Compare Keydesk and Q-Book on what each costs at your booking volume, how far each reaches into your channels, and the terms you agree to. Six of the thirteen rows below favour Q-Book.
Disclosure: this page is published by Keydesk, a Q-Book alternative. Q-Book and Queensborough Group are not affiliated with Keydesk. Every claim about Q-Book is taken from its own public pages on and linked below. Q-Book publishes its prices excluding VAT, and we quote them the same way.
A decision, not a leaderboard
One system for every kind of stay, or one built for outdoor stays.
Q-Book
An established booking system and channel manager for hotels, B&Bs, cottages and campsites alike, with dynamic pricing, offers, guest messaging and optional websites. A small monthly fee, then a fee on every booking.
Broad, and cheap to start
Keydesk
Booking software for outdoor accommodation only, at one flat £49 per site with instalments, returning-guest recognition and a full Pitchup API integration. No per-booking fee, no setup fee and no condition on your front page.
Flat cost as bookings grow
No points are awarded for a roadmap item. If a required connection is not live and demonstrated, treat it as unavailable.
Job by job
What each one does, on the evidence.
Each row states what Q-Book’s own pages claimed on 28 September 2026, what Keydesk currently does, and which product the row favours. Where it favours them, we say so.
Pricing model
What grows the bill: your pitches, your bookings, or neither?
Depends on you
Q-Book
One campsite plan at £14.99 a month plus VAT for unlimited pitches and units, then 20p for each pitch booking and 50p for each caravan or glamping booking. A one-off, non-refundable enrolment fee of £99 plus VAT covers setup. Card payments add £3 a month plus VAT and 10p per Stripe transaction, or 25p on a merchant account. All prices exclude VAT. No contract.
£49 per month, per site, flat, billed monthly. No per-booking fee, no per-unit fee, no setup fee and no Keydesk charge on card payments, so the bill is the same in a quiet April as in a full August. Keydesk is not VAT registered, so £49 is the whole price.
Channel connections
Which channels are connected, and do prices travel as well as dates?
Q-Book
Q-Book
Included in the price, and broad. Its campsite pages name Pitchup, Hipcamp, Campsites.co.uk, Glampsites.co.uk, CL Booking, Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, Vrbo, Cottages.com and Google. Its Pitchup page says availability, pricing and bookings update in real time, and its Hipcamp page says pricing and availability update automatically. Its FAQ describes a mixture of API and two-way iCal connections without saying which is which, and CL Booking uses availability feeds.
Included in the £49. Two-way calendar sync connects each unit to Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Pitchup, Hipcamp, Agoda or any channel publishing a feed, with watch-only mode before a feed is allowed to block. Pitchup has a full two-way API integration that publishes availability, rates, stay rules and extras and returns complete bookings. Rates and listing content are not pushed to any channel other than Pitchup.
Setting and moving prices
Will the system move prices for you, and can you run offers?
Q-Book
Q-Book
Occupancy-based dynamic pricing is included, raising rates as demand rises and lowering them when it softens, alongside your own daily, seasonal, bank-holiday and minimum-stay rules. Special offers in pounds or percent, package deals such as three nights for the price of two, promotional codes, gift vouchers, and a Stay and Save pop-up offering a code to a guest about to leave the booking page.
Operator-set nightly and fixed-break pricing, per-pitch or per-person, with occupancy rules, restrictions by arrival day and bulk edits across whole date ranges, previewed before anything is applied. Keydesk does not move your prices on demand, and it has no promo codes, discounts or gift vouchers.
Deposits, balances and payment plans
How flexibly can guests pay, and what does taking the money cost you?
Keydesk
Q-Book
Automatic deposits and balances through Stripe or a merchant account such as Worldpay, Elavon or FirstData, including phone payments, plus payment links that update the balance when paid, and bank transfer if you prefer. Its self-catering FAQ describes security deposits you can refund after the stay. Payment charges are £3 plus VAT a month and 10p per Stripe transaction, or 25p per merchant transaction, with secure card storage at 20p each.
Stripe, with deposit or payment in full, automatic balance collection from a saved card under separate, explicit guest consent, and weekly, fortnightly or monthly instalments with operator-set minimums. Payment links go by email or text with optional auto-cancel, and guests get a Manage Payments area. Keydesk adds nothing to Stripe’s fees. Stripe is the only gateway, and security deposits are not offered.
