Mohammad Fahim
Hotel API providers fall into five types: multi-product travel APIs that sell hotels next to flights and more, bedbanks that resell their own contracted rates, OTA partner APIs, switches and marketplaces, and hotel aggregators. The right one depends on whose rates you want to sell, which contracts you can sign, and what else you sell.
This guide is for OTAs, travel agencies, booking engines and travel startups choosing where their hotel inventory comes from. It compares eleven providers side by side. Every figure about another company is that company’s own public claim, read on its own website on 30 September 2026 and linked in the sources at the end; the grouping into types is ours. The eleven are a selection of widely used options, not a census of the market, and terms change, so check them again before you sign. The Tripgic details come from our Hotel API page and API documentation. If you want the technical side first, read our hotel API integration guide.
The Five Types of Hotel API Provider
Most comparison lists put every provider in one table, as if they sold the same thing. They do not. A bedbank sells you its own rates; a switch sells you a connection to rates you contract yourself. Start with the type.
| Type | What you get | Whose rates you sell | Contracts you need |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-product travel API | Hotels plus flights and other products in one API | The API provider’s suppliers’ | One |
| Bedbank | One wholesaler’s hotel inventory at net rates | The bedbank’s | One, with the bedbank |
| OTA partner API | A large OTA’s inventory, often on commission | The OTA’s | A partner or affiliate agreement |
| Switch / marketplace | One connection to many sellers | Each seller’s | One per seller you buy from |
| Hotel aggregator | Many suppliers normalised into one API | Yours or the aggregator’s, depending on the model | Varies — some ask you to bring your own |
The column that decides most projects is the last one. If your team cannot negotiate supplier contracts, a switch or a bring-your-own-contract aggregator is the wrong fit, however good its technology.
Two sources that appear in other lists are left out of this one on purpose. GDS hotel content — hotels booked through Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport — comes with a GDS contract and is mainly used by agencies and TMCs already working in a GDS; our GDS guide covers that path, and Amadeus API access after Self-Service covers the July 2026 change. Channel managers connect a hotel to the places it sells its rooms, so they serve hotels as sellers, not platforms buying rooms.
Hotel API Providers Compared
The table uses each provider’s own words and numbers. Treat inventory figures as rough: one company counts hotels, another counts every bookable property, and aggregated lists often include the same hotel from several suppliers.
| Provider | Type | Inventory (their figure) | Also sells | How you get access |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tripgic | Multi-product travel API | 2M+ properties from 50+ suppliers | Flights, cars, activities, transfers, rail, eSIM and more | Sandbox after a short kick-off call |
| Hotelbeds | Bedbank | 300,000 hotels | Activities, transfers, car rental | Free API key and evaluation plan, then certification |
| WebBeds | Bedbank | 500,000+ hotels | 21,000+ transfers, activities and ground services | Trade-only; contact them for API integration |
| RateHawk | Bedbank | Content on 3.3M+ hotels | Affiliate option | Register, free API key, certification |
| TBO | Wholesaler | Not stated on its API page | Air — its page summary says “hotels, air, and more” | For agents and enterprises, via TBO |
| Expedia Group Rapid | OTA partner API | 800,000+ properties in 310,000 destinations | Rapid Car API (in beta) | Become an Expedia Group partner |
| Booking.com Demand API | OTA affiliate API | Not stated on the page | Car rentals, attractions, transfers | For affiliate partners |
| Travelgate | Switch / marketplace | 1,000+ suppliers and 1,000+ buyers | Transfers, tours | Buyers API; access steps not stated |
| ZentrumHub | Hotel aggregator | 100+ pre-integrated suppliers | White-label booking engine | You bring your own supplier contracts and keys |
| Nuitée (Nuitee Connect) | Developer-first API | 3M+ properties | Flights (600+ airlines) | Self-serve, “start building free” |
| Duffel Stays | Developer-first API | “Millions of properties” | Flights | Instant access with a test environment, per its page |
Multi-Product and Developer-First APIs: Tripgic, Nuitée and Duffel
The newest group is built for developers first — modern REST APIs, a sandbox, fast access — and sells hotels next to flights in the same integration.
Tripgic sells hotels in the same API as flights, cars, activities and more. One REST/JSON API covers 2M+ properties from 50+ supply partners in 190+ countries, and its homepage promises access to inventory “without negotiating individual contracts”. Details are in the section on Tripgic below.
Nuitée, through Nuitee Connect (served at liteapi.travel), advertises 3M+ properties, “zero contracts”, a sandbox that mirrors production, and flights from 600+ airlines via GDS, NDC and LCC. Duffel Stays sells accommodation at millions of properties, pays a profit share on every booking from the first one, and offers a test environment that reflects production.
