Every agency that asks us about going online starts with the same question: what will this really cost? The licence fee is the easy part. The line items that surprise people are supplier deposits, payment processing, and the developer time that a bespoke build quietly consumes for years after launch.
A typical retail agency budget breaks into four buckets: platform subscription, supplier connectivity, payment processing, and marketing. Platform subscription is predictable. Supplier connectivity depends on whether you are using aggregated content or contracting directly — direct contracts pay better margins but require deposits and volume commitments.
Payment processing is where margin quietly disappears. Card fees of 2.9% plus cross-border and currency conversion charges can exceed your net margin on a low-cost flight. Agencies that price in the customer's own currency and route settlements locally consistently keep more.
The cost that never appears in a proposal is maintenance. A bespoke portal needs supplier certification renewals, security patching and browser compatibility work every year. A platform absorbs that; a custom build bills for it.
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