Booking system pricing explained

When studio owners compare booking systems, the first question is almost always "how much per month?"

It's a fair question, but it comes too early — because the monthly fee is often not the largest cheque you end up writing.

We've seen plenty of venues sign up thinking "the monthly fee is only a thousand dollars, that's cheap," then add up the year and find the real figure was three to five times higher. The money didn't disappear. It was sitting in columns that never made it onto the comparison sheet.

This article breaks down how booking systems in Taiwan actually charge, explains who collects each fee and how it's calculated, and includes two worked examples. By the end you should be able to work out the annual total for any system yourself, rather than comparing monthly headline prices.

 

🌟 1. Start here: compare total annual cost, not monthly fees

Software buying has a built-in bias. The monthly fee is listed openly, so it's easy to compare. Everything else is variable, so it gets ignored at the moment of decision.

The variable costs are usually the bigger ones.

The full cost of a booking system breaks into six parts:

1. Subscription fee
2. Transaction commission
3. Payment processing fees
4. Notification costs
5. Onboarding, setup, and customisation
6. Switching costs (which only surface when you try to leave)

The second one varies most between vendors, and is the most commonly underestimated. Let's take them one at a time. 

 

🌟 2. Cost one: the subscription fee

This is the only charge every vendor states clearly. In Taiwan, booking systems aimed at service venues typically run from a few hundred to a few thousand NTD per month. Tiers are usually set by:

• Number of locations — most systems charge per branch
• Number of staff or instructor accounts — extra seats cost more above a threshold
• Monthly booking volume — overage charges, or a forced upgrade
• Feature gates — reporting, membership management, LINE integration, and branded apps are commonly reserved for higher tiers

A trap worth knowing about: some vendors advertise the annual-plan monthly equivalent. Paying monthly can cost 15–20% more. When a price looks unusually low, check whether it's monthly or annual billing, and whether there's a lock-in period.

Ask the vendor: Is this the monthly or annual rate? How long is the contract? What happens if I cancel early? What does it cost if I exceed the booking limit?

 

🌟 3. Cost two: transaction commission (where vendors differ most)

Some booking systems take a percentage of every online transaction on top of the subscription — commonly 1% to 5%.

This matters because it scales with your success. The monthly fee is fixed. Commission is not.

Here's the arithmetic:

Monthly revenue	3% commission	Annual commission
NT$150,000	NT$4,500/month	NT$54,000
NT$300,000	NT$9,000/month	NT$108,000
NT$600,000	NT$18,000/month	NT$216,000

For a venue turning over NT$300,000 a month, a 3% commission costs more than NT$100,000 a year — typically far more than the subscription itself.

There's a detail that's easy to miss: commission is usually taken on gross revenue, not profit. If your margin is 40%, a 3% revenue commission is actually eating 7.5% of your margin.

Ask the vendor: Is there a transaction commission? Is it calculated on gross revenue or net receipts? Does it apply to class package pre-sales, retail products, and add-ons? How much notice do you give before changing the rate?

 

🌟 4. Cost three: payment processing (unavoidable, but check who collects it)

An important distinction, because these two are often conflated:

• Vendor commission — what the booking system takes from your transactions
• Payment processing fees — what the payment provider (ECPay, NewebPay, etc.) or the acquiring bank charges

The second one exists regardless of which system you use, or even if you build your own. Online credit card rates in Taiwan typically fall around 2%–3%; ATM virtual accounts and convenience-store codes are usually a flat fee per transaction. Your actual rate depends on your industry classification, monthly volume, and contract terms — ask the payment provider directly.

So when a vendor says "we charge no fees," ask the follow-up: do you mean no commission, or that you absorb the payment processing fees too? Those are different claims, and the second one is not commercially sustainable long-term.

An honest vendor should tell you: we don't take a commission, but the payment provider charges its own rate, that money goes straight to them, we never touch it, and you're free to negotiate directly with them.

Ask the vendor: Am I locked into one payment provider or can I choose? If locked in, what's the rate and can I negotiate it? Does the vendor receive any revenue share from the payment provider?

 

🌟 5. Cost four: notifications (channel choice changes the cost a lot)

Booking reminders are the single most effective tool for reducing no-shows, but sending them costs money — and how much depends entirely on the channel. Systems on the market use three approaches.

👉🏻 Channel one: SMS

Commercial SMS in Taiwan runs around NT$1 per message, varying by provider and volume. Small on its own, but it multiplies.