Multi-product and developer-first APIs suit startups and platforms that want to launch quickly and sell more than hotels. Check each provider’s coverage in your own top destinations; a large global count can still be thin where your customers travel.
Bedbanks: Hotelbeds, WebBeds, RateHawk and TBO
A bedbank contracts rooms directly with hotels and resells them to travel businesses at net rates. You set your own margin on top. It is the most common starting point for an agency or OTA, because one contract gives you a large inventory at wholesale prices.
Hotelbeds splits its suite into Booking, Content and Cache APIs, lists 300,000 hotels, and sells activities, transfers and car rental too. Access starts with a free API key on a generic evaluation plan; you then complete a profile and pass a certification before going live. WebBeds says it manages over half a million hotels from teams in 120+ cities, sold only to the trade, through an API or a booking site. RateHawk offers content on 3.3 million hotels, a free API key after registration, and a certification step. TBO offers global inventory to agents and enterprises; its API page’s own summary mentions “hotels, air, and more”.
A bedbank’s limit is scope: it gives you one supplier’s rates, so to compare prices across several you connect to each, or you use an aggregator. Our piece on multi-supplier travel inventory covers that trade-off.
OTA Partner APIs: Expedia Group Rapid and Booking.com
The large OTAs also sell their inventory to other businesses. Their partner APIs are strong on content — photos, reviews and room detail — because that is what their own sites run on.
Expedia Group Rapid gives partners access to more than 800,000 properties in 310,000 destinations, with 32 million property images and 76 million reviews, and commissionable rates. Expedia says Rapid handles over 6 billion calls a day. You need to become an Expedia Group partner to integrate. A Rapid Car API is in beta, with the full launch expected in early 2027.
Booking.com’s Demand API works differently. It is built for affiliate partners, covers stays, car rentals, attractions and transfers, and supports two flows: search and redirect, where the traveller finishes on Booking.com, and search and book, where they book on your platform. Its reporting tools are recommended for managed affiliate partners.
OTA partner APIs suit consumer brands that want deep content. They are partner programmes rather than wholesale connections, and the commercial terms are the OTA’s to set.
Switches and Aggregators: Travelgate and ZentrumHub
A switch does not sell rooms. It gives you one technical connection to many sellers, and you buy from each seller under your own agreement. An aggregator goes a step further and normalises many suppliers into a single response — our guide to what a travel API aggregator is explains how that works.
Travelgate calls itself a travel trade network: its Buyers API pulls real-time inventory and pricing from over 1,000 suppliers, from hotels to transfers and tours, and more than 1,000 buyers are connected. ZentrumHub offers a unified hotel API with 100+ pre-integrated suppliers and a 15-day go-live. It is explicit about the model: you bring your own supplier contracts and API keys, and it charges a flat SaaS subscription with zero per-booking fees.
This path suits a business that already holds several supplier contracts and wants to stop maintaining one integration per supplier. If you have no contracts yet, it solves the technology problem and leaves the commercial one with you.
Which Hotel APIs Are Free to Use?
Google shows this question for almost every hotel API search, and the honest answer is: free to test, never free to sell.
| Provider | What is free | What you pay for |
|---|---|---|
| Tripgic | Sandbox credentials after a short call, no commitment | A one-time activation, then a flat fee per night, never a percentage |
| Hotelbeds | API key and evaluation plan, sandbox testing | Live bookings at its commercial rates |
| RateHawk | API key after registration | Bookings, after certification |
| Nuitée | “Start building free”, sandbox | Live bookings |
| Duffel Stays | Test environment | Nothing stated on the page — Duffel pays you a profit share on each booking |
A free key lets you check data quality, response shape and coverage before you commit. Use it to test your own top ten destinations, not the provider’s demo city. How money moves on live bookings usually takes one of four shapes: net rates with your own markup, commission, profit share, or a per-booking fee. Our guide to travel API pricing models explains how each one scales.
