Show an upfront display price that's clearly labelled, and always present the full payable total on the booking confirmation page. At search and listing stage, a price marked "estimated" or "from" is acceptable when mandatory fees aren't yet included. By the time a customer is ready to pay, every non-conditional charge and tax must appear in a single total. Hiding mandatory fees until checkout can breach consumer protection law.
TL;DR:
- At search, show the minimum calculable price; if mandatory fees are excluded, label it estimated or from and list each fee by name and amount.
- Before charging, call the preview endpoint and show the full total, itemize mandatory charges, and separate online payments from amounts due on site.
- Recheck the preview immediately before payment, because availability and exchange rates can change after search; apply the same rounding and currency conversion rules at every stage.
- After booking, make the receipt match the preview, itemize all charges, and state which amounts were collected online and which remain due at the property.
- When charges depend on guest count or selected extras, explain what is unknown and collect those details early to calculate the final price.
Table of Contents
- Search results and property pages: which price fields to use and how to label them
- Order preview and booking confirmation: show the final total and breakdown before payment
- Order details and receipts: what to include after the booking is made
- Application flow consistency: avoid mismatches between search, preview and booking
- Operational checklist and short templates for booking pages
- Publisher perspective: why transparent pricing helps operators and customers
- FAQ
- Sources
Search results and property pages: which price fields to use and how to label them
The price a customer sees while browsing should be a "book" or "display" price, used for comparison rather than final payment. This figure works well for search and listing pages because it lets customers compare options quickly, but it only stays fair when it's labelled honestly.
If that display price excludes mandatory charges that can be calculated in advance, such as a cleaning fee or a fixed service charge, it needs either an equally prominent all-in price next to it, or a clear "estimated" or "from" label. The Displaying pricing information guidance from Booking.com's developer documentation draws this same distinction between a display price for search and a total price for confirmation, recommending the estimated label whenever the two differ.
A few practical rules make this workable:
- Show the display price with its label directly beside it, not in a tooltip or footnote.
- List excluded mandatory charges individually, with name and amount, rather than bundling them into a vague "taxes and fees" line.
- Match currency formatting to the customer's locale and show both booker and accommodation currency when they differ.
- Keep the labelling consistent across every listing on the same page, so comparisons stay fair.
Practitioner research on booking engines also finds that customers trust an itemised breakdown of mandatory fees more than a single lumped figure, because it removes the guesswork about what's included (booking engine research).
Order preview and booking confirmation: show the final total and breakdown before payment
Before any payment is taken, the customer needs to see one number that represents everything they'll actually pay. That number should come from a single authoritative source, not be recalculated on the page from separate fragments.
- Call an orders/preview endpoint, or the equivalent in your booking engine, as the final check on price.total immediately before charging. The accommodation pricing guide treats this preview step as the authoritative source of truth for the final total, precisely because availability data can shift between search and checkout.
- List every non-conditional charge separately rather than folding it into the total, so the customer can see what each line represents.
- Split what's chargeable online from what's payable at the property, using a clear chargeable_online indicator so customers know what hits their card now versus what's collected on-site.
- When a deal applies, show the original price alongside the discounted price, with the original visually de-emphasised (strikethrough or lighter text) so the saving is obvious without being misleading. The display discounts and deals documentation recommends showing the public price this way and skipping discount styling entirely when no deal is active.
This is also the stage where currency conversion matters. If the booker's currency differs from the accommodation's, note that exchange rates can shift between preview and payment, which the prices and extra charges examples documentation flags as a common source of confusion when totals change slightly at the last step.
Order details and receipts: what to include after the booking is made
Once the booking is confirmed, the record the customer keeps should answer every question they might raise later without needing to contact support.
- Show the base price, any included charges, and every non-conditional charge as separate lines, followed by the final total.
- Indicate clearly which charges were collected online at the time of booking and which remain payable on-site.
- Include any payment schedule or deposit detail, such as a deposit now and balance due later, so the customer isn't surprised by a second charge.
- Keep the layout consistent with what was shown at preview stage, so nothing on the receipt looks new or unexplained.
