Questions and answers about OTA Builder
Everything people ask before they build a travel booking website: the cost, the tickets, the markup and the rules. Each answer stands on its own.
Updated September 15, 2026
Getting started
- What is OTA Builder?
- OTA Builder is a free travel website builder. It creates a booking website for flights, hotels and activities under your own brand, name and domain. Your customers search, book and pay on your site, and they receive their tickets and vouchers by email. Building the site, running it and selling on it are free.
- Do I need coding skills to use OTA Builder?
- No. OTA Builder needs no coding and no technical team. You pick your brand name and colors, set the markup you want to add, and the booking website is built for you. Once you sign up, your site is live within one working day.
- How quickly is my OTA Builder site live?
- Once you sign up, your site is live within one working day. How long it takes depends on how much you set up before you launch, such as your brand name, your colors and your markup. You can change your brand name and colors later at any time.
Your website
- Can I use my own domain with OTA Builder?
- Yes. You can run an OTA Builder site on your own domain, and you can do that on the free plan. If you do not have a domain, every site comes with a free subdomain on ota-sites.com, for example sunway-travel.ota-sites.com. The optional bundle, at $99 per year, includes a free domain of your choice.
- What web address does my site get if I have no domain?
- Every OTA Builder site includes a free subdomain on ota-sites.com, such as sunway-travel.ota-sites.com. You can share that address, sell on it and move to your own domain later. The free subdomain is part of the free plan and costs nothing.
- Can I change my brand name and colors after the site is live?
- Yes. You can change the brand name and the colors on your OTA Builder site at any time. The site carries your brand, not the OTA Builder brand, apart from a small Built with OTA Builder line in the footer on the free plan. The bundle removes that line.
- Does my site work in more than one language and currency?
- Yes. The customer facing side of a site built with OTA Builder works in multiple languages and currencies. Visitors from different countries can search and book without you running a separate website for each market.
Selling and markup
- How do I make money on an OTA Builder site?
- You add your own markup on top of the prices shown on your site, and you keep it. Your customer pays the displayed price online on your site, and that price already includes your markup. You choose how much to add, and you can set it for flights, hotels and activities.
- How do I set my markup?
- You set your markup in your OTA Builder account, and your site applies it to the prices customers see. Your account shows your markup settings and your bookings in one place. You can change the markup as you learn what works on your own site.
- Can I use a different markup for flights, hotels and activities?
- Yes. OTA Builder lets you set markup separately for flights, hotels and activities. Many sellers use a different amount for each, because a hotel stay and a single flight are not the same kind of sale. Example (illustration only): a $400 fare with a $30 markup.
- Can I sell my own tours on an OTA Builder site?
- No. OTA Builder sells activities from its own supply, with 2,500+ activities searchable by destination, and it does not host tours that you run yourself. If you organize group trips, you can still use your site to sell the flights, hotels and activities around them.
Tickets and bookings
- Who issues the tickets sold on my site?
- Tickets are issued through OTA Builder's ticketing partner. They are ordinary airline e-tickets, and the PNR is in the passenger's own name. The passenger can check the booking on the airline's own website. Every ticket follows the rules of the fare that was bought.
- What do my customers receive after they book?
- Your customers receive their tickets and vouchers by email. A flight booking arrives as an ordinary airline e-ticket with a PNR in the passenger's own name. A hotel booking produces a hotel voucher carrying your site's name, and an activity booking produces a voucher with the ticket type that was bought.
- Can a passenger check the booking with the airline?
- Yes. The PNR on a ticket sold through an OTA Builder site is in the passenger's own name, so the passenger can look the booking up on the airline's own website with the PNR and their last name. Nothing about that check depends on your site or on OTA Builder. It is the simplest way for a customer to confirm that a booking is real.
- Can customers see refund and change rules before they book?
- Flight results on a site built with OTA Builder show refund and change rules where the source provides them, and every ticket follows the rules of the fare that was bought. Hotel results show the full policies of each property, including the check in window, children, pets, meals and deposits. Customers can read those rules before they pay.
Payments
- How do my customers pay?
