Questions from accommodation owners

DirectBalkan is a direct-booking network being built for accommodation owners in the Balkans and Southeast Europe. Each property gets a listing on a verified marketplace and, on a paid plan, its own booking website and one owner platform, with 0% DirectBalkan booking commission. Today, owners can register for Early Access; the marketplace, websites and booking are not live yet.

No. Guests will find your property on the DirectBalkan marketplace, but they book with you, and you keep the guest relationship. DirectBalkan takes no booking commission; its paid plans are a fixed monthly price.

Apartments, houses and villas, guesthouses and B&Bs, hotels, hostels, rural stays and eco villages, and camps or glamping sites. Owners with a single unit and owners of larger properties can both join; the plan depends on how many live properties and bookable units you have.

DirectBalkan targets ten countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. Owners in all ten can register for Early Access. Country-specific support, such as guest registration, tourist tax and invoicing, is being added country by country. The regional support table on Product status shows where each country stands.

Gradually, and we do not promise traffic. Your own website and domain work for guests who already know you. The marketplace opens destination by destination, only once enough verified properties exist there, so guests do not land on empty pages. Showing your direct booking link in Google, including Google's free booking links, is a target we are working towards, subject to Google's requirements. Product status shows where each part stands.

No. DirectBalkan takes 0% commission on bookings. Paid plans are a fixed monthly price. Payment providers may charge their own fees on card payments. Those fees are separate and are not DirectBalkan fees.

The launch plans are Direct at €29/month for one property with up to 3 bookable units, Multi at €59/month for up to 3 properties and 10 units, and Portfolio at €99/month for up to 10 properties and 30 units. Larger portfolios are quoted individually. A bookable unit is one apartment, room or villa that guests can book separately, and only live (Active) properties count. DirectBalkan charges 0% booking commission; payment-provider fees and applicable taxes are separate. Registering for Early Access is not a purchase and commits you to nothing. During Early Access, Founding Hosts are listed on the marketplace free of charge; these plans are for the full toolset, and Founding Hosts get 50% off their first three paid months.

A property is one place that guests book under its own listing, such as a guesthouse, a villa or an apartment building. A bookable unit is one apartment, room or villa within it that can be booked at the same time as the others; several identical rooms of one type each count as a unit. Only live (Active) properties count.

Guests book with you, and DirectBalkan does not take a share of the booking. How guests will pay online, and through which payment provider, is still being designed; no payments are processed today. Your DirectBalkan subscription is billed separately from guest payments. You will set your own cancellation policy, and each booking keeps the policy that applied when it was made.

A listing on its own gives you an advert. DirectBalkan’s paid plans are planned to give you your own booking website on your own domain and one owner platform for calendar, rates and bookings, with the guest relationship staying with you. You pay one fixed monthly price and DirectBalkan takes 0% booking commission. The marketplace listing and the paid toolset are separate: you choose whether you need the full toolset.

There is no long-term contract. You can cancel your subscription at any time. Cancellation stops the next renewal, while you retain access until the end of the billing period you have already paid for. At introduction, DirectBalkan offers month-to-month subscriptions only.

It is your property's own website, where guests check availability and book with you directly instead of through a booking platform that takes a commission. It is part of DirectBalkan's paid plans, on your own domain or a DirectBalkan address.

That is the plan: your own booking website is part of the paid plans. This is planned and not live yet; see Product status.

Yes, that is planned: you will be able to use your own domain or a DirectBalkan address, such as yourproperty.directbalkan.com. Whether any domain charges apply is not decided yet.

No. Your DirectBalkan property website is planned to be built for you, so you do not need a website or a developer today. If you already have one, telling us about it helps us understand your setup.

Yes. Every property that becomes Active is listed on the DirectBalkan marketplace automatically. A property becomes Active after it passes the publication checks. Registering for Early Access is not a listing.

Before a property is published, we check its identity and contact details, its address and property details, that required information is complete, that it has a minimum set of real photos, that units, rates and booking rules are set up, and that required policy content is in place. The same checks apply to every property. The exact thresholds are not final.

Yes. Nothing requires you to leave other platforms. No channel connections are live yet, so you would manage other channels as you do today. Bringing several channels into one calendar is on the roadmap.

Every booking that comes straight to you, through your own website or a returning guest, carries no platform commission and keeps the guest relationship with you. DirectBalkan is designed to add that direct channel next to the platforms you already use, not to replace them overnight. How far it reduces your dependence depends on your property and your guests; we do not promise a number.

That is the aim, in stages. Google connectivity is a target we are working towards. Other channels are further away. Nothing is connected today; see Product status for each capability.

Early Access is how accommodation owners register their interest while DirectBalkan is being built. It is free, needs no payment details, does not start a subscription and does not list your property. After you register, we review your registration and contact you about Early Access; if your property is a fit, we invite you to onboarding. We do not promise timings yet.

No. Joining Early Access is free. No subscription starts and no payment is taken when you register.

No. Registering tells us about your property; it does not reserve a place. DirectBalkan decides which registrations are invited into onboarding, and every property must still pass onboarding, verification and the publication checks before it is published. Joining does not guarantee acceptance, verification, publication or a date.

One of the early properties helping establish DirectBalkan. During Early Access, Founding Hosts get a free marketplace listing that DirectBalkan prepares for them, the Founding Host · Since 2026 recognition, and priority launch exposure for the first 6 months after the marketplace opens to guests. If they later activate a paid plan, their first three paid months are 50% off.

Yes. During Early Access, Founding Hosts have their DirectBalkan marketplace listing prepared and listed without a subscription charge. No card is required and no paid plan has to be started.

No. Send us your existing Booking.com, Airbnb or website link and confirm that we may use your existing photos and descriptions. DirectBalkan prepares the initial listing for you to review and approve.

Founding Host places are limited to the first 100 participating properties in each of the ten DirectBalkan markets: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

The Founding Host marketplace listing is free during Early Access, under the Founding Host Program terms. That is not a promise that every DirectBalkan service will always be free: your own booking website and the full toolset are paid plans, and marketplace terms after Early Access have not been set yet.

With your first paid subscription month, when you activate a paid plan for the full toolset. Not when you register and not when your free listing goes live: the free listing uses up none of the three discounted months.

No. DirectBalkan uses one subscription per Organization. The three-month Founding Host discount applies once to that Organization subscription.

The 50% discount continues on the current applicable plan for the remainder of the original three discounted paid months. The discount period does not restart.

The normal current subscription price applies according to the Organization’s Active-property and billable-unit count.

No. DirectBalkan decides which registrations are accepted as Founding Hosts. Once you are a Founding Host, the 50% discount applies automatically when you activate a paid plan, under the published terms. There is no second approval of the discount.

Founding Hosts get priority launch exposure for the first 6 months after the marketplace opens to guests, and may appear in launch collections, destination content and DirectBalkan social or editorial posts. That is not a set ranking position, and it does not guarantee impressions, bookings or revenue. If paid placement is ever introduced, it will be clearly labelled.

There is no launch date to announce. The marketplace will open destination by destination once there are enough verified properties. Product status shows what is built and what is planned.