A venue with 400 bookings a month sending two messages each (confirmation plus a day-before reminder) sends 800 messages monthly. At NT$1 each, that's roughly NT$9,600 a year — potentially more than a full year of subscription fees on some systems.

Some vendors include a free allowance and charge for overage; others sell message credits outright. This is the cost that typically surprises people in year two.

👉🏻 Channel two: app push notifications

If the system has its own mobile app, notifications can go out as push messages. Push runs over Apple's and Google's infrastructure, so the marginal cost to the vendor is close to zero — which means it's usually free.

One caveat has to be stated plainly: customers only receive push notifications if they install the app. For someone who visits two or three times a year, installing an app just to receive reminders isn't a realistic ask. Push works well for high-frequency members; it can't be your only channel.

👉🏻 Channel three: LINE Official Account

In Taiwan, this is the highest-reach option — LINE is effectively standard infrastructure for local consumers, and open rates far exceed both SMS and email.

But understand one thing: LINE notifications consume your own LINE Official Account message allowance, not the booking system's.

There's a billing rule that catches almost everyone out: messages are counted per recipient. If you have 300 followers and send one broadcast, that consumes 300 messages, not one.

LINE OA has three usage tiers. Approximate monthly fees and included message allowances (VERIFY BEFORE PUBLISHING — figures should be checked against LINE's official announcement, as third-party summaries differ):

Plan	Monthly fee	Included messages
Light	NT$0	approx. 200/month
Standard	approx. NT$800	approx. 3,000/month
Premium	approx. NT$1,200	approx. 6,000/month

The practical method is simple: estimate your monthly message volume (bookings × notifications per booking), then match it to a tier. A venue with 400 monthly bookings sending two notifications each lands around 800 messages — the Standard tier.

Note also that LINE's 2026 pricing changes brought some one-to-one chat messages into scope for billing. If you handle high volumes of customer enquiries, factor that in too.

 

How to choose❓

There's no single right answer, but there is a practical combination: push notifications for regulars, LINE for everyone else. The first costs nothing, the second has the reach. Together they keep notification costs down without sacrificing delivery.

Ask the vendor: Which notification channels do you support? Is SMS included or billed separately, and at what rate? Do push notifications cost extra? Is there a service charge for LINE integration itself (separate from LINE's own message fees)?

 

🌟 6. Cost five: onboarding, setup, and customisation

These are one-off charges, but they can be substantial:

• Setup or activation fee — some vendors charge thousands to tens of thousands NTD upfront
• Data migration — moving existing member lists, package balances, and transaction history
• Training — onsite or remote, sometimes billed per session
• Custom development — quoted separately
• Branded app publishing — usually a separate tier if you need a standalone app

Ask the vendor: Is there an activation fee? Who handles data migration, and is it charged? How many training sessions are included?

 

🌟 7. Cost six: switching costs (the one that matters most and gets considered least)

This never appears on a quote, but it determines your future negotiating position.

If you want to move systems in three years, here's what you'll face:

• Can you take your data with you? Are member lists, transaction history, and package balances exportable? In a standard CSV, or a proprietary format?
• Will customers have to re-register? If your booking page sits on the vendor's subdomain (yourstudio.somevendor.com), switching means changing the URL — and every accumulated search ranking and customer bookmark goes with it. A custom domain avoids this entirely.
• What happens to unused packages? A customer has 20 classes left on their pass. How do you handle that while running two systems in parallel?

Lock-in doesn't appear on your monthly invoice. It comes due in full on the day you try to leave.

Ask the vendor: What formats can I export to? Can I use my own domain? How long is my data retained after the contract ends?

 

🌟 8. Two worked examples

Below are two illustrative fee structures. Plan A represents "low monthly fee, with commission." Plan B represents "fixed monthly fee, no commission." Figures are for illustration — use actual quotes for your own comparison.

👉🏻 Scenario one: solo studio, NT$150,000 monthly revenue

Assuming an average transaction of NT$2,000, roughly 75 bookings per month, two notifications each (about 150 messages/month).

Item	Plan A (NT$800/mo + 3% commission + SMS)	Plan B (NT$999/mo, no commission, free push)
Annual subscription	9,600	11,988
Annual commission	54,000	0
Payment processing (approx. 2.8%)	50,400	50,400
Notifications	SMS 1,800	0 (push free / within LINE Light tier)
Annual total	115,800	62,388

Plan A looks NT$199 cheaper per month. Over a year, Plan B saves more than NT$50,000.

