Hipcamp: fees, rules and your own website

Campgrounds and RV parks, glamping resorts and cabins, farms, ranches, vineyards and private land, from a single acre to thousands.

• Free to list, with no contract or monthly fees.
• Commission only on bookings: 15% for private landowners and 12.5% for parks connected through a booking system. It’s taken out of each booking and shown on your payout statement.
• Hipcamp says the commission covers payment processing through Stripe, marketing, insurance and support.

• Hosts can’t suggest that a camper who booked or messaged through Hipcamp book with them somewhere else.
• Listings can’t include text that sends campers to book outside Hipcamp.
• Hosts can’t cancel a booking so the camper can book elsewhere, and conversations should stay in Hipcamp Messages. Hipcamp suspends accounts that keep breaking these rules after one warning.

Hipcamp names ResNexus, Newbook, RMS, Staylist, rezStream, RoverPass and Firefly among the booking systems it connects with. Without one, you can sync calendars with Airbnb, Vrbo, Google Calendar or any iCal calendar.

Most booking software also works as a channel manager, so your rates and open dates stay in sync here, on your own website and on every other site you connect. How that works, with Comal Inn's setup.

Booking software covered on Firsthand Stays that lists Hipcamp:

• Cloudbeds
• Firefly
• Newbook
• ResNexus
• rezStream
• RMS
• RoverPass

If you run a campground, RV park or glamping site, Hipcamp is usually worth being on. Hipcamp says 98% of its bookings come from first-time guests and 57% are midweek or off-peak, which is exactly where a park has room to fill. Let it bring you new campers, and give them a website and a name to come back to next time.

• The rise of glamping: off the grid, without actually being off it
• The rise of the resort campground, and what it means for independent parks