Direct bookings, done for you.

No. The same Costa Rica tax obligations apply whether the booking comes through Airbnb, your own site, or WhatsApp - 13% IVA, 12.75% effective tax on rental income (or annual income tax under the traditional regime), factura electrónica, monthly filings. What direct booking changes is timing and control: you set up your compliance on your timeline, instead of being pushed onto Hacienda's radar by the platform. Same end-state, fewer surprise triggers in the meantime. We don't do tax compliance ourselves - that's your CPA - but we can recommend Costa Rican accountants who handle this for foreign owners affordably.

The day the guest confirms - not 24 hours after check-in (which is how Airbnb pays). With a 30-50% deposit at booking, that's $900-$1,500 in your account in February for a $3,000 December stay. With Airbnb, that money sits in their account for ten months and reaches you on December 27th. For seasonal Costa Rica properties this is often the most concrete benefit of direct booking - owners typically don't notice the gap until they switch a single booking and watch the deposit hit their account that same week.

No - the opposite. We integrate with their booking system so direct bookings flow through them exactly like Airbnb bookings do. They keep handling facturas, payments, calendar, guest communication. We just add the channel that doesn't pay platform commission. Most major systems supported (Hospitable, Lodgify, Hostfully, Stays).

Most owners we work with use a booking platform like Lodgify or Hospitable - they're $25-50 a month and handle payments, calendar sync, and Costa Rica's electronic invoicing automatically. Set one up (we can recommend), and we integrate with it. We don't process payments ourselves - that's their job.

No. Most owners we work with keep Airbnb listed. Direct booking runs in parallel - same calendar, same property, same nights available. Over time, returning guests and Google traffic shift toward direct, but you keep the Airbnb funnel for first-time discovery as long as it makes sense for you.

Through iCal - Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com all let you export an availability feed. We import that feed into your direct site's calendar. Sync runs every 1-3 hours automatically. When you take a direct booking, we push that back to Airbnb so they don't double-book. Free, reliable, no monthly tool needed for single-property owners.

You do, directly. We set up Stripe (for card payments, USD) and SINPE Móvil (for Costa Rican guests) on your site. Money goes from the guest to your account. We never touch it. Standard practice is 30-50% deposit on booking, balance before arrival.

Yes. The build is $499 one-time and you own the site. The self-serve CMS is included so you can edit text, photos, and prices anytime - no Care plan needed for that. You can self-host after we hand it over. The monthly Care plans ($29-$149/mo) are optional and add things the CMS doesn't: SEO articles written for you, multi-platform calendar sync maintenance, payment integration maintenance, monthly performance reports, and dev requests for new pages or features.

Most of our clients aren't. We handle everything - domain registration, hosting, SSL, calendar sync, payment setup, SEO. You give us photos, your house's story, and your Airbnb link. We deliver a finished site you can use without ever opening a code editor or hosting dashboard.

Returning guests: immediately. As soon as your past guests have your direct URL, the next booking can come through it. Google traffic: 3-6 months. SEO is the long game. The fastest wins come from putting the URL on your welcome book, business card, Instagram bio, and a small framed card in the property.

Strictly speaking, you should already be registered if you've been hosting on Airbnb - the obligation is the same regardless of channel. With the new 2026 platform reporting rules, the gap between 'registered' and 'detected' has closed. We point clients to Costa Rican CPAs we trust who can sort registration in 1-2 weeks. We don't do tax work ourselves.

Anytime. No contract. We finish out the period you've already paid (quarterly by default), then we transfer the site files to your hosting and we're done. The site is yours from day one - we're never holding it hostage.

Yes - and it's particularly well-suited. Long-term tenants (one to six months) usually book direct rather than through Airbnb, so a real website is the natural channel. We add a "long-term stays" section to your site, route those inquiries through WhatsApp, and your property manager negotiates the terms. No platform commission on long-term means even more saved per booking.