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Why Coastly takes 10 percent, not 30

The delivery and booking giants take 15 to 30 percent of every sale to a company far away. Here is how Coastly is built differently, and why a fair fee keeps a surf town's money local.

By Corey MangoldJune 24, 20263 min read

If you run a business in a surf town, you already know the math. The big delivery and booking apps take 15 to 30 percent of every order, every booking, every stay, and they take it forever. The work is yours. The risk is yours. The margin goes to a data company on another continent.

We think that is backwards. So we built Coastly the other way around.

The one line

Coastly takes 10 percent on the business it actually brings a vendor, keeps the money local, and gets there first. That is roughly a third of what the giants charge, and it only applies to business we drive to you.

How a vendor is actually charged

Here is the whole model, in plain terms.

  • Listing is free. You list your products, services, charters, classes, homes or events, take orders and bookings, collect reviews, and you are always paid directly by the customer.
  • The platform fee is 10 percent of driven business, billed to you, on the orders and bookings Coastly brings you. It is waived while we are launching your town, so you owe nothing while we prove we move volume.
  • A few categories are even lighter: stays are a 5 percent referral because we just link out to your booking page, and real estate is 15 percent of the selling agent's commission, only at closing.
  • QR event tickets are a flat 1 dollar per ticket, far below the usual ticketing platforms.

That is it. No upfront fee. No monthly SaaS fee to start. No cut of a sale we had nothing to do with.

You are paid directly, always

This is the part that matters most, and it is easy to miss. Coastly does not process the payment between you and your customer. Your customer pays you directly, your way: cash, bank transfer, Yappy or SINPE, or your own card terminal.

Coastly records the transaction and invoices you a small fee on the business it drove. You keep your payment relationship, your cash flow, and your customer. We are a software platform that brings you business, not a middleman sitting on your money.

You keep 90 percent of the business we drive. On Uber Eats, a vendor often keeps closer to 70.

Why a fair fee is also the smart fee

Taking less is not charity, it is strategy. A surf town is small, and trust travels fast. The giants win cities by spending their way in. They lose towns like ours by being extractive in a place where everyone knows everyone.

So we do three things they cannot:

  1. We take a third of their rate, only on business we bring you, so the numbers actually work for a small local vendor.
  2. We keep the money in town, paid directly to fishermen, farmers, cooks, guides, captains and hosts.
  3. We get there first, launching in surf towns before the super-apps arrive, so the fair, local option is the one people are already using.

Founding vendors lock it in

The first cohort of vendors in each town locks the 10 percent rate for life. When a delivery giant eventually shows up at 30 percent, founding vendors already have the reviews, the habit, and a platform that pays them fairly. That is the reason to start now, while the fee is still waived.

If that sounds like the kind of deal a surf town business should have had all along, that is the point.

See exactly how pricing works, or list your business and keep getting paid directly.

Restaurants, cafes, markets, fishermen, farmers, makers and services. A free storefront in the app your customers already open every morning.

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