Compare bookingfish and seatsurfing on pricing, features, platforms, and ratings — both Scheduling tools, Pay-as-you-go with an unlimited free trial: no fees…
At a Glance
bookingfish
seatsurfing
Primary category
Scheduling
Scheduling
Rating
Not documented
Not documented
Pricing model
Pay-as-you-go with an unlimited free trial: no fees until a confirmed booking. Standard plan is a flat $25 CAD per confirmed booking (auto-refunded on cancellation) plus Stripe fees (2.9% + $0.30). Unlimited annual packages per boat run from $149 (1 year) to $499 (5 years), paying only Stripe fees.
Open source (free self-hosted) with a freemium hosted SaaS offering paid per-user tiers
Starting price
Not documented
Free (self-hosted, or hosted SaaS for up to 10 users); Professional from 0.90 euros per user per month
Free plan
Not documented
Not documented
Free trial
Yes
Not documented
Platforms
Not documented
Not documented
Team collaboration
Not documented
Not documented
AI features
Not documented
Not documented
Public API
Yes
Not documented
Pricing Compared
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
bookingfish
No individual plan breakdown documented yet.
seatsurfing
Self-Hosted — 0 euros N/A
Hosted Free — 0 euros N/A
Hosted Professional — 0.90 euros per user per month Monthly (billed upfront per cycle)
Hosted Enterprise — Custom quote Contact sales
Pros & Cons
bookingfish
Pros
Purpose-built for fishing guides and boat rentals, with vessel-specific calendars and half-day / full-day time slots that generic booking tools do not model out of the box.
Pay-as-you-go pricing with an unlimited free trial: no fees until you have a confirmed booking, and the $25 per-booking fee is auto-refunded if you refund a cancelled client.
Stripe Express payments go directly to the operator's bank account, so BookingFish never holds the funds.
Free, open-source (GPL v2) WordPress plugin embeds the booking calendar and gift certificates with a shortcode.
Fully bilingual (French/English) with data hosted in Canada, and a Sync-Cell ICS feed for mobile/offline calendars shared with guides.
Cons
Highly niche: designed around fishing guides and boat rentals, so it is not a fit for general appointment-based businesses.
Deepest integration story is with WordPress; operators on other website platforms rely mainly on shared booking links and embed codes.
On the standard plan a flat $25 fee applies per confirmed booking on top of Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30, which adds up for high-volume operators unless they buy an annual package.
Primarily oriented toward the Canadian market (built in Canada, CAD pricing), which may not suit operators elsewhere.
seatsurfing
Pros
Free, unlimited-user self-hosted deployment option under an open-source license
Hosted SaaS Free tier available for small teams up to 10 users with no credit card required
Low per-user cost on the Professional plan at 0.90 euros per user per month
Integrates with common workplace tools including Microsoft Teams, Exchange, and Confluence
Managed hosting located in Germany, appealing to organizations with EU data residency needs
Cons
Precise company founding year and team size are not consistently published, making vendor maturity harder to verify
Enterprise plan requires a minimum of 500 users, out of reach for smaller organizations wanting dedicated infrastructure
Advanced features like booking approvals, recurring bookings, and kiosk mode require the paid Professional tier
Self-hosting requires in-house technical setup and maintenance despite being free
Smaller brand recognition compared to larger commercial workplace management platforms
Use Cases
bookingfish
seatsurfing
Hybrid office desk sharing — Organizations with flexible or hot-desking policies use Seatsurfing to let employees reserve desks in advance through a web interface or Microsoft Teams.
Meeting room reservation management — Teams use Seatsurfing to coordinate meeting room bookings alongside desk reservations, reducing scheduling conflicts.
Self-hosted workplace booking for data-sensitive organizations — Organizations with strict data control requirements self-host Seatsurfing on their own infrastructure for free rather than using a third-party SaaS.