Talking to guests
Where do guest messages live, and what goes out on its own?
Q-Book
Q-Book
Free guest chat brings messages from direct bookings, Pitchup, Campsites.co.uk, Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia into one place, with automatic replies, scheduled messages and announcements to guests arriving, staying or leaving. Booking, pre-arrival and post-stay emails are customisable, including a scheduled email reminding guests to book again the following year.
Booking confirmations, balance reminders, payment links by email or text, secure account-free links that collect party members, child ages and vehicles, and abandoned-booking recovery, with an account-wide switch to pause guest communication. There is no shared inbox for messages arriving from channels, and no marketing campaigns.
Knowing who has stayed before
Does the system recognise a returning guest, and what can you do with it?
Keydesk
Q-Book
Staff can add a guest to regular clients from the overview page, and every booking carries a timeline of moves, price and occupancy changes, payments and emails. Its public pages do not describe customer segments, duplicate detection or lifetime value.
A customer directory with account-wide search, returning-customer badges, visit counts and lifetime value, repeat and high-value segments, tags, account-wide duplicate detection and CSV export. Keydesk recognises returning guests but does not apply loyalty discounts.
The guest booking journey
What do guests see when they book, and on whose website?
Q-Book
Q-Book
Guests search dates first, then filter available pitches by type and occupancy, with alternatives shown if their first choice is taken. You can add a site map showing where each pitch, caravan or lodge sits, and Meta Pixel or Google tags to track bookings. It works with your existing website, or Q-Book will build one from £13 a month plus VAT on a minimum 12-month contract.
Keydesk Direct is hosted for you at your own Keydesk address, in the form yourpark.keydesk.co.uk, and linked from a Book Now button on your site. Live availability and pricing, mobile checkout, deposit or full payment, extras and abandoned-booking recovery. There is no site map, no embeddable widget and no website product.
The front-page condition
Can you place the booking button on your website as you choose?
Keydesk
Q-Book
Its terms state that Q-Book must be the sole booking system integrated prominently on your website’s front page within one month of activation, or it will be deactivated, and that removing it afterwards may deactivate it immediately. They add that once the system is deactivated, all booking data is permanently deleted.
No placement condition. You link to Keydesk Direct wherever suits your site, and you can run it beside your old system while you move across. Taking a button down does not switch anything off or delete anything.
Leaving, and your data
If you move on, what do you take with you?
Keydesk
Q-Book
Month to month with no long-term contract. Notice must go through its support ticket system, and subscription payments taken before a valid cancellation are not refunded. Its terms make backing up booking data the account holder’s job, say a closed account’s booking data may be permanently removed, and invite you to ask about export options before services end. Returning may mean new setup charges.
Monthly billing, no notice period, and no exit or export fee. You can export bookings, the booking ledger and your customer directory to CSV yourself at any time, not only when you leave.
Setup and support
Who helps you move, and who picks up the phone?
Depends on you
Q-Book
A one-off £99 plus VAT enrolment fee covers setup and a training session, and it says it can usually import existing bookings from most systems. A UK phone line from 9.30am to 5pm on weekdays, and a personal account manager listed on its plans. Its fair usage policy keeps the phone for urgent issues, moves repeated calls to support tickets, and aims to answer tickets within one business day.
No setup, migration or training fee. Guided onboarding covers accommodation, pricing and booking rules, and we help bring existing and future-dated bookings across, with direct access to the founder and product team. There is no published phone line.
Beyond the booking
Do you want the website, till and door locks from the same supplier?
Q-Book
Q-Book
Optional websites from £13 a month, EPOS from £25 a month with an ICR Touch link, smart door locks and heating control at £5 a month per device, automatic visitor levy calculation including Edinburgh’s, a Making Tax Digital report, a reviews hub, and a guest welcome app, Q-Guest, which its campsite page lists as coming soon.
None of these. Keydesk is the booking system, the calendar, the payments and the guest records, and it is designed to sit alongside your own website, till and accounts package rather than replace them.
Who it is built for
Is it one system for every kind of stay, or one kind done deeply?
