For small, independent places to stay

Take bookings on your website — not someone else's.

TrueHost gives independent hosts a beautiful direct booking website with Stripe payments, calendar sync, and a dashboard you'll actually use. No platforms taking 15%. No templates to wrestle with. Just one person who builds it for you and stays an email away.

Start your written briefing See a live example →
  • Built and run by one operator
  • Written-first — no calls to schedule
  • Keep 100% of your booking revenue

Payments, your Google listing, and calendar sync with the channels you already use:

  • Airbnb
  • Booking.com
  • Bookabach
  • Holiday Houses
  • Stripe
  • Google Business Profile

How it works

Three steps, and the hard parts are mine.

No dashboards to learn before you've even started. You write, I build, you start taking bookings.

  1. 01

    Send a written briefing

    No calls to schedule. You fill in a simple briefing form — your place, your guests, how you take bookings now — in your own time. I read every word myself and reply in writing with honest thoughts on whether TrueHost is the right fit, and what your site could look like.

  2. 02

    I build your site

    I design and build a direct booking website around your property — your photos, your words, your rates. Stripe and your calendars get connected and tested. You review it before anything goes live.

  3. 03

    Take direct bookings

    Your site goes live on your own domain. Guests book and pay directly, dates block automatically across your channels, and you manage it all from one calm dashboard. I stay an email away whenever you need me.

What's included

Everything to take a booking — nothing you'll never touch.

A complete, hand-built setup. No add-on marketplace, no surprise modules.

A custom-built website

Designed around your property and your photos — not squeezed into a template. Fast, mobile-first, and yours on your own domain.

Stripe payments

Take deposits or full payment securely at the point of booking. Money lands in your account — no platform skimming a cut.

Unlimited two-way calendar sync

Sync an unlimited number of calendars — Airbnb, Booking.com and more — in fact, any iCal feed at all. And it runs both ways: a direct booking on your own site instantly blocks those dates everywhere else, too. No double bookings, ever.

Google, done properly

Your Google Business Profile fully optimised and integrated with your site through Google's vacation rental schema — so your place shows up polished, complete and appealing on Search and Maps. More on this below →

Guest email communications

Automated, perfectly-timed emails across the whole guest journey — booking confirmation, payment receipt, pre-arrival directions and check-in details, a mid-stay hello, and check-out and thank-you notes — all in your voice, sent automatically with no work from you.

A powerful host dashboard

Far more than a calendar. From one place you control pricing, availability, automations, content and reviews — and plenty more across the site. Full control, no code, built to be glanced at rather than studied.

Guest booking dashboards

Every guest gets their own personalised dashboard for their booking — styled to match your site — where they can find their stay details and leave a review afterwards.

Built-in review engine

Collect reviews straight from guests after their stay, and add existing reviews from other platforms through your dashboard — so all your praise lives together in one place, right on your own site.

Insights & analytics

See how your place is performing at a glance — revenue, confirmed bookings, upcoming stays, occupancy and page views — all updating live in your dashboard as bookings come in.

A real person

Setup, changes and the occasional “how do I…” all handled by me, personally. You'll always know who you're emailing.

Already using other tools? You won't lose a thing.

Whatever software you're paying for today, I'll personally investigate it and find ways to carry your important features across — so nothing critical gets left behind in the move. I handle the migration with you, step by step, and stay on hand until everything's running smoothly on the other side.

Inside your dashboard

Run everything from one calm screen.

Manage your rates, availability, bookings and reviews, and keep an eye on revenue, occupancy and page views — all from one calm screen.

Found on Google

Your Google listing, properly looked after.

For most guests, your Google listing is the first thing they see — long before they reach your website. So I treat it as part of the build, not an afterthought. I optimise your Google Business Profile end to end and connect it to your site through Google's vacation rental schema — the structured-data enhancement that helps Google understand and showcase your listing — so your place is represented the way it deserves.

  • Full website integration Your Business Profile and your website work together through Google's vacation rental schema, so your property information stays consistent and up to date in both places.
  • A complete, accurate profile Categories, amenities, location, contact details, opening hours and description — all filled in properly and tuned so the right guests find you.
  • Quality-of-life & visual polish Photos curated and ordered for appeal, a description that sells your place, and the small details tidied up to maximise how attractive your listing looks at a glance.
  • Your information & reviews, front and centre Hotel information, highlights and guest reviews presented clearly, so the strongest version of your place is what people see on Search and Maps.
Start your written briefing
James, founder of TrueHost

My story

Honest tech for honest hosts.

