Introduction to custom duration rates

Custom duration rates in Checkfront allow you to tailor pricing based on the length of a booking, providing flexible control over rate structures and ensuring that pricing aligns with your business model.

Read this introduction to our Custom Duration Rates feature, including understanding, viewing, and editing custom rates.
 

Accessing the features mentioned in this article

What industry does this feature apply to?

• ✓ Accommodations | X Activities  | ✓ Tours  | ✓ Rentals  | X Adventures | X Escape Rooms | Learn More
   

Where can I find this feature using the top menu?

• Inventory > Custom Rates
   

What more do I need to use this feature?

• Admin permissions or restricted permissions to View discounts and Manage discounts.
• Duration rates are available for those using All Day, Nightly, and Flex Time only, not Timeslots.
   

Which Checkfront version supports this feature - classic items, classic products, or both?

• Your account must have access to classic products (Inventory > Products), a key feature of our classic products version of Checkfront. This feature is not available for use with classic items (Inventory > Items) in our classic items version. → Learn more about products. 

Would you like to automatically apply a discount to longer bookings? For example, you may want to offer a discount to a hotel Guest who stays 7 days or more, or a Customer who rents a bicycle for multiple days. You can do this with Custom Rates!

Custom Rates, also known as duration rates, allow you to configure pricing increases or decreases by dollar value or percentage, based on the booking duration, and apply them to the base rate configured for your product. 

Per Day, Per Night, and Flextime Duration-based rates work with products that have flexible start and end times (Per Day, Per Night, and Flextime, not Timeslots).

Learn more about configuring pricing on products Learn more about configuring the base rates of your product here: Configuring pricing on products

Do you need to configure pricing where the system determines the rate based on the booking duration, and you apply the same rate for the entire duration? We call these single duration rates. By default, the system calculates duration rates as single duration.

Single Duration Rate Example - Accommodation For example, the longer the duration of a room booking, the lower the rate per night: 1 - 2 nights at $100 per night 3 - 6 nights at $90 per night 7+ nights at $80 per night A Guest staying for 2 nights would pay (2 x $100) = $200 total. A Guest staying 3 nights would pay (3 x $90) = $270 total. A Guest staying 7 nights would pay (7 x $80) = $560 total.

Learn more about single duration rates To add a single duration rate, click on the Add Rate button. From there, you can configure your pricing. Learn more here: Custom Rates: Single Duration Rate

Do you need to configure pricing where the rate is determined by the booking duration, with different rates applied the longer the duration? We call these multi duration rates. You can enable the multi duration calculation when adding or editing rates.

Multi Duration Rate Example - Accommodation For example, the longer the duration of the booking, the lower the rate for subsequent nights: 1 - 2 nights at $100 per night 3 - 6 nights at $90 per night 7+ nights at $80 per night A Guest staying for 2 nights would pay (2 x $100) = $200 total. A Guest staying 3 nights would pay (2 x $100) + (1 x $90)= $290 total.  A Guest staying 7 nights would pay (2x $100) + ( 4 x $90) + (1 x $80) =  $640 total.

Learn more about mult duration rates To add a multi duration rate, click on the Add Rate button. From there, you can configure your pricing. Learn more here: Setting up multi duration custom rates

The Custom Rates page comprises a list of saved Custom Duration Rates.

You can filter the list by type (single duration or multi duration), status (all, active, archived), or keyword search.

1. Click the Name of the duration rate to open the Duration Rate modal. 
2. From the modal, you can modify the name, date range, duration rates, multi-duration setting, and which categories and products are applied. You can also archive the duration rate.

Editing custom rates and historical bookings Note, if you edit a custom duration rate, e.g., change the rate amount, then any Custom Rates applied to historical bookings are preserved, not changed.

Next Steps

Once you're comfortable with the basics above, check out these deeper-dive articles:

• Setting up single duration custom rates
• Setting up multi duration custom rates

In the following article, we look at how to create a single duration rate.

Setting up single duration custom rates >