Why not just use Airbnb or Booking.com?

Those work, and they take a share of the booking while holding the guest relationship. Airbnb publishes two fee structures: on the split structure, your own deduction is 3% and your guest separately pays 14.1–16.5% on top of your price; on the host-only structure, 15.5% comes off your payout directly, and Airbnb has been moving hosts onto that structure. (Source: airbnb.com/help/article/1857, checked 22 August 2026.) Karu isn't trying to replace Airbnb or Booking.com — it gives you a direct channel alongside them.

Is this cheaper than [other booking software]?

Maybe not — some booking software is free or close to it for a single unit. What Karu sells is ownership, not a lower monthly bill: your own text, photos, domain, database, with no per-booking fee.

What happens if I stop paying for the care plan?

The site keeps working. Nothing in it checks whether you're paying us — your only ongoing cost is your domain.

How fast does the site get built?

Ten working days from the point your intake form is complete and your account access has reached us — not from signature.

Can I take card payments?

Not right now — payment runs by bank transfer. Card payments aren't included at any tier today.

Can you move my bookings over from my current system?

Migrating historical bookings isn't included at any tier — that's a separate conversation, and we're happy to have it on the call.

A booking site that's actually yours.

Karu builds and configures a booking site for cabins, saunas, retreats, and tour guides — deployed into your own Cloudflare account, on your own database. No per-booking fee, and nothing that stops working if you ever stop paying us.

Book a call See pricing ↓

Karu's first live example: readingroom.ee — a real, running retreat booking site, built with Karu. Same system you'd be buying, live today.

Visit readingroom.ee →

One page, but built with your kind of business in mind.

Cabins & glamping

If you're listed on Booking.com or a similar platform today, your guest sees a fee added on top of your price — one you never see yourself. A site of your own gives you a direct channel alongside that, not a replacement for it.

Saunas

If quoting a price today means a phone call or a two-day wait for an email reply, you're losing bookings that could have been confirmed on the spot.

Retreats

A marketplace holds the guest relationship for you. A site of your own means the guest's details — and their next booking — stay with you.

Nature and tour guides

If booking today runs entirely through phone calls or social media messages, every message that goes unanswered is a trip that doesn't happen.

Two options — and it's worth being honest about both.

A booking engine by itself isn't expensive. Sirvoy gives a single unit a direct booking engine for €0 a month, and Beds24 runs a small property for around €16 a month — both published prices, checked 22.08.2026. If a booking form is genuinely all you need, get one of those. What Karu builds is different in kind, not in price: a site that's yours. Your own words, photos, domain, database, and guest list — configured for you instead of by you, with no per-booking fee, and nothing in it that stops working if you ever stop paying us.

What's actually yours, after handover

Your own domain, your own Cloudflare account, your own database — not shared infrastructure with anyone else.
Every word, photo, and price on the site is yours, editable without us.
Your guest list lives in your own database, never on someone else's server.
No fee on any booking — payment goes by bank transfer, straight to your account.
Nothing checks whether you're still paying us, and nothing switches off if you stop. (The platforms we build on are free within real limits — the sharpest is 100 emails a day. Full details below, under "What's honest to know before the call.")

How it works

You fill in our intake form.
On day one, you open three accounts in your own name — Cloudflare, Resend, and a mailbox — and hand us scoped access. That's roughly half an hour of your time, and it's the reason everything ends up belonging to you, not us.
We build. Content is handled efficiently on our side; every account stays under your control the whole time, and nothing about account access is automated — zero-touch content, human-verified accounts.
Ten working days from the point your intake is complete and your account access has reached us — not from signature. The clock can't start before we can actually build.
You get a written runbook and a handover call.

Pricing

This is a business-to-business service. Prices exclude VAT — VAT is added on the invoice at the rate in force. These prices describe scope; the written proposal is the binding document.

