | Model | Published pricing | Commitment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Viking Bookings | Percentage of revenue, or a fixed yearly fee per location | Flexible 3% of revenue recorded through Viking; Annual 2.25% of estimated annual revenue; Fixed €4,900 per location per year. €380 one-time setup on every option. | Monthly (Flexible) or annual (Annual, Fixed) options |
| bigZ | Free plan with a fee per online booking, or annual plans with no booking fee | Free: 5% fee per online booking. Budget: max. €79 a month, billed annually. Pro: max. €249 a month, billed annually. Paid plans have zero booking fees and a credit for months with no online revenue. | Paid plans are billed annually |
| Bloowatch | Monthly subscription with 0% commission | Start €49, Pro €79, Gold €119 a month billed annually (€59, €99, €149 a month billed monthly). 0% commission on transactions. | 12-month commitment on all plans |
| EquipDash | Monthly subscription plus a platform fee on direct online bookings | Starter $29, Growth $69, Pro $149 a month, plus a 2%, 1.5% or 1% platform fee on direct online bookings. 21-day free trial. | No long-term contract, cancel any time |
| MaiKupo | Commission per completed booking, no subscription | 1% on direct bookings, 3.5% on public-channel and affiliate bookings, capped at €5 per booking. No monthly fee, no setup cost. | No subscription, no setup fee |
| SurfSlot | SurfSlot booking fee at checkout, no subscription | No subscription or setup fee. 10% SurfSlot booking fee added to the customer's total (3.25% customer-visible in Australia). | None |
For feature-by-feature comparisons, including platforms whose prices we have not re-checked here, see surf school software alternatives. For the maths on a seasonal year, read what surf school software really costs in the off-season.
Pricing questions
Is there a monthly subscription or setup fee?
No. SurfSlot has no subscription, no setup fee and no lock-in contract. A month with no bookings costs your school €0. We only earn when a customer books, through the SurfSlot booking fee added at checkout.
Who pays the SurfSlot booking fee?
The customer. It is added to the booking total at checkout and shown before they pay, alongside your lesson price. In Australia the customer-visible fee is smaller and part of SurfSlot's fee is taken from the booking instead. See the Australia section on this page.
How much is the SurfSlot booking fee?
Outside Australia it is 10% of the booking value, added on top of the price you set. On a €60 lesson the customer sees a €6 SurfSlot booking fee and pays €66 in total. In Australia the customer sees a 3.25% SurfSlot booking fee.
Is the SurfSlot booking fee a card surcharge?
No. It is a fee for using the SurfSlot booking platform. It is not calculated from the cost of accepting cards and it does not change with the payment method, card type or card network the customer uses.
What about Stripe's fees?
Payments run through your own Stripe account, so Stripe's standard processing fees apply to your Stripe account exactly as they would with any other system that uses Stripe. SurfSlot does not add anything to them.
What happens to the fee if a lesson is cancelled?
If your school cancels a booking, the SurfSlot booking fee is refunded to the customer in full. If the customer cancels, the fee is not refundable. Your own cancellation policy decides what happens to the lesson price.
Are some features locked behind a higher plan?
No. There are no plans or tiers. Every school gets the same platform: bookings, deposits, waivers, instructor scheduling, condition alerts, notifications, gift cards, rentals and the rest.
Can I leave whenever I want?
Yes. There is no contract term, so you can stop using SurfSlot at any time. Because there is no subscription, there is nothing to cancel at the end of the season either.
Stop paying for empty months
See the booking flow, the checkout your customers get and the dashboard your team will use. Or read more about booking software with no monthly fee.