How Long It Takes to Go Live
The API call is rarely the slow part. What takes time is getting access: an application, a contract, a credit line or a certification step before live bookings are switched on. Each provider publishes its own path, and only some put a time on it.
| Provider | Steps to go live, per its own page | Time it states |
|---|---|---|
| Tripgic | Kick-off call and sandbox credentials, then a one-time activation that provisions API credentials, sandbox and supplier connections | Teams “typically go from first call to a test booking in days” |
| Hotelbeds | Register for a free key, complete a profile, pass certification, go live | Not stated |
| RateHawk | Register, get a free API key, complete certification | Not stated |
| ZentrumHub | Bring your supplier contracts and keys; it configures your account | “15-Day Go-Live, Guaranteed” |
| Nuitée | Self-serve sign-up, sandbox that mirrors production | “First call to confirmed booking before your coffee cools” |
| Duffel Stays | Instant access and a test environment | Not stated as a time |
| Expedia Group Rapid | Become an Expedia Group partner first | Not stated |
Read the right-hand column as marketing unless it comes with a contract. The useful question for a sales call is narrower: which steps sit between my sandbox and my first live booking, and who owns each one? Certification in particular is worth asking about early, because it is usually scheduled by the provider’s team, not yours.
How to Choose a Hotel API Provider: Seven Checks
Every provider above is a sensible choice for someone. These checks tell you whether it is the right one for you.
| Check | Question to ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Rates | Do I sell your rates, or bring my own contracts? | Decides whether you need a commercial team |
| Access | Is it trade-only, affiliate-only, or open? Is there certification? | Decides whether you can start at all, and how soon |
| Coverage | How many properties in my top destinations? | A global count hides regional gaps |
| Content and mapping | How are duplicate hotels across suppliers handled? | Duplicates confuse travellers and split reviews — see hotel room mapping |
| Rate detail | Are board type, rate plans and cancellation rules structured? | Unclear refund terms become disputes |
| Pricing model | Net rate, commission, profit share or fee? | Changes your margin as volume grows |
| Other products | Do I also need flights, cars or activities? | One API is cheaper to run than four |
Weight these by your business. A consumer app may care most about content; a B2B agency about net rates and refund rules; a startup about access and speed.
Who Charges the Traveller: Merchant, Agency and Net-Rate Models
Two providers with the same hotels can leave you with very different cash flow, because they differ on who takes the traveller’s money and when.
| Model | Who charges the traveller | When the hotel is paid | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net rate (wholesale) | You, at your own price | The supplier invoices you, often on a deposit or credit line | You keep the difference and carry the payment risk |
| Merchant model | The seller of record, at booking | After the stay, by the seller of record | Money is collected up front; refunds run through whoever charged |
| Agency model | The hotel, usually at the stay | At the stay | You earn a commission later, with little cash handled |
Most B2B hotel APIs work on net rates, while OTA partner programmes mix merchant and agency options. Before you compare prices, ask which model applies, in which currency you are charged, whether you need a deposit or get credit, and who handles a refund when a guest cancels inside the free-cancellation window. A cheaper net rate is not cheaper if it ties up a deposit you could have used elsewhere.
Questions to Ask Before You Sign
A demo shows you search results. These questions show you what happens after the booking, which is where most disputes start.
- Price changes: what happens when the price at booking differs from the price at search? Is there a re-check step, and who absorbs the gap?
- Cancellation rules: are deadlines returned as exact timestamps, and in which time zone?
- Content rights: may you show the provider’s photos and descriptions on your own site and in your ads?
- Duplicates: if you connect several sources, how are duplicate hotels mapped and merged?
- Search limits: is there a look-to-book ratio, a cap on searches per booking, and what happens if you exceed it?
- Support and uptime: what response time applies when a guest is at reception and the booking is missing?
- Leaving: can you export your booking history, and how much notice does either side need to end the agreement?
Write the answers into the contract. A promise made on a call is only as good as the person who made it.
Where Tripgic Fits
Tripgic is a multi-product travel API. For hotels, it aggregates 50+ supply partners into one normalised JSON schema: 2M+ properties in 190+ countries, from luxury resorts to budget hotels and serviced apartments. Rate plans come with structured cancellation rules, and prices returned at booking are final.
The same API sells flights from Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport, NDC and 67 low-cost carriers, plus cars, activities, packages, rail, transfers, eSIM and visas. The commercial model is a one-time activation, then a flat fee per night on hotel bookings, never a percentage; pricing shows which plans include hotels. Sandbox credentials are issued after a short kick-off call, with no commitment to start, and a plan can be upgraded later by paying only the difference, with the integration left intact. The endpoint-by-endpoint flow is in our hotel API integration guide and the API documentation.
Final Thoughts
Choose the provider type before the provider. A multi-product API gives you hotels plus other travel products through one integration. A bedbank gives you wholesale rates from one source. An OTA partner API gives you content and commission. A switch or bring-your-own-contract aggregator connects you to contracts you already hold.
Then test. Take a free key or sandbox from two or three providers, search your own top destinations, and compare coverage, content, refund rules and final prices side by side.
