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Show HN: Kinsona – a hotel booking site that shows its cut on every booking

https://kinsona.com/

Hotel for one night in Livonia, Michigan, and the three lines: room $54.53, platform fee $0.50, Kinsona fee $1.36. $1.86 is all Kinsona earns. This was a live test booking that got cancelled to ensure booking plumbing is working and refunds hit credit card. Still waiting for my first $1.86 as we refund everything within free cancellation window. My background is in healthcare pricing and it has taught me a lot about prices no one can see.

I created Kinsona (https://kinsona.com/) with an idea of showing hotel guests what the room costs, inclusive of taxes and payment processing, and Kinsona fees as itemized. Essentially, Cost-Plus model, where we charge a transparent fee at checkout. We do not know of any booking site that shows its cut. No packages to sell. Just hotels.

I built it all alone (TanStack, Stripe) and I want to put this forward to see if this community can provide honest feedback on the experience and the idea.

I will appreciate if you can search your favorite hotel and compare the results with where you book your hotels today and tear down our pricing and interface. Would love your feedback on transparent Cost-Plus receipt.

Thanks All.

( 1 comment | on HN )
Re:Show HN: Kinsona – a hotel booking site that shows its cu... by bradknowles on Monday November 09, 2026 @10:20PM (#50435666)
Is there a way to try out the system, without actually doing the booking? And without joining?

I’m curious, but I’m not going to join yet another service just to try it out and see that I don’t like it.

It seems to me like you should integrate the booking and joining phases. The process of doing the booking also automatically signs you up as a member.