- Your customers book and pay online, at the checkout on your own website. The price they pay includes the markup you have set, and their tickets and vouchers arrive by email. Nothing is paid outside the checkout on your site.
- How do I get paid my markup?
- The price your customer pays on your site includes the markup you set, and that markup is yours to keep. Before OTA Builder sends your first payout, you verify your identity. Your OTA Builder account shows your markup settings and your bookings, so you can see what you have sold.
- Why does OTA Builder verify my identity?
- OTA Builder verifies the identity of an account holder before that account's first payout. The check is one of the ways OTA Builder keeps sites built on it from being used to take money under a name that belongs to someone else. It applies to every account before money is paid out.
Pricing and bundle
- How much does OTA Builder cost?
- Building and running your website is free. The optional bundle is $99 per year. The free plan covers the website, the booking engine, selling, your brand and colors, your own markup and a free subdomain on ota-sites.com. The bundle adds a free domain of your choice, removes the Built with OTA Builder line and includes premium support.
- What is included in the OTA Builder free plan?
- The OTA Builder free plan includes your travel booking website, the booking engine, selling, your brand and colors, your own markup, a free subdomain on ota-sites.com, and the help center and guides. Sites on the free plan carry a small Built with OTA Builder line in the footer. You can also use your own domain on the free plan.
- What do I get for the $99 bundle?
- The OTA Builder bundle costs $99 per year and includes everything in the free plan. It adds a free domain of your choice, removes the Built with OTA Builder line from your footer, and includes premium support. The bundle is optional, and your website works without it.
- Can I use my own domain on the free plan?
- Yes. OTA Builder lets you use your own domain on the free plan, not only with the bundle. If you buy the $99 per year bundle, a domain of your choice is included free instead. Either way, the website, the booking engine and your markup stay free.
- What happens if I stop paying for the bundle?
- The OTA Builder bundle renews yearly, and letting it lapse does not take your website down. Your site stays online on the free plan. The domain and premium support end with the bundle. The Built with OTA Builder line comes back to your footer.
- Can I get a refund on the bundle?
- You can get a refund on the OTA Builder bundle within 14 days, as long as no domain has been registered. Once a domain has been registered, the domain fee is not refundable, because the registration has already been paid for. The refund terms are set out on the refunds page.
Trust and safety
- Is OTA Builder legit?
- OTA Builder is a free travel website builder operated by a named company, with its entity name and address published on the site. Tickets sold on sites built with OTA Builder are ordinary airline e-tickets, and the PNR is in the passenger's own name, so a passenger can check any booking on the airline's own website. A site built with OTA Builder carries the name of the person or business who built it, not the name OTA Builder. For the full answer, including where a customer's payment goes and what OTA Builder does about scam sites, read the page at /is-ota-builder-legit.
- What does OTA Builder do about scam sites?
- OTA Builder screens the names of new sites, verifies the identity of an account holder before the first payout, and can suspend an account. Every account agrees to an acceptable use policy that sets out what a site built with OTA Builder may not do. Name screening does not catch everything, which is why OTA Builder also keeps a report abuse page open to anyone.
- How do I report a site built with OTA Builder?
- Use the report abuse page at /report-abuse. Name the site, say what happened, and say what you were asked to pay and how you were asked to pay it. OTA Builder can suspend an account that breaks the acceptable use policy.
Accounts
- How do I start a site with OTA Builder?
- You sign up on the start page, pick your brand name and colors, and set the markup you want to add. No coding and no technical team is needed. Once you sign up, your site is live within one working day.
- Do I need a registered business to use OTA Builder?
- OTA Builder does not decide what you need where you live. You are responsible for your own business registration and for the rules that apply where you trade. Those rules differ by country, so check the requirements where you do business before you start selling.
- How do I contact OTA Builder support?
- Write to the support address on the OTA Builder contact page. OTA Builder replies within two working days. Bundle holders get premium support. If your question is about a booking made on someone else's site, start with the owner of that site.
Still deciding?
Read how OTA Builder works in plain words, or build a site and look at every page first.