Up to 10k visits / month
Lodge
NZ$200
A small lodge or restaurant site.
HostAgent
Queenstown · working demo
A guest chats on your website. The room actually gets booked.
HostAgent is the little desk in the corner of a lodge, gondola, or ski page. It checks what’s free, holds it, and books it — so the night doesn’t disappear to Booking.com after 10pm.
Priya Shah
Hotel options · live
The desk is opening…
Type in the box. That’s a real desk, not a video.
On the lodge website
Guests never leave your site.
The chat sits in the corner, next to the rooms. Click through and book a night — that room comes off the list, same as if Booking.com had sold it.
How it works
Three steps.
- 01
Someone asks
On your website. A room, a gondola, ski hire, dinner. Same as they would at the front desk.
- 02
We check what’s actually free
Your booking system, not a guess. If the room is gone, we say so. We never make one up.
- 03
We book it for real
The hold lands in Cloudbeds, Skyline, or NZSki — the same systems you already use. A person handles refunds.
A real booking
From “have you got a room?” to three confirmation numbers.
- 01
They ask, on your site
A room, the gondola, dinner, ski hire. One chat. They never go to Booking.com.
- 02
We check each system
Your hotel software, Skyline’s tickets, the restaurant book, Quest’s ski sizes. If something’s gone, we say so before we touch the rest.
- 03
Hold the room first
If the room isn’t free, we stop. No leftover gondola tickets for a night that doesn’t exist.
- 04
Hold the rest
Gondola, table, Superpass, hire — on their own systems. Real confirmation numbers, not a promise.
- 05
If one fails, undo the others
They see one sentence. Not a half-booked Thursday.
- 06
They pay
Skyline and NZSki can take their own card. Lodges can take ours. We never see the card number.
Watch it happen: evening on the peak · Superpass + hire
Versus the usual software
What they charge, and what they still can’t do.
| Them | What they charge | What they do | HostAgent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intercom / Zendesk | ~NZ$1.70 per chat, plus seats | Answers FAQs | Books the room. A chat is not a hold. |
| HiJiffy, Canary, hotel bots | Hundreds to thousands / month | Messages and upsells | Same lock as Booking.com. Room + gondola + hire together. |
| Cloudbeds Messenger | Inside the PMS bill (NZ$300–600) | Chat next to your bookings | Still just chat. We write the booking. |
| Booking.com | 15% — NZ$58 of a NZ$389 night | Sends you guests | 3% — NZ$12 on that night, on your own site. |
| Trip-planner apps | Free for the guest | A list of ideas | A plan is not a booking. |
Try it
Three fake websites, real bookings.
The Ridge, Skyline, and NZSki pages here are demos — not customers.
What it costs
Booking.com takes 15%. We take 3%.
A monthly fee for the website, based on how busy it is, plus 3% of rooms this desk actually books. Booking.com takes about 15%. Setup is billed once.
Booking.com
15%
NZ$58 of a NZ$389 room.
HostAgent
3%
NZ$12 on the same room. You keep the extra NZ$47.
10–50k visits / month
Town
NZ$500
A busy hotel or activity page.
50–200k visits / month
Peak
NZ$1,500
A known Queenstown brand.
200k+ visits / month
Basin
NZ$3,000
High-turnover ticket sites.
Plus 3% only on nights this desk books. You keep Booking.com if you want — we just don’t sell the same room twice.
15% vs 3%
What Booking.com takes of the room vs what we take when this desk books it.
NZ$58 → NZ$12
On a NZ$389 lakeview. Same room, your website.
NZ$200
Lodge monthly fee. Less than the hotel software. About three Booking.com nights, then 3% after that.
| What they already pay | Typical bill | HostAgent |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudbeds / Mews | NZ$300–600 / mo for a 12-room lodge. That’s the hotel software. | NZ$200. We don’t replace it — we book into it. |
| SiteMinder | From about NZ$120 / mo to keep Booking.com in sync. | We use the same room list. Two sites cannot sell the same key. |
| Booking.com | 15%. NZ$58 of a NZ$389 lakeview. | 3% — NZ$12 — plus NZ$200 for the site. |
| Intercom / support bots | ~NZ$1.70 every time a chat is “resolved”, plus seats. Busy sites blow past our top fee. | Flat per site. And we can actually hold a ticket. |
| SevenRooms / OpenTable | Hundreds to thousands a month to run the restaurant book. | We place the table. They keep the book. |
Cloudbeds, SiteMinder and Intercom figures are published ranges, not quotes. We sit on those systems — we don’t replace them.
It plugs into what you already use.
Hotels, restaurants, gondolas, ski fields. The booking is theirs. We just write it.
Hotels
Cloudbeds, Mews, and the rest. A hold here is a real reservation.
Restaurants
SevenRooms, OpenTable, Skyline dining.
Activities
Skyline tickets, NZSki Superpass, Quest hire.
It won’t make rooms up.
- Never books a room that’s already taken.
- Cancellations, complaints, and safety always go to a person — with the whole chat.
Have a play
Four minutes on the demo lodge.
- 01
Book a room on The Ridge
Open the lodge site. In the corner chat, book a lakeview for Saturday 29 August.
- 02
See it come off the list
Sign in, open Channels. That lakeview is down by one — same as a real booking.
- 03
Pretend Booking.com sells one
On Channels, tap “Simulate a Booking.com guest”. That sells whatever’s left.
- 04
Try the same night again
Back on The Ridge, book Saturday 29 August once more. It says no. One room cannot be sold twice.