Looking for a Bookalet alternative?

The short version

Bookalet is a general UK booking tool for holiday cottages, B&Bs, self-catering lets and the odd campsite. Because it has to cover so many types of accommodation at once, it's built broad rather than deep. That breadth can suit an owner juggling a mix of properties. For a dedicated campsite, it's the wrong shape, and you feel it every day.

CampSuite™ is a purpose-built UK campsite platform that runs the whole site, bookings, payments, guest messages, arrivals and the daily jobs, from your phone. Every part of it, the diary, the pitch types, the hook-up supplements, the check-in flow, the Club directory link, is there because a campsite needs it. There's no generic accommodation layer to configure around, and we're adding more every month. You're setting up a campsite, not wrestling a general booking engine into shape.

If your business is a campsite, CampSuite™ is the better fit, plainly. If you run a campsite plus cottages plus a couple of B&B rooms under one roof and want the lot in one login, a general accommodation tool like Bookalet covers more of that mix.

Who each one suits best

The purpose-built advantage

The difference between a purpose-built campsite tool and an accommodation-broad platform shows up in the small details:

• Pitch types. CampSuite™ treats "grass touring", "hardstanding with electric", "motorhome pitch" and "tent-only" as native concepts. You set them up in the pitches configuration and guests see them by name. In an accommodation tool, these often need to be modelled as "units" with custom fields.
• Hook-up supplements. Adding a per-night charge for electric on certain pitches is a standard campsite workflow. CampSuite™ handles it as a first-class feature.
• Check-in flow. "Arrivals, on-site, departures" is the campsite day. CampSuite™'s main view is exactly that. In a generic booking tool, you usually have to build your own filter to see that picture.
• Club directory link. CampSuite™ gives you a shareable booking page link you can paste into your CAMC or C&CC listing. That's the single biggest source of bookings for most CLs and CSs. A generic tool won't understand why this matters.
• CL and CS mode. CampSuite™ knows about the 5-pitch limit and the specific way CL and CS sites operate. No reading documentation, no workarounds.

When a general tool covers more of the mix

Here's the honest exception. If you run a farm that has:

• A few self-catering cottages
• A couple of glamping pods
• A small CL field
• A B&B room or two

…then one login across all of it has its pull. You manage one calendar, one payments stream, one tax return workflow. CampSuite™ is built for the camping side, so for the cottages and the B&B you'd run something alongside it, for now.

For an owner in that situation, one login across everything makes sense. For an owner whose business is a campsite, a general tool means paying for accommodation features you'll never touch while missing the campsite ones you need every day.

Pricing

Pricing on both products changes. Check current rates on each website. As a guide:

• CampSuite™. Free for up to 100 pitches, the full product. Guests pay a small £1.50 fee on online bookings, or cover it yourself with Put it on me at £2 + VAT a unit a month, capped at £99 + VAT. Optional add-ons on any plan: channel management at £10 + VAT a month, and your own web address at £5 + VAT a month. Above 100 pitches, it's a tailored plan. No contracts. See pricing.
• Bookalet. Tiered commercial pricing aligned to its multi-property accommodation customer base.

Feature comparison

• Digital booking calendar. Both.
• Online bookings via a booking page. Both.
• Card payments. Both.
• Double-booking prevention. Both.
• Deposits and balance payments. Both.
• Guest messaging and arrival info. Both.
• Pitch types, hook-ups, supplements. CampSuite™ native. Bookalet requires configuration.
• CAMC and C&CC directory workflow. CampSuite™.
• Today's arrivals / on-site / departures view. CampSuite™ native. Bookalet typically via filters or reports.
• Multi-property across accommodation types. Bookalet.
• Owner accounts across cottages, B&Bs and pitches. Bookalet.

Mobile experience

CampSuite™ is mobile-first. The whole product works well on a phone because that's where most small-site owners actually use it. Bookalet has mobile access; it's not the primary design centre.

Small thing, everyday consequence. If you're walking the grass on a Sunday afternoon and a call comes in, the difference matters.

Setup and switching

CampSuite™ takes about 15 minutes to set up via a wizard. The wizard is campsite-shaped, so all the fields mean something to a site owner. No abstractions to learn.

If you're currently on Bookalet and thinking about switching, the low-risk approach is to run both side by side for a fortnight. Keep Bookalet for existing bookings, add new bookings to CampSuite™, and cut over once you're comfortable. For mixed-property owners, you might keep Bookalet for the cottages and switch only the campsite to CampSuite™.

What you give up with each

With CampSuite™, you give up: managing cottages, B&Bs and other non-campsite accommodation in the same tool, and we're widening what we cover every month. If you run a campsite, you give up nothing that matters.

With Bookalet, you give up: campsite-specific features that live and breathe the vocabulary of pitches and hook-ups, a free tier for small sites, and the tight mobile-first interface designed for owner-operators.

A practical way to decide

1. Is your business only a campsite? CampSuite™ will fit better. Try it free today.
2. Do you run multiple accommodation types? Either consider Bookalet for one tool across everything, or use CampSuite™ for the site and a dedicated tool for the other property types.
3. Are you a 5-pitch CL or CS? Go straight to CampSuite™, free forever.

Being straight with you

Bookalet is a name people know, and this page exists because campsite owners search for an alternative and deserve a straight answer. We're not here to knock it. For a mix of cottages and rooms it does a broad job across accommodation. But your business is a campsite, and CampSuite™ is built for exactly that, purpose-built for pitches and touring, free to start, and getting more powerful every month. Try both if you like. We're quietly confident which one fits your site.