 

👉🏻 Scenario two: mid-sized venue, NT$600,000 monthly revenue

Assuming an average transaction of NT$1,500, roughly 400 bookings per month, two notifications each (about 800 messages/month — LINE Standard tier).

Item	Plan A (NT$2,500/mo + 3% commission + SMS)	Plan B (NT$4,999/mo, no commission)
Annual subscription	30,000	59,988
Annual commission	216,000	0
Payment processing (approx. 2.8%)	201,600	201,600
Notifications	SMS 9,600	LINE Standard 9,600
Annual total	457,200	271,188

The bigger you get, the wider the gap. That's the nature of commission-based pricing: your system cost scales with your growth, even though the vendor isn't doing proportionally more work.

The reverse is also true. If your revenue is low — say NT$20,000–30,000 a month while you're getting started — commission pricing may well work out cheaper, because the absolute amount is small. Neither model is universally better. What matters is which one costs less at your revenue level.

One variable the tables above exclude: one-off fees only hit in year one, but they raise the year-one barrier. If a vendor charges an activation or training fee, add it to your first-year total before comparing. For a new business watching cash flow, that lump sum often hurts more than the monthly difference.

 

🌟 9. Seven questions to ask before signing

Put this list to every vendor you're considering and line up the answers. That gives you a genuinely comparable table:

1. Is this price monthly or annual billing? How long is the contract, and what does early cancellation cost?
2. Is there a transaction commission? If so, is it on gross revenue or net receipts?
3. Is the payment provider fixed or can I choose? What's the rate, and does the vendor take a share?
4. Which notification channels are supported? How is SMS billed? Do push notifications or LINE integration cost extra?
5. Are there one-off activation, data migration, or training fees?
6. What happens when I exceed the limits on bookings, staff accounts, or locations?
7. If I switch systems later, can I export everything? Can I use my own domain?

A vendor willing to answer all seven clearly is usually one whose pricing holds up to scrutiny.

 

🌟 10. How Omcean Booking charges

Here's our own structure, so you can drop it into the same comparison table:

• Subscription: from NT$999/month on the entry plan, up to NT$4,999/month for the full-featured enterprise plan
• Transaction commission: 0%. Your revenue is entirely yours; we take no percentage of any transaction
• Payment processing: charged by the payment provider you choose, paid directly to them. We don't handle it and we take no revenue share
• Notifications: we don't offer SMS, so there is no SMS cost. Notifications go through two channels — Omcean Booking app push (free) and integration with your own LINE Official Account. LINE messages consume your own LINE OA allowance, paid to LINE, not to us
• Onboarding and setup: no setup fee. After signing, we include one free online training session and hands-on help integrating your LINE Official Account. (The integration service is free; as above, messages sent through LINE still draw on your own LINE OA allowance)

We chose not to take commission for a straightforward reason: if your business grows, our revenue should come from you choosing to renew — not from how much more you sold. Those two models lead to very different product decisions.

To work through your own numbers, start a 7-day free trial or talk to our team — we're happy to help you calculate the annual total on your current system for comparison.

 

📝 Frequently asked questions

How much does a booking system cost per month? In Taiwan, booking systems for service venues typically range from a few hundred to a few thousand NTD monthly, depending on locations, staff accounts, booking volume, and feature tier. The subscription is rarely the largest expense — calculate the annual total including commission, payment processing, and notification costs.

How is booking system commission calculated? Systems that charge commission typically take 1%–5% of each online transaction. Confirm whether it's calculated on gross revenue or net receipts, and whether package pre-sales and retail products are included.

Are payment processing fees the same as vendor commission? No. Payment processing fees are charged by the payment provider or acquiring bank and apply regardless of which system you use. Vendor commission is an additional charge from the booking system company. Some vendors present them together — separate them when comparing.

Do I pay extra for booking reminder messages? It depends on the system. Some rely on SMS, billed separately or with a limited free allowance. Others skip SMS entirely in favour of app push notifications (usually free) and LINE Official Account integration. With LINE, the message allowance comes from your own LINE OA plan — that fee goes to LINE, not the booking system vendor.

Are free booking systems worth using? For a short trial period, possibly. But first work out how the free model is funded — restricted features, data monetisation, or payment revenue share. We've covered the risks in more detail in a separate article.