Compare direct booking sites
SiteMinder alternative: Book With Haven vs SiteMinder Plus
SiteMinder is the largest hotel distribution platform, with a self-serve website builder and commission-free booking engine on its Plus plan. Haven is a direct booking platform built for short-term rental hosts, inns and small lodges: free to build, 0% commission, with a free listing in AI guest search. This page compares the website, booking engine, and guest layer only.
Competitor facts checked
5.0on Capterra · 6 reviews, September 2026Book With Haven and SiteMinder both put a commission-free booking engine on a property’s own website and both reach travelers through AI assistants. They are built for different owners at very different scales, and this page says so.
SiteMinder, founded in Sydney in 2006 and listed on the ASX since 2021, is a hotel distribution platform: a channel manager with 500+ booking channels, a channel marketplace, performance insights, hotel payments, and a PMS connection, used by more than 56,000 hotels in 150+ countries, with FY26 revenue of A$266.1 million. It is not a PMS. Based on publicly available information as of October 2026, its pricing page shows a “From $___ AUD/month” figure that rendered blank when checked, with the starting price described as for a five-room property billed monthly per property on 30 days’ notice; third-party sites report roughly $75 to $179 a month, which is unconfirmed. The booking engine, metasearch, and the hotel website builder are on SiteMinder Plus; Groups & Chains is a custom quote on one-to-three-year terms. The website builder is self-serve — “without designers or developers” — with templates, support for 20+ languages, built-in SEO tools, and free hosting. Direct bookings through the booking engine are commission-free; Demand Plus, Channels Plus, and metasearch charge a commission or transaction fee on completed stays, with rates unpublished. In April 2026 SiteMinder extended Demand Plus into ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini through the Model Context Protocol, with DirectBooker as its inaugural partner, so an AI-assistant conversation can end in a booking on the hotel’s own booking page.
Book With Haven is the direct booking platform itself, built for short-term rental hosts, inns and small lodges. Every place you connect from Airbnb, your PMS, or an iCal feed gets its own free Haven site and a place in Haven’s plain-language AI guest search, the Haven app, and the open catalog that ChatGPT, Claude, and other assistants read through Haven’s own search API and MCP server — with no listing fee and no commission. Behind that site is the rest of the platform: Stripe checkout, a guest CRM with smart remarketing, digital guidebooks that capture guest emails, free screening with up to $50,000 damage protection on eligible bookings via Truvi, native upsells, turnover tasks and payouts, taxes, an SEO and AI-search scorecard, Blog Autopilot, AI reels, loyalty points, and a Haven Assistant that changes your site from a sentence.
Haven is not a channel manager, and SiteMinder’s distribution network — 500+ channels, 56,000 hotels, 140 million reservations a year, and AI-assistant distribution ahead of its peers — is conceded in its own rows. The comparison is the piece the two share: the direct booking website, the booking engine, and what happens to the guest after they book.
Book With Haven vs SiteMinder, at a glance
Short-term rental hosts, inns and small lodges: single homes, multi-unit groups, and brand sites with room types and property profile pages.
Hotels — independents and groups — with the starting price described as for a five-room property; short-term rentals are not a stated target, as of October 2026.
Connect Airbnb, your PMS, or an iCal feed and every place gets a free Haven site in Haven’s AI guest search, the Haven app, and the catalog AI assistants read. No listing fee, no commission, no guest fee — guests send booking requests, Haven emails you each one, and you pay only to accept.
Google free booking links and metasearch on Plus, plus Demand Plus and Channels Plus, which charge a commission or transaction fee on the completed stays they bring in (rates unpublished); no traveler-facing search of its own documented.
Your listings appear in Haven’s plain-language AI stay search and in its open search API and MCP server for ChatGPT, Claude, and other assistants — each result links travelers to book direct with you, with no commission or guest fee.
A genuine strength: Demand Plus extended into ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini through the Model Context Protocol in April 2026, with the booking completing on the hotel’s own booking page and DirectBooker as inaugural partner, plus Channels Plus MCP for AI travel agents on a pay-per-booking basis. Commission applies on completed stays, with the rate unpublished.
A standalone booking site — no PMS subscription required — that connects to the PMS you already run.
The website builder and booking engine are features of the SiteMinder Plus plan, which includes the channel manager.
A no-code branded site per listing or multi-unit group, custom domain, and built-in Stripe checkout with instant book or request-to-book — the free Haven site becomes your direct booking site the moment you subscribe.
