How do I add pricing based on the duration of the booking?

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Learn how to add pricing rates to your products based on the booking duration, configure the rate and preview the experience.

Guests can be charged a single rate or multiple rates for the duration of the booking, pricing can be adjusted based on an amount or a percentage and priced as increases or decreases.

 

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Which plans include this feature?

Legacy:  Soho, Pro, Plus, Enterprise, Flex
New:  Growth (Subscription), Growth (Online Booking Fee), Managed
→ Learn more about our new plans or how to change your plan.

Where can I find this feature using the top menu?

• Availability Events: Inventory > Products > Pricing
• Availability Event Rates: Inventory > Custom Rates
  
  

What more do I need to use this feature?

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

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

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

 

Examples of Duration Rates Single Duration Rates are where the longer the booking, the lower (or higher) the rate. For example, a hotel booking for three nights is only $90.00 a night instead of $100.00 for one to two nights. Guests are charged a single reduced rate for the duration for a booking total of $270.00. Multiple Duration Rates are where the longer the booking duration, the lower (or higher) the rates become. For example, a hotel booking would be $100.00 for the first and second nights but only $90.00 for the third night. Guests are charged different rates per night for a booking total of $290.00.

 

This article focuses on adding duration rates to products while configuring products. For a detailed walk-through of product creation, please see the following series. Introduction to products and the product builder We also have an entire series on creating and managing custom rates, including duration rates, that you can check out here! Introduction to custom rates

 

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To configure your duration-based pricing, follow these steps.

1. Add a duration rate
2. Configure the duration rate
3. Preview the Customer booking experience

 

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Start by adding a Duration Rate to your product. From the Pricing tab of the Product Builder (Inventory > Product > edit/+new product), select Duration from the Add Rate dropdown. 

 

The duration option is hidden when the Product uses Timeslots. Duration rates are available only for All Day, Nightly, and Flex Time.

 

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This opens the Duration Rate modal, from which you can configure the specifics of your rate. 

1. Choose a name for the duration rate, e.g. Winter Long Term Rental Rates. There is a 13-character limit on rate names.
2. Specify the Date Range within which this rate applies, e.g. Nov 1, 2022, --> Feb 28, 2022. You can also Remove the End Date, so the rate is always in effect.
3. Specify the various applicable rates:
   1. Click +Add Duration to create a second tier.
   2. Toggle the controls (+/-) next to the number fields until you have the range of numbers needed for each tier, e.g. 3 - 6 days, 7 - Max days. Max represents the top limit configured for your product, e.g. A discounted rate for a booking that is seven days or longer; the max might be 14 days.
   3. Specify the rate adjustment for each tier. Rates can be adjusted by a monetary amount ($) or percentage (%) per day.
   4. Repeat the process for every new tier you need. You can delete a range by clicking the remove icon (x) at the end of the row. The system adjusts the tier range accordingly.
4. Decide whether you want to charge a single rate or multiple rates throughout the booking. By default, we charge the single applicable rate for the entire booking, e.g. $90.00 for three nights. With the Apply Multi Duration setting enabled, each rate that applies is charged, e.g. $100.00 for the first two nights, then $90.00 for the third night.
5. Next, you can see an example of how this rate would impact base pricing via the Pricing Preview. Use the number of days toggle to see how pricing changes the longer the Guest books!
6. Finally, decide which other products or categories of products you need to apply this to. This can also be managed from the Custom Rates page (Inventory > Custom Rates).
7. Don't forget to Save your changes!
   
   

You can now see the Duration Rates applied to your base rate within the Pricing Table under the Pricing tab.

 

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Finally, you can Preview your pricing configuration from the Customer's perspective of the booking pages. 

The above example is of a single duration rate applied to three to six-night bookings. Bookers are charged a reduced rate of $90.00 per night for $270.00, a 10% reduction on the base rate.

 

The above example is configured to be a Multi Duration rate. Bookers are charged $100.00 for the first two nights and a reduced rate of $90.00 for the third night, a 10% reduction compared to the rate for the first two nights. The total of the booking is $290.00.