Depends on you
Q-Book
One system for hotels, B&Bs, cottages, apartments, campsites, glamping sites, caravan parks and fisheries. Its Pitch Builder records pitch size, dimensions, occupancy and restrictions, and linked units let you sell three shepherd huts as a group or one at a time.
Outdoor accommodation only. Guests book a pitch grade with its facilities and rules attached, prices can be per pitch or per person, fixed breaks can be priced by arrival day, such as three nights from Friday or four from Monday, and party members, child ages and vehicles are collected before arrival. No rooms and no B&B.
Maturity and operating proof
How much installed-base evidence does your decision need?
Q-Book
Q-Book
Queensborough Group, based in Bolton, says it has been in business since 1997 and is working for over 22,000 UK businesses. That figure is not broken down by type, and Q-Book serves hotels, B&Bs and cottages as well as campsites. Its testimonials page carries named Google reviews that single out its support team and account managers.
A newer product with no equivalent installed base and no published case study yet. It offers direct founder and product access with hands-on onboarding instead. If a long operating record is a requirement rather than a preference, this row should weigh heavily.
The number that actually decides it
Q-Book is priced by the booking. Count yours.
Q-Book does not charge by the pitch. It charges a small monthly fee and then a fee on each booking, so the comparison with a flat £49 turns on two things: how many bookings you take in a year, and whether you can reclaim VAT.
What a Q-Book year is made of
Taking card payments online, which is the like-for-like setup, these are the published charges for a campsite or glamping site. Every one of them is quoted excluding VAT.
£588, which is £49 a month, whatever you take. Nothing is added per booking, per pitch or per card payment, there is no setup fee, and no VAT is added because Keydesk is not currently VAT registered.
Not sure how many bookings you take? Multiply your pitches by the nights you are open and your occupancy, then divide by the average stay. A 30-pitch site open for 210 nights at 50% occupancy, with three-night stays, takes about 1,050 bookings a year.
A typical year
A fee per booking, against a price per site.
Ongoing annual cost after Q-Book’s enrolment year, taking card payments through Stripe. The two Q-Book columns are the same bill: the first is what it costs if you reclaim VAT, the second if you cannot.
Illustrative annual software cost by booking volume, using published prices on 28 September 2026
Your site
Bookings a year
Q-Book, VAT reclaimed
Q-Book, VAT paid
Keydesk
Cheaper
Five glamping pods
250 glamping
£366
£439
£588
Q-Book
Small touring site
500 pitch
£366
£439
£588
Q-Book
30-pitch touring park
1,050 pitch
£531
£637
£588
Depends on VAT
12 glamping units
700 glamping
£636
£763
£588
Keydesk
Touring park with hire caravans
1,200 pitch, 400 caravan
£816
£979
£588
Keydesk
60-pitch touring park
2,100 pitch
£846
£1,015
£588
Keydesk
Where the line falls
If you reclaim VAT, Q-Book costs less until about 1,240 pitch bookings or 620 caravan and glamping bookings a year. If you cannot, the line drops to about 910 pitch bookings or 460 caravan and glamping bookings, because VAT is added to every Q-Book charge and none is added to Keydesk. In your first year, Q-Book’s £99 enrolment fee plus VAT pulls each line lower still. Below the line, Q-Book is the cheaper product, and the smaller your site the wider its lead.
What this table assumes
One Stripe card payment per booking. A deposit and a separate balance payment is two transactions, so add 10p per booking, or 25p per transaction on a merchant account. Stripe’s own processing fees apply to both products and are left out, as are Q-Book’s optional extras: a website from £13 a month, EPOS from £25, card storage at 20p and smart devices at £5 each.
Two things to confirm with Q-Book. First, whether the per-booking fee applies to bookings arriving from Pitchup and other channels as well as your own website. Second, which rate applies to your units: its pricing page charges 50p for caravan and glamping bookings, while its overview page says campsites and glamping sites are charged 20p per booking.
Read the terms before you switch
Three clauses worth reading twice.
Q-Book’s promise of no contracts is accurate: it runs month to month. None of what follows is unusual for hosted software, but these three clauses in its published terms shape how you switch to a booking system, how you run it and how you leave it.
It must be the only booking system on your front page
Q-Book must be the sole booking system integrated prominently on your website’s front page within one month of activation, or it is deactivated. Removing it later may deactivate it immediately, and deactivation permanently deletes booking data.
