Getting started as an owner

Three ways to start

1. Sign up directly at bukavilla.com. You'll go through the onboarding wizard from a blank slate.
2. Claim a preview listing. If Bukavilla has built a preview of your villa from a public source (like an existing Airbnb listing), you'll receive a link of the form /p/<token>. Click it, sign in, and the listing becomes yours to edit and publish.
3. Migrate from Airbnb. During onboarding, paste your Airbnb URL and Bukavilla will pull in title, description, photos, and amenities so you don't start from scratch. You'll review and edit everything before publishing.

The onboarding wizard

Onboarding walks you through the settings every villa needs:

• Villa name — the public name on your listing
• Calendar / availability — block dates that aren't bookable, optionally connect an iCal feed from Airbnb / VRBO / Booking
• Booking rules — minimum stay, instant book settings, lead-time requirements
• Refund policy — pick one of: flexible, moderate, strict, super strict
• Payment methods — pick from a wide catalog based on your market: card processors (Stripe globally, DOKU for Indonesia, others), local payment methods (GoPay, OVO, PromptPay, UPI, PIX, SPEI, SEPA, Zelle, Venmo, M-Pesa, and more), international transfers (Wise, PayPal, Revolut, bank transfer), or self-arranged payment where the guest pays you directly through the message thread
• Pricing — base nightly price, seasonal multipliers
• Review and publish

You can step away and come back; your draft is preserved.

Going live

Once you've completed onboarding, your villa publishes to bukavilla.com and gets a branded subdomain at <yourvilla>.bukavilla.com. You can share the subdomain on social, in email, in QR codes — it's your direct-booking page.

What Bukavilla does and doesn't do

Bukavilla is platform-only. We:

• Host your listing and handle the booking flow
• Provide messaging, calendar, pricing, and inbox tools
• Offer auto-translation and AI draft replies
• Sync availability via iCal in both directions

We don't:

• Hold your money — guests pay you directly through whatever method you both pick
• Issue payouts (your payment processor does, or with self-arranged payments the funds arrive directly)
• Issue tax forms — that's between you, your payment processor, and your local tax authority
• Take a commission on bookings (0%)
• Guarantee transactions or mediate disputes between you and the guest

What it costs

• First 3 confirmed bookings on every villa are free. No subscription required during this period.
• After that, a monthly subscription based on your average daily rate (ADR): see the pricing page for the full tier ladder.
• Same flat fee per villa, whether you list one or twenty — no bundle discounts, no commission.

You only pay payment processor fees on bookings (Stripe is typically around 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction; DOKU varies). Bukavilla itself takes 0% of the booking amount.