How Much Does an Online Booking System Cost?

The question sounds simple, but the honest answer is "it depends on how the tool charges you" — and that's exactly where most comparisons get messy, because every system has a different pricing logic behind it.

It's worth understanding the two formats that exist in the market before choosing, because they're not just different numbers — they change what happens in a busy month versus a quiet one, whatever your business is.

Fixed monthly fee: you pay the same, busy or not

Most booking systems charge a fixed monthly fee. You get twenty bookings that month or two hundred, the invoice is the same. And then there are the add-ons — SMS reminders are usually an extra, reviews are another, your own website is yet another. You start on a "cheap" plan and three months later you're already paying for four different things.

This isn't necessarily bad — if your business is always busy, a fixed fee might actually work out cheaper by the end of the month. The problem is the quiet month everyone knows about: right after the holidays, or deep in August. In those months, the fee still comes out of your account regardless, whether you had bookings or not.

Paying per completed booking: the other side

Marca lá works differently: there's no monthly fee at all. You pay a fixed amount for each booking that actually happens — currently €0.05 on the Starter plan and €0.10 on the Business plan (the up-to-date figures are always at marcala.pt/#precos, since they can be adjusted over time).

Here's the part that tends to surprise people: cancellations aren't charged. You only pay when the client actually shows up and the service is completed. A booking that falls through costs you nothing — not your time, and not extra money either.

There's also a Free plan, free forever, for anyone who just wants an online page with their services and hours listed, without online bookings — useful if you're still deciding whether to make the jump to bookings over the internet.

A practical example (illustrative)

Imagine a business with 200 completed bookings in a normal month, on the Starter plan. At current rates, that's 200 × €0.05 = €10 that month. In a weaker month, with 80 bookings, it'd be €4. There's no €40 or €60 monthly fee running in the background regardless of how busy things are.

This is just an example to illustrate the logic — the exact number always depends on your real volume and the rates in effect at the time, which you can check at marcala.pt/#precos.

What's already included, at no extra cost

This is where the "per module" approach tends to weigh most on other systems' final bill. With Marca lá, everything's already included in the same per-booking price, with no add-ons on the side:

• A public booking page, with visual templates tailored to your type of business
• Client records and history (from the Starter plan)
• Automatic reminders by email (all paid plans) and SMS (Business)
• Client reviews — and this one's worth pausing on: a review is only requested after the service is completed, automatically by email. There's no QR code at a counter that anyone can scan and leave a review without ever having been a client. Only people who actually went through the service can review — meaning real reviews, not inflated ones.

There's no "upgrade to unlock the website" or "pay more to get reviews" — it's all included at the same per-booking price, from day one.

At the end of the day

If your business has consistently high volume, it's worth running the numbers with your real monthly booking count — a fixed monthly fee might actually work out cheaper for your specific case. But if you have weaker months, or you're just starting out and don't yet know what volume to expect, paying per completed booking means you never pay for a client who didn't show up.