ToursByLocals Alternatives: Marketplaces vs Your Own Bookings
For most independent guides the answer is not one or the other. It is which marketplaces to keep, and when to start taking bookings yourself.
ToursByLocals has built something genuinely useful for private guides: a vetted marketplace where travelers look for a person rather than a product, pay in advance, and arrive expecting a private day. Many guides earn a large share of their income there.
Guides look for alternatives for two reasons. They want to reach travelers who never visit ToursByLocals, and they want to keep more of the money from guests who already know them. This guide explains how ToursByLocals works, what the other marketplaces cost, and how to add a direct channel without breaking anyone's rules.
How ToursByLocals works
ToursByLocals is a marketplace, not a tour operator. When a traveler books, their contract is with you; ToursByLocals takes payment, handles customer service and processes cancellations. Guides apply and are vetted before they can list.
Pricing and commission. According to ToursByLocals' guide onboarding material, you price each tour per tour rather than per person, set a base price that covers your profit and costs, then add 25% on top as the ToursByLocals commission. That commission pays for marketing, card processing, commissions to travel agents who book through the site, and round-the-clock support.
The math: a 25% markup is not a 25% share. On a $200 base price the traveler pays $250 and ToursByLocals keeps $50 — 20% of what the traveler paid. Compare platforms on the share of the traveler's price, or the numbers will not line up. Confirm your rate in your own guide agreement.
Contact and exclusivity. ToursByLocals' terms say it may monitor and edit messages that contain contact details, and that it shares contact details only if a guide's account is canceled. We found nothing in its published terms requiring guides to list only with ToursByLocals, but check your agreement. Two further terms matter if you are thinking of leaving: an account inactive for 60 days can be closed, and if you end the agreement yourself, accepted bookings are canceled and refunded.
Marketplace pros and cons for guides
The same trade applies to every marketplace, not just ToursByLocals.
- Demand you could not reach alone. Travelers searching a marketplace would never find your website.
- Trust on day one. Reviews and the platform's vetting do the persuading for you.
- Payments and admin handled, including cards, currencies and refunds.
- A share of every booking, including repeat guests who would have come back anyway.
- Rules you do not set: cancellation policy, messaging limits, account terms and ranking.
- Concentration risk. If one platform changes its fees or algorithm, a guide who depends on it has little room to respond.
- The relationship stays with the platform. Your reviews and guest history do not travel with you.
The alternatives
Each reaches a different traveler, so most guides combine two or three.
Airbnb Experiences
Host-led experiences sold to travelers already booking a stay. Airbnb's help center says it typically charges a 20% service fee on experience reservations, taken from the host's side. It suits personality-led, small-group or private formats, and the quality bar is real — apply with something specific, not a generic city tour.
GetYourGuide and Viator
The two largest tour marketplaces, with far more traffic than any guide platform. Neither publishes a single supplier rate on its public pages; operator guides commonly report commissions of 20% to 30%, confirmed in your supplier agreement. They are built around bookable products with fixed times and capacity, so they reward shared or scheduled tours more than fully bespoke days.
GuruWalk
A platform for pay-what-you-want "free" walking tours. GuruWalk says travelers pay an average of €10 to €20 each at the end. Guides pay a per-attendee fee to the platform, so check the current amount against what guests in your city actually leave. It is a volume model and a good way to build reviews, not usually a premium private income.
WeTravel
Not a marketplace but a booking and payments platform for multi-day group trips you sell yourself. It has a free plan where only transaction fees apply, and a Pro plan at $79 a month. It fits guides who lead a few longer departures a year and need deposits and installments.
Your own booking page
No platform commission, your own cancellation terms, and every guest relationship stays yours. The cost is that nobody finds it unless you send them there — which is why it works alongside marketplaces, not instead of them.
Building a direct channel alongside marketplaces
The goal is not to pull guests away from a marketplace. It is to make sure that people who come to you without one — returning guests, referrals, hotel concierges, people who found your name — have somewhere to book.
- Respect each platform's rules. Serve marketplace guests on the marketplace. Do not put contact details in platform messages where the terms forbid it.