A template website with free hosting and a commission-free booking engine with a three-step mobile checkout on a PCI DSS gateway; Hotel Tech Report rates the booking engine 4.6 from 1,424 reviews. A custom domain is not mentioned on the website-builder page.
Self-serve: the free Haven site is built from your Airbnb, PMS, or iCal import; edit it yourself or ask the Haven Assistant, and publish when you are ready — no designer queue.
Self-serve: “build a professional, bookable website without designers or developers” from customisable templates, as of October 2026. A genuine strength over vendor-built alternatives.
Keep your current site and embed Haven’s booking widget (a script and one div, works in WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or React), blog widget, or multi-unit search widget; guidebooks, CRM, screening, upsells, and taxes all work alongside it.
The booking engine is sold on its own as well as with the website builder and is placed on the hotel’s existing site, with Instagram and Facebook booking links.
No per-booking commission and no guest service fee on any plan (standard Stripe fees apply).
“Commission-free bookings” through the booking engine — a genuine strength. Demand Plus, Dynamic Revenue Plus, Channels Plus, and metasearch charge a commission or transaction fee on completed stays, with rates not stated.
Built-in Stripe checkout; standard Stripe fees apply and Haven adds no per-booking commission or guest service fee.
SiteMinder Pay charges a per-transaction fee that varies by country and card type, with the rate not published as of October 2026; Hotel Tech Report lists it as a premium add-on (unconfirmed).
Search answers come from the calendar and rates you sync, checked against your own rules, and the total on the card is the total at checkout. Prices are never shown without dates.
The booking engine prices from the rates and availability the channel manager holds, with multi-room bookings, extras, and promotional rates. Deposits and instant book versus request-to-book are not documented on the page.
Native two-way connectors for Hospitable, Guesty, Lodgify, Hostfully, OwnerRez, and Track. Any other PMS — Hostaway, Hostex, Uplisting, Smoobu, Beds24, Avantio, Octorate, AvaiBook, Hosthub, Zeevou, Hostify, Smily (BookingSync), Elina, Resly, Homhero, Streamline, Escapia, CiiRUS, and essentially every Airbnb-connected system — syncs listing content, photos, prices, availability, and reservations through Haven’s direct Airbnb integration: the same data the PMS already publishes there. The only via-Airbnb difference: Haven bookings and manual blocks close dates via the Haven iCal feed added in the PMS, not a reservation-write API.
A “PMS connection” and 500+ integrations, with rate sync to select PMS partners one-way; SiteMinder is the channel manager, not the PMS.
Haven is a direct-booking layer, not a 30+ OTA channel manager. Native two-way connectors for Hospitable, Guesty, Lodgify, Hostfully, OwnerRez, and Track. Any other PMS syncs listing content, photos, prices, availability, and reservations through Airbnb — the same data the PMS already publishes there. Haven bookings write back through native APIs, or via the Haven iCal feed added in the PMS for via-Airbnb connections.
A core strength: 500+ booking channels, Booking.com Enhanced Sync, 99.95% uptime, “#1 Channel Manager 7 Years Running”, and a Hotel Tech Report score of 100 for its channel manager.
Beautiful, design-forward branded pages built to convert — no theme picker. It just works.
“Beautifully designed, customisable templates” (count not stated) with mobile-optimised themes; SiteMinder claims up to 20% more conversion when site and booking engine are combined.
Digital guidebooks and a mobile stay guide capture the booker’s and co-guests’ emails into a built-in guest CRM with smart remarketing — local-event, gap-night, price-drop, and listing-updated campaigns.
The Guest Engagement add-on (price on request) schedules confirmation, pre-arrival, in-stay, and post-stay messages, a QR digital guest directory, and post-checkout campaigns in over 20 languages; a guest CRM with gap-night or price-drop remarketing is not documented.
Free guest screenings on every plan, plus optional Screen & Protect damage protection of up to $50,000 on eligible bookings via Truvi ($8 per booked night, paid by the guest at checkout or by the host).
Not documented as of October 2026.
Guest identity verification, a rental agreement with digital signatures, and security deposit holds or charges, all run from the booking.
Online check-in with ID upload and signature in Guest Engagement; deposits and rental agreements are not documented on the pages checked.
Lodging taxes itemized on every booking and aggregated for filing, taxes shown before checkout, and a guest display currency picker.
20+ currencies in the booking engine — a genuine strength; tax handling is not documented on the page and would live in the connected PMS.
