Monetization
Travellers check for free. You earn when they book, and when hotels subscribe.
RoomRateIQ is a free public price checker. Money comes from partners and owners — not from locking the search.
Clicks recorded here
2
This instance
If every click booked
₹532
2-night modeled commission
At 3% conversion
₹16
Typical affiliate close rate
Partners wired
6
Search URLs, not scrapes
Traveller side
OTA affiliate on click-out
A guest compares stays here, then clicks Booking, Agoda, Expedia, Airbnb or the hotel site. You do not charge them. If they complete a booking on that partner, the partner pays you a commission — typically 3–5% of the stay. Clicks themselves are not cash.
Owner side
Hotel subscriptions
Guesthouses and hotels pay monthly for the owner dashboard: Demand Index, similar-stay comps, calendar recommendations. Starter ₹499, Professional ₹1,499, Business ₹3,999. This is the reliable SaaS line.
Higher share
RoomRateIQ Direct
If a hotel lists with you and takes the booking on their own site, you can take ~8% instead of the OTA’s 3–4%. The guest still pays nothing extra to use the checker.
Must be labelled
Sponsored placements
A hotel pays to appear at the top of a city. Always mark it Sponsored. Never mix it into the modeled rate as if it were an organic rank.
Partner rates used in the model
Public search links today. To collect live payouts, enroll in each network and replace these URLs with your tagged affiliate links.
Booking.com
4%
Typical hotel affiliate, paid on completed stay.
Agoda
3.5%
Asia-heavy OTA. Paid on checkout.
Expedia
3%
Package + hotel. Paid on stay.
Airbnb
3%
Experience / stay referral when enrolled.
Hotel website
8%
If the hotel joins RoomRateIQ Direct, you take a higher share.
MakeMyTrip
3%
India hotel CPS via affiliate networks.
A honest month at modest traffic
Not a forecast. Arithmetic so you can see the levers.
- 10,000 free searches across the 25 live cities.
- 12% click a partner → 1,200 click-outs.
- 3% of those book a 2-night stay → 36 bookings. (Affiliate conversion is usually 1–4%.)
- Average nightly rate ₹4,000 → booking value ₹8,000. At 4% (Booking-like) that is ₹320 per stay.
- Affiliate line: 36 × ₹320 = ₹11,520 / month.
- Add owners: 20 × Starter ₹499 + 8 × Pro ₹1,499 + 2 × Business ₹3,999 = ₹29,970 / month.
Combined at that scale: about ₹41,500 a month. Affiliates scale with traffic; subscriptions scale with hotels you sign. Do not count a click as revenue.
Turn affiliate links into real payouts
Required before any partner will pay you.
- Open Partners and apply on each OTA’s official form. Nobody else can issue their keys.
- They give you a tracking ID. Set it on the server (BOOKING_AFFILIATE_ID, AGODA_CID, …) and restart. Search buttons pick it up.
- Partners pay 30–60 days after the guest stays — not when they click.
- Keep the disclosure on every book button. Hide the rate source and you will get banned.
Book buttons open the partner’s live search for that hotel. We do not scrape their prices. Typical from is our market range plus public weather and FX.
Clicks on this instance
Clicks are counted here. Partners pay after the guest stays — not on the click.
- agoda1 clicks · if booked ₹511
- expedia1 clicks · if booked ₹21
Latest
Auroville Youth Camp → expedia · auroville
Hotel Mount Palace → agoda · chennai
What stays free
The public checker is the top of the funnel. Do not put it behind a login.