- Make your own name findable. A simple page with your tours, photos, languages and a booking button, plus a Google Business Profile, catches people who search for you directly.
- Give partners a link. Hotels, guesthouses and local agencies refer more readily when they can send a link instead of a phone number.
- Keep one calendar. The biggest operational risk of selling in several places is a double-booked private day. One source of truth, synced where possible, prevents it.
- Quote private days properly. Many direct inquiries are custom. A clear written proposal with the price, inclusions and a pay link converts better than a long message thread.
Our guide to direct bookings versus OTAs covers the wider trade-off in more detail.
Which mix fits which guide
- New to guiding: start where travelers already are. One or two marketplaces build reviews and income; a direct page can wait until people start asking for you by name.
- Established private guide: keep ToursByLocals or Airbnb Experiences for discovery, and add a direct page for repeat guests and referrals. This is where direct bookings start paying.
- Guide running scheduled or shared tours: GetYourGuide and Viator suit fixed-time products better than bespoke marketplaces do, so sync availability carefully across them.
- Walking-tour guide in a busy city: GuruWalk for volume and reviews, alongside a paid private option sold elsewhere.
- Guide leading multi-day trips: a payments-first platform such as WeTravel, or booking software with deposit links, for the longer departures.
A simple test for when to invest in a direct channel: look at last season's bookings and count the ones that came from people who already knew you. If that number is meaningful, you are paying marketplace commission on business you created yourself.
How Travelity helps
Travelity gives you the direct side of the mix. The booking widget turns any web page into a place to book, and availability stays in step with GetYourGuide, Viator, Trip.com and Google Things to Do, so a day sold on one channel closes on the others. For custom requests, the Trip Proposal Builder sends a link where the guest reviews the plan and price, adds pickup details and confirms or pays. Guest history lives in one CRM rather than scattered across platform inboxes.
Travelity does not connect to ToursByLocals, so those bookings still need blocking by hand. Setup and onboarding are free, and the 21-day trial asks for no credit card; see current plans before you decide.
Frequently asked questions
How much commission does ToursByLocals take?
ToursByLocals’ guide onboarding material tells guides to set a base price for each tour and add 25% on top as the ToursByLocals commission. On a $200 base price the traveler pays $250 and ToursByLocals keeps $50, which is 20% of what the traveler pays. Confirm the rate in your own guide agreement.
Can I list my tours on ToursByLocals and other platforms at the same time?
We found nothing in ToursByLocals’ published terms requiring guides to list only with them, but check your own guide agreement. What the terms do restrict is sharing contact details through the platform, so a traveler who found you on ToursByLocals should be served there rather than moved off it.
What are the alternatives to ToursByLocals for private guides?
Other marketplaces include Airbnb Experiences, which typically charges hosts a 20% service fee, and GetYourGuide and Viator, where supplier commissions are commonly reported at 20% to 30%. GuruWalk suits pay-what-you-want walking tours, and WeTravel suits multi-day group trips. The other alternative is your own booking page, which you run alongside the marketplaces.
Is it worth taking direct bookings as an independent guide?
Usually, once returning guests, referrals and people who already know your name make up a real share of your work. Those bookings carry no marketplace commission. A booking page with live availability lets you take them without double-booking against the marketplaces you still use for discovery.
How do I avoid double bookings across marketplaces and my own page?
Keep one calendar as the source of truth and block time on every channel as soon as a booking lands. Marketplaces that support availability sync can do this automatically; those that do not need a manual update every time. For private tours, block the whole day or half day, not just the start time.
Bottom line
ToursByLocals earns its share by bringing you travelers you could not reach alone. Keep it for exactly that, and add other marketplaces where they reach a different kind of traveler.
What a marketplace should not be is the only way to book you. Once guests start coming back or asking for you by name, give them a page of your own, keep one calendar across every channel, and let the commission you save fund the next step.
Related guides
See Travelity in action. Book a Personalized Demo.
30 minutes that can completely change the way you run your travel business. See how Travelity can help you work smarter, sell more, and operate with less stress.