Keydesk
No placement condition. Link to Keydesk Direct wherever you like, and run it beside your old system while you move across.
Backing up your booking data is your job
The account holder must back up booking data before cancellation or closure. A closed account’s booking system, booking data, website, email and integrations may be permanently removed, and you are asked to get in touch about export options before your services end.
Keydesk
Export bookings, the booking ledger and customer records to CSV yourself, whenever you like, with no fee.
How you pay, and how you stop
Subscriptions are collected only by Direct Debit. Notice goes through the support ticket system, payments taken before a valid cancellation are not refunded, a failed Direct Debit payment costs £25 plus VAT, and cancelling the Direct Debit removes access to the booking system immediately.
Keydesk
Billed monthly, with no notice period and no exit fee.
We have summarised these clauses, not quoted them in full. Read Q-Book’s terms yourself before you sign up, and ask it to confirm in writing how you would export your bookings and guest records if you ever leave.
If most of the left-hand column describes you, Q-Book is the better answer and we would rather you bought it than churned off us in month three.
Choose Q-Book if
You take fewer than about 900 to 1,240 pitch bookings a year, depending on VAT
You want dynamic pricing, promo codes and gift vouchers built in
Prices, not just dates, need to reach Hipcamp or Booking.com
You want one inbox for direct and channel guest messages
You run B&B rooms, cottages or a fishery alongside the site
You want a website, EPOS link or smart locks from one supplier
You bank with Worldpay or Elavon, or take security deposits
You need a visitor levy calculated on every booking
Choose Keydesk if
You take enough bookings that a fee on each one adds up
You want one flat price with no setup fee and no VAT on top
Guests should be able to pay in weekly or monthly instalments
You want to export your own data whenever you like
You would rather not commit your front page to one supplier
Recognising returning guests and their lifetime value matters
You run outdoor accommodation only and want software built for it
Where Keydesk does not fit
The rows we lose, stated plainly.
Q-Book does more than Keydesk, for more kinds of business, and for a small site it costs less. We have chosen to do fewer things for outdoor accommodation only, and for plenty of sites that is the wrong trade.
A lower cost below about 900 to 1,240 pitch bookings a year
Prices, not just dates, pushed to more channels than Pitchup
Dynamic pricing, promo codes, special offers and gift vouchers
One inbox for direct and channel messages, and scheduled rebooking emails
A website, an EPOS link, smart locks and visitor levy calculation
Merchant accounts other than Stripe, and security deposits
A UK phone line and a named account manager
In business since 1997, with over 22,000 UK businesses
Test both properly
Give each supplier the same seven jobs.
Feature lists do not settle this. Watching both systems attempt your actual work does, and it exposes the gap between what is live and what is described.
Task 01
Build your actual inventory, including the awkward pitch
Task 02
Price a bank holiday weekend with your real restrictions
Task 03
Take a Pitchup booking and show exactly what arrives with it
Task 04
Collect a deposit and show the balance, due date and what happens on a failed card
Task 05
Show on a sample invoice which bookings carry a per-booking fee
Task 06
Export every booking and guest record to a file you keep
Task 07
Walk through how you would cancel, and what happens to your data
Common questions
Keydesk vs Q-Book FAQ
How much does Q-Book cost for a campsite?
Q-Book publishes one plan for campsites, caravan parks and glamping sites: £14.99 a month plus VAT for unlimited pitches and units, then 20p for each pitch booking and 50p for each caravan or glamping booking. A one-off, non-refundable enrolment fee of £99 plus VAT covers setup. Taking card payments through Q-Book adds £3 a month plus VAT and 10p per Stripe transaction, or 25p per transaction on a merchant account. All of its prices exclude VAT, and there is no contract. Keydesk is £49 a month, per site, with no per-booking fee, no setup fee and no VAT added.
Is Q-Book free?
Not any more. Q-Book’s own site says that Q-Book Free is no longer available, and its campsite plan is £14.99 a month plus VAT with a fee on each booking. Keydesk has no free plan either. You can create an account and set up your accommodation, pricing and booking rules at no cost, then pay £49 a month once you take live bookings.
Is Keydesk cheaper than Q-Book?