	Starter 1200 €	Standard 1800 €	Full 2500 €
Units or room types	1	up to 4	up to 8
Languages	1	2	2
Copy	You supply final text; we place it	You supply text; we do one editing pass	We write it from a 60-minute interview; you approve
Photography	You supply; we crop and optimize	You supply; we select, crop, optimize	You supply; we art-direct the shot list and select
Design	Template palette, your logo and colors	Custom palette and type pairing	Custom palette and type pairing
Pricing model	Single price per unit	Seasonal price options	Seasonal price options + multi-unit rules
Revision rounds	1	2	3
Handover	Written runbook	Runbook + a 45-minute walkthrough call	Runbook, walkthrough, and 30 days of bug fixes at no charge

Out of scope at every tier

Card payments
Channel-manager / OTA synchronization
Migrating historical bookings from another system
Custom development beyond configuration
Content changes after handover (covered by the care plan below)
Slot- or ticket-based booking (e.g., a guide selling per-departure seats)

Not sure which tier fits? Book a call — we'll work it out together.

After launch — an optional care plan

€89/month, or €890 paid annually. Includes up to 90 minutes of our time each month — content and copy changes, seasonal price updates, small layout adjustments — plus dependency and security patching, and email support with a response within two business days. Unused minutes don't roll over. Month to month, cancel with 30 days' notice. A seasonal pause is available: up to four consecutive months at €0.

Not included: New units or room types, new pages or languages, changes to booking logic, payment or refund rules, third-party integrations, or guest support on your behalf. Anything outside that is quoted separately before work starts.

Full terms are set out in the written proposal and agreed before any payment.

What's honest to know before the call

Bank transfer

Guests pay by bank transfer, not by card. That means no acquirer fee — a €450 booking pays you €450, with no chargeback window. It also means the guest leaves your site to make the transfer and doesn't get an instant confirmation, and guests outside the euro area have a genuinely poor time of it. Worth knowing before you decide.

Free-tier ceilings

The site runs on free infrastructure tiers, and those tiers have real limits. The sharpest ceiling is email: Resend's free tier caps at 100 emails per day. Database limits are 5 GB storage, 5 million row reads and 100,000 row writes per day. The booking API is limited to 100,000 requests per day. The site itself can deploy 500 times a month. If the email cap is hit, booking confirmations queue until the next day — the operation fails, it doesn't quietly run up a bill. All these limits are published free tiers from Cloudflare and Resend as at 28.08.2026: they're your accounts, and their terms are theirs to set. We'll talk through whether your booking volume fits inside those limits on the call.

You create the accounts, on day one

You open the Cloudflare and Resend accounts yourself, in your own name, on day one — that's part of what makes the finished site actually yours. It also means delivery starts once those accounts are handed over, not on the day you sign.

Who's behind this

readingroom.ee

readingroom.ee is real and live — a retreat booking site built with Karu, running today. It's the clearest way to see what a finished site looks like, because it's not a mockup.

https://readingroom.ee

Felipe

Karu is one person's work. Felipe Millán Assler, Tallinn-based, 11 years in web and marketing work — including time as part of the team at SendGrid, Twilio, and SEMrush.

Demo

You can also try a demo built from a sample config for a fictional cabin business — this is what a finished site looks like end to end, with no bookings or guests behind it.

Demo coming soon.

FAQ

Why not just use Airbnb or Booking.com?: Those work, and they take a share of the booking while holding the guest relationship. Airbnb publishes two fee structures: on the split structure, your own deduction is 3% and your guest separately pays 14.1–16.5% on top of your price; on the host-only structure, 15.5% comes off your payout directly, and Airbnb has been moving hosts onto that structure. (Source: airbnb.com/help/article/1857, checked 22 August 2026.) Karu isn't trying to replace Airbnb or Booking.com — it gives you a direct channel alongside them.
Is this cheaper than [other booking software]?: Maybe not — some booking software is free or close to it for a single unit. What Karu sells is ownership, not a lower monthly bill: your own text, photos, domain, database, with no per-booking fee.
What happens if I stop paying for the care plan?: The site keeps working. Nothing in it checks whether you're paying us — your only ongoing cost is your domain.
How fast does the site get built?: Ten working days from the point your intake form is complete and your account access has reached us — not from signature.
Can I take card payments?: Not right now — payment runs by bank transfer. Card payments aren't included at any tier today.
Can you move my bookings over from my current system?: Migrating historical bookings isn't included at any tier — that's a separate conversation, and we're happy to have it on the call.

Let's talk about your site

20 minutes, no pitch. If it's a fit, we'll talk tier and timeline.