I learned this the hands-on way, helping run my family's riverside accommodation and looking after its whole online side. Doing that, I saw how expensive and frustrating the market is for everyday hosts — the big platforms charge steep upfront fees or take a cut of your hard-earned bookings, and still leave out features hosts genuinely need. So I built TrueHost the way I'd want it: the useful things in, the corporate nonsense out.

I've spent over ten years in digital marketing — building websites and the automated workflows that keep businesses running — and these days I run TrueHost from home, mostly by voice. That keeps me ruthless about cutting out technical waste and clunky, complicated setups.

Because I handle everything myself — from our first chat to designing your site and connecting your calendars — you get a setup made for you, backed by a real, one-to-one relationship. No corporate fluff. Just simple, powerful tools built by a host, for hosts.

And I'm not doing this purely for profit. I'm managing a chronic nerve disease that's kept me homebound these past couple of years, and much of what TrueHost earns goes toward funding my ongoing treatment and a few charitable causes I care about. The rest keeps the pricing genuinely fair — to gently disrupt a market that overcharges small hosts. So choosing TrueHost helps more than just your bookings.

Start your written briefing

Pricing

One honest price. No commission, ever.

No tiers to decode, no upsells, no cut of your bookings. By cutting out the corporate overhead, I pass the savings straight to you.

✶ Launch offer — 50% off setup for the first 3 clients only
The setup NZ$500 NZ$250 Save 50% · one-time fee

Your custom website, Google integration, Stripe, and full calendar connection — designed and built around your property. Half price for the first three clients.

The upkeep NZ$25/mo flat, cancel any time

Keeps your site live, secure, hosted, and running smoothly — with me on hand whenever you need a change.

  • Custom-built website on your own domain
  • Stripe payments & deposits
  • Two-way calendar sync (Airbnb, Booking.com and more)
  • Host dashboard & automated guest emails throughout the stay
  • No booking commissions — keep 100% of revenue
  • Personal, one-to-one support from me
Start your written briefing

No hidden catches, no card to start, no sales script. Got more than one property? Tell me in your briefing and I'll tailor it.

or just need one thing done?

Custom & one-off work — priced fairly, at any scale.

Not every host needs the full build. Maybe you just want one thing fixed, improved, or connected up. I happily take on work at any scale — and I price the small jobs genuinely fairly, scaling only with the size of the work. Tell me what you need and I'll send a clear, honest quote.

  • A one-off Google listing optimisation
  • Adding a new channel or integration
  • Cleaning up or fixing an existing site or setup
  • Larger, custom-scale projects
Tell me what you need

A live example — built by me

Eirene Retreat

A real, working accommodation in the Akatarawa Valley — a riverside villa my family owns, with its entire online side built and run by me. I developed the whole back end myself: the website, booking engine, calendar syncing and email automations — plus all the marketing, and even the photography (every photo here was shot and edited by me). It's the clearest proof of what TrueHost can do.

  • Riverside seclusion — set between the river's edge and a spa pool under the stars.
  • 180° valley views — four private acres, an orchard, and resident sheep and chickens.
  • Book direct, in a few taps — guests reserve their stay straight from the site.
  • Glowing guest reviews — “10/10 location, facilities, cleanliness and attention to detail.”
I'd like one like this

Your written briefing

Tell me about your place.

There's no self-serve signup and no call to schedule — that's on purpose. I work entirely in writing, at a considered pace, which means you can tell me everything about your place in your own time, and I'll reply thoughtfully. The more you share below, the more useful my first response will be.

  • Everything in writing — no calls to book, no pressure
  • Honest advice, even if TrueHost isn't the right fit
  • A considered written reply, usually within a working day
  • No obligation, and nothing to pay to start

Prefer your own email? Write to me anytime at james@truehost.co.nz.

About you

About your place

How you work today

What you're hoping for

I read every briefing myself and reply in writing, usually within one working day.