Do I really need a $6k a year reservation system for 28 sites?

The real amenity spend isn't software, it's wifi. Guests will forgive a gravel pad and roast you in a review over bandwidth. Getting usable coverage across 28 sites means access points, conduit, maybe a point to point link, and it never stops at the first quote. Ask me how I know about the second quote.

Did the flat monthly quote include the online booking engine or was that a separate line? Two vendors I called broke it out and the base subscription alone was pretty useless.

Whatever you pick, make sure the booking form captures rig length, slide-outs, tow vehicle and plate. Half the operational disasters I read about are a 40 foot rig assigned to a 32 foot pad at dusk.

On 28 sites at say $50 a night and 45% annual occupancy you're around $230k gross. Card processing at 2.8% is $6,400 all by itself. That reframed the software question for me, honestly.

Does any of this handle seasonal or monthly bookings well? Every demo I've watched is built around a two night stay.

Careful with self check-in if you're rural. My cell coverage drops to nothing a mile before the park I've been watching, so "we email you a gate code" means people arrive confused and calling a number that won't connect. A lockbox and a paper site map still works.

One thing I'd weigh: whichever system you buy is what generates the three year export a buyer asks for someday. The wall calendar is why sellers can't prove their occupancy. Ask each vendor whether you can export site-level history as a CSV and whether you keep it if you cancel.

Software is cheap next to the person answering the phone. At 28 sites you or a spouse is the phone until you can justify $18 an hour for coverage on Friday afternoons. Budget the labor line honestly and the subscription argument shrinks to noise.

Wall calendar for one season, then buy the thing you wished you'd had. You'll know exactly what you need by September.

Ask whether the system calculates and reports your lodging or occupancy tax by jurisdiction. Rates and who has to collect vary by state and often by city or county, and some platforms handle remittance while others just print a number. Doing 28 sites of that by hand every month gets old fast.

@verity's answer is what I'd do, with one exception. If the park has repeat seasonal guests who rebook the same site every year, get their contact list and booking history off the seller before closing. That list is a big part of what you're buying and it lives in the current owner's head.

So who takes the 10pm call about a broken pedestal? That's the part of this I can't get comfortable with, software or no software.

Reading back through, the thing I'd missed is that the percentage-fee platforms can shift the fee onto the guest. @thicket did either vendor tell you what the guest-facing fee actually shows up as? If it looks like a surprise charge at checkout I'd expect it to cost bookings.