A receipt that matches the preview screen line for line is the simplest way to prevent a dispute before it starts.
Application flow consistency: avoid mismatches between search, preview and booking
Price drift between search, preview and confirmation is one of the most common causes of checkout failure, and most of it is preventable with a few consistent habits.
- Always request products and extra_charges in availability calls when you need a full breakdown, rather than fetching extras separately later. The pricing guide notes that many booking flows run into trouble because early availability calls omit extra_charges, which then surprises the customer at a later step.
- Label early-stage prices as "estimated" and re-validate with a preview call immediately before charging, rather than trusting a figure that was fetched minutes or hours earlier.
- Apply the same rounding and currency conversion rules across every endpoint in the flow, so a total calculated at search time matches the total calculated at preview time.
- When a charge can't be calculated until the customer provides more information, such as guest count or add-on selections, show an explicit note explaining why, and capture that input as early as possible in the flow.
Pro Tip: Re-run the preview call with identical parameters right before payment, not just once earlier in the session, since availability and pricing can change between steps.
Operational checklist and short templates for booking pages
A short, repeatable checklist keeps price displays consistent as a booking page evolves.
- Show the minimum quantifiable total wherever the inputs allow it, rather than defaulting to "from" pricing out of habit.
- Itemise every mandatory fee by name and amount instead of grouping them.
- Run an orders/preview (or equivalent) call as the final check before any payment is processed.
- Confirm your payment provider correctly reports which amounts are chargeable_online, so the split between online and on-site payments stays accurate.
- Configure tax and GST settings in the booking engine itself, rather than adding tax as a manual line item, to avoid rounding mismatches.
Useful copy patterns for the page itself:
- "Estimated total, includes GST where shown" for prices calculated before all inputs are known.
- "Includes taxes and mandatory fees" when the total is genuinely final.
- "Additional mandatory fees may apply" only when a charge genuinely can't be calculated until later in the flow.
The ACCC's guidance on price displays states that a single minimum quantifiable price should be presented at the earliest opportunity, with businesses required to be upfront about mandatory fees. (ACCC) Past enforcement action, including undertakings given by platforms such as Airbnb and eDreams over drip pricing, shows this isn't a theoretical risk for booking platforms (ACCC targets drip pricing).
Publisher perspective: why transparent pricing helps operators and customers
Transparent price displays reduce disputes and encourage repeat bookings, because customers who see exactly what they're paying for are far less likely to query a charge after the fact. In building a booking page design for air-con cleaning businesses, the clearest pages are the ones that state the total early and keep every fee visible rather than folded into a single line. Operators who itemise mandatory charges tend to field fewer calls asking "what's this extra charge for," which saves time on both sides of the booking.
— Lewis
FAQ
How do you display your prices?
A clear price display shows a labelled estimate or "from" price at search stage, and a full total, including all non-conditional charges and taxes, before payment is taken. The ACCC requires a single minimum quantifiable price to be shown at the earliest possible stage whenever it can be calculated.
How to get lower prices on booking?
Comparing the all-in total rather than the headline display price is the most reliable way to spot genuine savings, since a lower "from" price can still carry excluded mandatory fees. Checking for original versus discounted pricing, as outlined in Booking.com's discount guidance, also helps confirm whether a deal is real.
What's the difference between a display price and a total price?
A display price is shown at search or listing stage for comparison and may exclude some mandatory fees, while a total price is the full payable amount shown at booking confirmation. The accommodation pricing guide treats the total from an orders/preview call as the authoritative figure.
Why do some charges show as estimated instead of a fixed amount?
Some charges depend on inputs the customer hasn't provided yet, such as guest count or selected add-ons, so the price can't be finalised until those details are entered. Labelling the figure "estimated" and explaining which inputs affect it reduces confusion and checkout abandonment.
What counts as drip pricing under consumer law?
Drip pricing happens when a business advertises a low headline price and then adds mandatory fees progressively through checkout, without disclosing them upfront. The ACCC treats this as misleading conduct when the total minimum price could have been calculated and shown from the start.