For most smaller sites, no. Q-Book charges by the booking rather than by the pitch, so what matters is how many bookings you take in a year. If you can reclaim VAT and take card payments through Stripe, Q-Book costs less until about 1,240 pitch bookings, or about 620 caravan and glamping bookings, a year. If you cannot reclaim VAT, Keydesk becomes cheaper from about 910 pitch bookings or 460 caravan and glamping bookings. A small touring site or a handful of pods will almost always pay less with Q-Book.
Does Q-Book charge commission?
Not a percentage. Q-Book says it takes no commission on your bookings, and hotels and B&Bs pay nothing on direct bookings. Campsites and glamping sites pay a flat fee per booking instead, which its pricing page sets at 20p per pitch booking and 50p per caravan or glamping booking. Its pages do not say whether that fee also applies to bookings arriving from channels such as Pitchup, so ask. Keydesk charges no fee per booking of any kind.
Which has better channel connections, Keydesk or Q-Book?
Q-Book, on the breadth it describes. Its channel manager is included in the price and names Pitchup, Hipcamp, Campsites.co.uk, Glampsites.co.uk, CL Booking, Booking.com, Airbnb, Vrbo, Expedia and Cottages.com, and its pages say pricing as well as availability updates on Pitchup and Hipcamp. Its FAQ describes a mixture of API and two-way iCal connections, so ask which applies to each channel you use. Keydesk publishes rates, stay rules and extras to Pitchup through a full API integration, and keeps availability in step with every other channel through two-way calendar sync, which carries dates but not prices.
Does Q-Book have dynamic pricing? Does Keydesk?
Q-Book does, and includes it in the price. It monitors occupancy and demand and adjusts rates on your website and connected channels, alongside your own seasonal and event pricing. Keydesk does not. You set nightly, per-person and fixed-break prices yourself, and change whole date ranges at once with a preview before anything is applied. If you want your prices moved for you, Q-Book is the better answer today.
Can I leave Q-Book and take my booking data with me?
Its terms put that responsibility on you. They state that the account holder must back up booking data before cancellation or closure, that booking data may be permanently removed once an account is closed, and that you should contact Q-Book before your services end if you need help exporting. Notice has to go through its support ticket system. In Keydesk you can export bookings, the booking ledger and customer records to CSV yourself at any time, and there is no exit or export fee.
Can I run Q-Book alongside another booking system?
Not on your front page for long. Q-Book’s terms require it to be the sole booking system integrated prominently on your website’s front page within one month of activation, or it will be deactivated, and they state that deactivation permanently deletes booking data. Keydesk has no placement condition, so you can link to it alongside your current system while you move bookings across.
I run B&B rooms or holiday cottages as well as a campsite. Which suits me?
Q-Book. It is built for hotels, B&Bs, cottages, apartments and campsites in one system. Keydesk is built for outdoor accommodation only: pitches, touring, static caravans, lodges and glamping. If rooms or cottages are a real part of your business, that decides it.
What does Keydesk do better?
One flat price that does not grow with your bookings, no setup fee and nothing added to card payments. Weekly, fortnightly or monthly instalment plans with automatic balance collection under explicit guest consent, which Q-Book’s public pages do not describe. Returning-guest recognition with lifetime value, segments and duplicate detection. Exports you can run yourself at any time, and no condition on where the booking button sits on your website. And a product built for outdoor accommodation alone. It is newer and narrower than Q-Book, and that is the trade.
Who makes Q-Book?
Queensborough Group, based in Bolton. Its site says it has been in business since 1997 and is working for over 22,000 UK businesses, and Q-Book itself serves hotels, B&Bs, self-catering, campsites and fisheries. Alongside Q-Book it offers websites, EPOS, smart locks and heating control, and a reservation platform at Hotels.uk.com.
Is this an independent comparison?
No. This page is written and published by Keydesk, a Q-Book alternative. To keep that conflict visible, every Q-Book statement is taken from its own public pages on 28 September 2026 and linked, six of the thirteen rows conclude in Q-Book’s favour, and no review scores or unsourced competitor gaps are used.
Evidence register
Everything above, sourced and dated.
Each Q-Book claim on this page comes from one of these pages, read on 28 September 2026. Products change. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Create your account today. £49/month per site, billed monthly, with no long-term contract.
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