FAREHARBOR FEES, EXPLAINED
What does FareHarbor cost? Your customer pays ~6%.
FareHarbor charges the operator $0 per month — because it adds a booking fee to your customer's total at checkout, commonly reported at about 6% in the US (FareHarbor doesn't publish the rate). It's not free; the cost just moves to the person you're trying to convert.
The confusing part about FareHarbor pricing is that there's no subscription to you, so it looks free. The revenue comes from a booking fee added to the customer's order as a separate line item. FareHarbor doesn't publish the percentage — independent pricing breakdowns consistently put it around 6% in the US. Standard card processing is a separate item; FareHarbor doesn't publish those terms either.
So a clean $850 trip becomes about $900 on the final checkout screen — right when the customer is deciding whether to pull the trigger. Every booking that surcharge talks out of it is a booking you lose, and you never see it. "Free" software, paid for in your conversion rate.
There's also the quieter cost: it's their platform. Moving off FareHarbor later means rebuilding integrations and retraining — a switching cost that keeps operators in place even when the fee adds up.
The alternative is a flat fee with no surcharge: Timber & Tackle charges you one predictable monthly rate and adds nothing to your customer's bill. Your price is your price, on your own site, and you can export everything and leave anytime.
Where the money goes
Monthly fee to you
- FareHarbor
- $0
- Timber & Tackle
- One flat monthly fee
Booking fee
- FareHarbor
- ~6% on the customer (rate not published)
- Timber & Tackle
- None
Your $850 trip at checkout
- FareHarbor
- ~$900
- Timber & Tackle
- $850
Who eats the fee
- FareHarbor
- Your customer
- Timber & Tackle
- Nobody
Leaving later
- FareHarbor
- Rebuild & retrain
- Timber & Tackle
- One-click export
| FareHarbor | Timber & Tackle | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee to you | $0 | One flat monthly fee |
| Booking fee | ~6% on the customer (rate not published) | None |
| Your $850 trip at checkout | ~$900 | $850 |
| Who eats the fee | Your customer | Nobody |
| Leaving later | Rebuild & retrain | One-click export |
"Free" isn't free
The ~6% rides on your customer's total instead of your invoice — and the bookings it scares off are yours, not FareHarbor's.
Your price is your price
A flat fee adds nothing at checkout. What the customer saw is what they pay — no last-screen surprise.
No lock-in
Your own site and domain, your client list, one-click export. Nothing to unwind if you ever move on.
Do the math on your own trips.
Switch the calculator to FareHarbor and enter your numbers to see the ~6% customer fee against a flat monthly rate.
What are you on now?
Keep it for the strangers it finds you. This is about the trips you book yourself.
50 trips= $28,650 a year
FareHarbor fee — your anglers pay
$1,719
Timber & Tackle add-on fees
$0
Your price is your price.
No 6% surprise bolted on at checkout — so you don't lose the bookings the fee scares off.
Only guide part of the year? Pause the rest.
Run your seasons, then pause your bill in the off-months — $0 while you're off the water, and your site stays live, still booking next season. You only pay the months you're actually fishing.
FareHarbor is free to the operator and adds a booking fee (about 6%) to the customer's total at checkout. Your anglers pay it, every booking.
Straight answers.
Does FareHarbor charge the operator a monthly fee?
No — it's $0/month to the operator. Its revenue is the booking fee (commonly reported at about 6% — they don't publish the rate) added to your customer's total at checkout, separate from standard card processing.
Can I turn off the FareHarbor booking fee?
The customer-paid booking fee is how FareHarbor makes money on the free plan, so it's built in. Some operators absorb it into their own price instead — but then you're paying ~6% of every booking out of your margin.
Is about 6% really that much?
On an $850 trip it's roughly $50 added to the customer's bill. Multiply by a season of bookings — and count the ones that don't convert because of the higher checkout total — and it's real money.
What does Timber & Tackle charge instead?
One flat monthly fee and nothing else — no percentage on you, no surcharge on your customer. See the pricing page for current rates.
No surcharge. Your price is your price.
We build your whole site free and send you a link. Look it over. If the math doesn't move you, you've lost nothing.
Get your site built — freeFree until you accept your first booking, then $29/mo · keep every listing you have · built before you decide
We will never take a cut of a client you brought us.