Create and sell your own experiences and add-ons with 0% Haven commission — quantities with real inventory, time slots and event seats, party-size pricing, deposits, and quote requests — sold pre-booking, at checkout, and in the guest guide. AI-assisted setup and import from any website included.
Extras and add-ons at booking and upsell offers in Guest Engagement. Finite inventory, event seats, party-size pricing, and quote requests are not documented.
Turnover cleans and upsell jobs become tasks automatically, offered to your own cleaners and chefs by SMS, WhatsApp, or email — Y/N/DONE replies, a no-login job page, photo proof, backup escalation, and Stripe payouts.
No housekeeping or task tooling — SiteMinder is not a PMS.
Per-stay door codes and climate automation from the booking, with the code delivered through the guest guide.
Not documented; lock integrations would live in the connected PMS.
One grounded assistant on every property site, multi-unit site, guidebook, and custom domain (private stay details only after booking). Every reply graded, gaps grouped into insights with cited chats, one-click Add context fixes it across all sites; hosts train it by chatting with their own sites.
A unified inbox across email, SMS, WhatsApp, Booking.com, and Airbnb in Guest Engagement; AI is not mentioned on that page, and no guest chatbot is documented.
Opt-in loyalty points on every direct booking, spendable at any of your listings and applied automatically at checkout; four automatic rewards emails (points ready, reminder, expiring soon, last call) with the bookings they bring back; optional inactivity expiry with guest protections; and one program across teammates’ or agency clients’ listings, funded so their payouts stay whole. Included on every plan.
Not documented.
A 100-point SEO and AI-search score for every site with a checklist sorted by points gained, live Google Search Console and Bing data, weekly checks that the crawlers behind Google, Bing and Copilot, ChatGPT search, Claude, and Perplexity can read the page, a site llms.txt, IndexNow, image and Vacation Rentals sitemaps, Foursquare listings, and visits from AI assistants tracked as their own channel.
Built-in SEO tools in the website builder and published guidance on Google AI Mode; a scorecard, Search Console data, or AI-crawler checks are not documented.
A blog on every site, plus Blog Autopilot: on a weekly to monthly schedule Haven runs a real research pass — the queries people search about your area, the pages that rank and what they miss — reads the organiser, park, venue, and tourism-board pages it will cite, writes only from those verified facts and your listing, has an editor check every claim, and drafts the post for your review or publishes it with a Sources list, sitemap entry, and IndexNow ping. Keeping your own website? Embed the same blog with a two-line widget.
A blog and AI content are not mentioned on the website-builder page as of October 2026.
AI social reels built from your own listing photos, clips and guest reviews, with a storyboard you approve before anything is spent; narrated property stories read by natural ElevenLabs voices; and custom one-minute instrumental soundtracks composed from the property’s photos, likely guests, location and brand. Download-ready MP4s for Instagram, Facebook and Meta ads.
No built-in tool for turning listing photos into social reels with voiceover or generated music is documented.
One Click Ads: Haven writes short-term-rental-tuned Google Search and ChatGPT ads, you set the daily budget, and Haven runs them for you (Meta rolling out) — no agency retainer.
Demand Plus runs metasearch and AI-assistant demand for you and charges only on completed stays (rate unpublished); Hotel Tech Report rates it 4.7 from 178 reviews.
A visits-to-booking conversion funnel with traffic-source attribution, plus first-party session replay with rage/dead-click detection.
Performance insights, competitor insights, and rate-parity reporting; a website booking funnel and session replay are not documented.
Import reviews from OwnerRez, Airbnb, Vrbo, or a file, collect testimonials, and link a Google Business Profile so guests are asked for reviews that show on your site.
Tripadvisor and Google review prompts in Guest Engagement; displaying reviews on the website is not documented.
Haven Communities: shared regional pages that list member stays and exchange reciprocal backlinks with your site.
Not documented.
Discount codes, weekly and monthly, early-bird, last-minute and direct-booking discounts with a “Saving $X booking direct” pill; branded e-gift cards sold in the guidebook and redeemed at checkout; stay credits instead of refunds.
Early-bird, last-minute, and extended-stay discounts, promo codes, and group-wide promotional rates in the booking engine; gift cards and stay credits are not documented.
Revenue, occupancy, ADR and RevPAR against last year, booking pace, pricing health, gap and orphan nights, booking sources, a report builder with CSV exports, and a weekly digest.
Performance insights across channels, competitor insights, and rate parity on Plus — distribution-grade reporting.
