The moment that changed how we think about revenue

Early in my career building hotel reservation systems in East Africa, I had a revelation that seemed completely backwards at the time.

We were charging hotels $200 a month for our software. It was straightforward, predictable revenue. Most SaaS businesses would call that a win.

But our customers hated it.

The Conversation That Changed Everything

I’ll never forget sitting with a hotel owner in Zanzibar who was frustrated with our monthly fee. His hotel was doing well, getting solid bookings through the online booking engine we’d built for him.

But he kept coming back to that $200 monthly charge.

What shocked me was that he’d rather pay us $400, $600, even $1,000 a month in commission on the bookings he was getting than pay that fixed $200 fee.

At first, I thought he just didn’t understand the math. But the more I listened, the more I realised he understood it perfectly.

Cost vs. Investment

To him, and to most of our hotel clients, that $200 monthly fee felt like a cost. Something that left their account every month whether business was good or bad. Whether they were fully booked or struggling through low season.

But commission? That felt different.

Commission only happened when bookings happened. It was directly tied to success. If the booking engine was working, if guests were converting, if the business was growing, then yes, they were happy to share a percentage of that success.

It wasn’t about the total amount paid. It was about alignment.

When I Realised We Were Backwards

This realisation hit me hard: our customers preferred a model where we only won when they won.

We’d been thinking like a typical software company, predictable monthly recurring revenue, stable cash flow, the whole playbook. But our customers were thinking like operators, cash flow tied to bookings, revenue that ebbs and flows with seasons and demand.

So we pivoted. We started offering commission-based pricing for our booking engines, and something interesting happened.

We had fewer customers paying us monthly fees, but we were making more revenue overall. More importantly, our customers were happier.

Why Alignment Matters

When I started building what would become EasyOTA, this lesson stayed with me.

If we only make money when our customers make bookings, then our incentives are completely aligned. Every feature we build, every improvement we make, every support call we answer, it’s all driving toward the same goal: more successful bookings.

That’s not just good business philosophy. It changes how we operate day to day.

We care about your conversion rates because they directly impact our revenue. If your quotes aren’t converting, we lose too.

We care about your booking volume because commission on zero bookings is zero. Your growth is literally our growth.

We care about upselling and booking value because a $5,000 safari booking is better for both of us than a $3,000 one.

We care about your customer retention because repeat bookings benefit everyone in the ecosystem.

Compare that to a flat-fee SaaS model. Once you’ve paid your monthly subscription, the software company has your money whether you get one booking or one hundred. Their incentive is to get as many customers as possible paying that fee, not to make sure each customer is wildly successful.

The Question I Get All The Time

People often ask me: “But doesn’t commission-based pricing make your revenue unpredictable?”

Yes. Absolutely.

And that’s exactly the point.

Our revenue should be unpredictable if our customers’ bookings are unpredictable. We should feel the low season just like they do. We should celebrate the high season alongside them.

Because when our revenue depends on their success, we’re not just a software vendor. We’re a partner.

What This Means in Practice

This alignment shows up in surprising ways.

When we’re deciding which features to build next, we don’t just ask “what’s technically interesting?” or “what will attract new customers?” We ask: “what will help our existing customers close more bookings?”

When we’re debugging an issue or responding to support requests, we’re not thinking “how do we minimise support costs?” We’re thinking “how do we get this customer back to taking bookings as fast as possible?”

When we’re considering integrations or partnerships, we ask “will this help our customers sell more safaris?”

It’s not altruism. It’s self-interest, properly aligned.

The Broader Lesson

I’ve come to believe that misaligned incentives are behind a lot of frustration in the software industry.

How many times have you paid for software that promised to transform your business, only to discover the vendor doesn’t really care if you succeed or fail? They got your subscription fee. They’ve moved on to the next customer.

Or worse, software that works just well enough that you don’t cancel, but not so well that you’d recommend it to others.

That’s not a partnership. That’s a transaction.

Why This Matters for Safari

The safari industry is built on relationships, trust, and long-term partnerships. A DMC might work with the same lodges for decades. Agents might send the same operator clients year after year.

Your software provider should operate the same way.

At EasyOTA, we’ve structured everything around this principle. No upfront costs. No monthly fees that drain your account in slow months. Just a commission on confirmed bookings, refunded if cancelled.

You win, we win. Simple as that.

The Unexpected Benefit

Here’s what I didn’t anticipate when we moved to this model: it makes us better.

Because our revenue depends on your success, we’ve become obsessed with understanding what actually drives bookings. We study conversion rates, quoting speed, presentation quality, upsell effectiveness, all the details that turn enquiries into confirmed safaris.

That knowledge gets built back into the platform. Every customer benefits from what we learn helping other customers succeed.

It’s a virtuous cycle. And it only works when incentives are aligned.

Choose Partners Whose Success Depends on Yours

My advice, whether you work with EasyOTA or not: choose partners whose success depends on your success.

When you’re evaluating software, payment providers, marketing agencies, or any business service, ask yourself: do they only win when I win?

If the answer is no, be very careful.

Because in the safari industry, where relationships and trust matter more than anything, alignment isn’t just nice to have. It’s essential.

Book a demo to see how we support success in our partners.