What Does a Hotel PMS Actually Cost in the UK? (2026 Guide)

Most UK hotel property management systems are priced per room, per month, and for an independent property you should expect the software itself to land somewhere between roughly £1 and £6 per room per month — before extras. The number that matters, though, isn't the headline rate. It's the total: subscription, setup, channel connections, payment fees, support tiers and the length of contract you're tied into. Two systems quoting a similar monthly figure can differ by thousands over a year once those are added in. 

This guide explains how PMS pricing is actually structured, which costs tend to appear late in the sales process, and how to calculate your real annual figure before you commit. 

Why pricing is so hard to find 

If you've spent an afternoon clicking through hotel software websites, you'll have noticed how many of them stop at "Request a quote." There are reasons for that — properties genuinely vary, and enterprise vendors price by negotiation — but the practical effect for a 12-room guest house is that you can't compare anything without sitting through several sales calls first. 

It's the single most common complaint in independent-hotel software reviews. You're trying to make a considered decision about a system you'll use every day for years, and the most basic question has no published answer. 

Our own view is that if a price can't be published, it usually isn't a price — it's an opening position. 

The pricing models you'll encounter 

1. Per room, per month 

   1. The most common model. You pay a monthly rate multiplied by your room count, usually with volume breaks — the per-room rate drops as you get bigger. Predictable, and it scales with the size of the business, which most owners find fair. 

   2. Watch for: minimum room counts. A system priced at £4 per room with a 20-room minimum costs an 8-room B&B £80 a month, not £32. 

2. Flat monthly tiers 

   1. A fixed price per band — for example, one rate up to 10 rooms, another up to 50. Easier to budget for, and usually better value at the bottom of each band than the top. Stayvieo works this way, starting at £29 per month. 

   2. Watch for: where the band boundaries sit relative to your room count. Adding two rooms shouldn't triple your bill. 

3. Commission on bookings 

   1. Some systems — particularly booking-engine-led products — take a percentage of the reservations that flow through them, typically 1–3% of direct bookings. This looks cheap at low volume and gets expensive precisely when the business is going well. 

   2. Watch for: whether the commission applies to all bookings or only direct ones, and whether it stacks on top of a monthly fee. 

4. Per-transaction payment fees 

   1. Separate from the PMS subscription. If the system processes card payments, there'll be a per-transaction cost — usually a percentage plus a fixed pence amount, in line with standard UK card processing.

   2. This is normal and not something to avoid; just make sure you know the rate, and whether the vendor adds a margin on top of the underlying processor's fee.  

The costs that appear later 

These are the ones that turn a comfortable quote into an uncomfortable invoice. 

• Onboarding and setup fees - Some vendors charge a one-off implementation fee, which can run from a few hundred pounds to several thousand for systems that require a configuration project. Ask whether it's mandatory, and what happens if you want to change something six months later. 

• Data migration - Getting your existing bookings, guest records and rate plans out of your current system and into the new one. Sometimes free, sometimes billed by the hour, occasionally quoted as a project in its own right. 

• Per-channel connection fees - A monthly charge for each OTA you connect. If you're on five booking sites, that's five recurring line items. Some systems include connections in the base price; others don't, and the difference across a year is significant. 

• Training - Usually included for the basics. Additional sessions, or training for new staff a year in, may not be. 

• Support tiers - Email-only support in the base plan, with phone or priority response as a paid upgrade. Worth checking, because the moment you need support is usually the moment a guest is standing at your desk. 

• Modules - Reporting, housekeeping, a booking engine, guest messaging, an EPOS link — each sold separately in some systems. The advertised price is for a core product that may not include the thing you actually wanted. 

Contract length and the cost of leaving 

Annual contracts are standard and often come with a genuine discount. Multi-year contracts are where independents get caught. 

Before signing, get clear answers on three things: 

1. Notice period. Thirty days is reasonable. Ninety, on a rolling annual renewal, means a missed diary date costs you another year. 

2. Auto-renewal terms. Many contracts renew automatically unless cancelled inside a specific window. 

3. Your data on exit. Can you export your bookings, guest records and financial history in a usable format, at no charge, whenever you want? A vendor confident in its product will say yes without hesitating. 

The real cost of a lock-in isn't the fee. It's spending eighteen months on a system that doesn't fit because leaving is more painful than staying. 

How to work out your real annual cost 

Take every system you're considering and fill in the same table. It takes twenty minutes and it's the most useful thing you can do in the whole process. 

What we charge, and why we publish it 

Stayvieo starts at £49 per month for properties up to 10 rooms, with a Growth plan up to 50 rooms and a Portfolio plan for multiple properties. There's no commission on your bookings, no lock-in contract, and no charge for importing your existing bookings from a spreadsheet or another system. 

We publish it because we think you should be able to work out whether a system fits your budget without booking a call first. If it doesn't fit, a sales conversation isn't going to change that — it's just going to cost you an afternoon. 

See full pricing → 

Frequently asked questions