Localized pages in up to 5 languages with per-language URLs and hreflang for structured indexing.
Support for 20+ languages in the website builder and 20+ languages and currencies in the booking engine — a genuine strength.
Multi-unit and brand sites with room types and property profile pages, custom domains, and professional email on your domain.
Room-type hotel sites with free hosting; a custom domain and professional email are not mentioned on the website-builder page.
Partner mode: manage clients’ listings and sites from one console, with client billing and a shared or separate PMS connection.
A Groups & Chains plan on a custom quote with one-to-three-year terms; a client console with client billing for managers is not documented.
PriceLabs dynamic pricing integration plus a Calendar AI assistant that changes rates, minimum stays, and blocks from a plain-language request.
Dynamic Revenue Plus pricing recommendations, charged as a transaction fee on completed stays, with “dynamic pricing activation above 80%” reported for FY26; a plain-language calendar assistant is not documented.
The Haven Assistant, pinned to every page of your dashboard, changes your sites and settings from a plain-language request — pages, copy, design, photos, domains, listings, rates and calendar, upsells, guest CRM and remarketing, and email settings — and you approve each change before it ships; for anything it does not change directly, it walks you there step by step. Or connect ChatGPT or Claude through Haven’s MCP server and work from there.
SiteMinder’s MCP work points outward, letting AI assistants book; changing the hotel’s own site or settings from a plain-language request is not documented.
Haven’s phone web app — bookwithhaven.com on a phone, added to the home screen, with nothing to install from an app store — runs the same plain-language stay search on the same API as bookwithhaven.com/stays.
Not documented; sites and checkout are mobile-optimised.
Starter includes 1 property, Growth 10, and Pro 50. Each additional property is $3.99/month.
Billed monthly per property, with the “From $___ AUD/month” figure blank on its pricing page when checked and the starting price described as for a five-room property, as of October 2026; third-party sites report roughly $75 to $179 a month (reported, unconfirmed).
New capabilities ship continuously and are documented in Haven’s help center and What’s New.
A public company reporting FY26 revenue of A$266.1 million, up 18.6%, with AI-assistant distribution over MCP shipped in April 2026 and “SiteMinder Powered” with Mews as first partner. Trustpilot 4.0 from 459 reviews, where public reviews describe support-wait and billing complaints alongside a 75% five-star majority; Hotel Tech Report 4.6 for the booking engine, as of October 2026.
Free to build for as long as you like; pay only when you publish.
Its pricing page’s metadata says “free for 14 days” and its trial page says “cancel anytime” without a length; a third-party tracker reports the trial calls to action being replaced by “Talk to us” in October 2026 (unconfirmed). Month-to-month with 30 days’ notice after that.
Choose Haven if…
- You run a short-term rental, an inn, or a small lodge rather than a hotel, and want a platform sized and priced for that.
- You want a published price before you talk to anyone, and a site that is free to build until you publish.
- You want to be found by ChatGPT, Claude, and other assistants through an open search API and MCP server with no commission on what they bring in — alongside Haven’s own AI guest search and app.
- You want screening with up to $50,000 damage protection, rental agreements and deposits, loyalty points, reviews on your site, and a guest CRM with smart remarketing included on every plan.
- You want to sell your own experiences and add-ons with real inventory, event seats, and party-size pricing, and have the clean or the chef dinner dispatched and paid automatically.
- You want SEO and AI-search tooling, Blog Autopilot, AI reels, One Click Ads on Google and ChatGPT, and site analytics with session replay working on your own site.
- You want a guest AI you can see into and a Haven Assistant that changes your site from a sentence.
Consider SiteMinder if…
- You run a hotel and need the largest distribution network in the industry — 500+ channels, Booking.com Enhanced Sync, and a channel manager rated first for seven years running.
- You want a self-serve website builder and booking engine in 20+ languages and currencies with free hosting, and are comfortable with a per-property price quoted for your room count.
- You want demand from metasearch and from ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini run for you by Demand Plus, paying only on completed stays.
- You value a public company’s transparency, a month-to-month contract, and high Hotel Tech Report scores.
Haven vs SiteMinder
Frequently asked questions
Build your direct booking site free
Configure your Haven site as long as you like — you only pay when you’re ready to publish and take bookings. No per-booking commissions.
Comparison based on publicly available information about SiteMinder as of October 2026. Product features and pricing change frequently — check SiteMinder’s public website for their latest details. SiteMinder is a trademark of its respective owner; this page is not affiliated with or endorsed by SiteMinder.