Samba is booking and payments software for tour operators with deposits and payouts to your own Stripe. $0/month, 2% per booking after the first $10k.
Researched and fact-checked by Bartu Cavusoglu · Updated October 26, 2026
Samba is a booking and payment platform for tour and activity operators. It brings online booking, deposits, installment plans, traveler details and back-office work into one system, replacing the contact forms, spreadsheets and hand-sent invoices many operators use.
Its pitch is that operators sell trips and get paid into their own account while running the whole operation in one place. The product serves both multi-day tour operators and day tour operators, with solution pages for food and wine, walking, rafting, sailing, cycling, trekking, safari and yoga retreat businesses.
Travelers book through customizable trip pages or widgets placed on the operator's website. They pick a departure, choose a package, add extras, enter who is traveling and pay. Availability and pricing rules are enforced automatically, and each cart is validated before a card is charged.
Operators connect their own Stripe account, so every charge, deposit, installment and refund runs through it. After booking, Samba schedules later payments, retries failed cards and updates manifests as travelers submit passports, dietary needs and emergency contacts.
Checkout supports multiple packages per trip, add-ons priced per person or per booking, and promo codes. Operators can build bookings for phone and walk-in customers in four steps, send payment links, record offline payments, or use request-to-book for bespoke dates, where a card is authorized but not charged until accepted.
Operations tools include manifests, invoices, receipts, credit notes, taxes, refunds, a customer CRM and roles for team members. OTA channel sync keeps availability, bookings and passengers in one record, and a REST API and MCP connector are available for custom workflows and AI tools.
Samba is a booking and payments platform for tour and activity operators. It combines online booking, deposits and installment plans, traveler details, invoicing and team collaboration in one system.
Samba is $0 per month. The first $10,000 in bookings is free, then a flat 2% per booking applies. Stripe processing fees are separate and paid to Stripe.
Yes. There is one free plan with everything included and no setup fees or contracts. Enterprise is a separate custom arrangement for high-volume operators.
The operator does. Payments land in the operator's own Stripe account and are paid out on Stripe's normal schedule, and Samba says it never holds the funds.
Samba integrates with Stripe, WordPress, GetYourGuide, Viator, Claude and ChatGPT. It also provides a REST API and an MCP connector for AI tools.
It suits multi-day and day tour operators, including food and wine, walking, rafting, sailing, cycling, trekking, safari and yoga retreat businesses that take deposits and manage travelers.
Yes. It takes a deposit at checkout, schedules later installments on the card the traveler saved, and retries failed cards. Apple Pay and Google Pay appear only on fixed-price trips paid in full.
Yes. Bookings synced from connected channels such as Viator or GetYourGuide carry the same 2% as direct bookings. Bookings paid offline and only logged in Samba are free.