Guests book on the platform because your site can't take the booking.
Lexaily is a plugin for the WordPress site you already own. It lets that site do the three things a guest expects. Show which dates are genuinely open. Take the card right there. The confirmation email goes out from your own address instead of a platform's. Open dates and prices come straight out of your property management system (PMS), so the website and the calendar can't disagree. It reads Track and Barefoot today, and cards run on SlimCD. If you don't run a PMS yet, this is the wrong first step, and I'd rather say that now. It's built and end-to-end tested, and I'm opening early access to a first group of operators.
I build it myself. It runs on client sites including Tahoe Signature Properties, Big Bear and Luxury Getaways.
A "book now" button that emails you is a contact form
A guest who clicks "book" expects the dates on screen to be current and the card form to take the card. Then a confirmation, straight away. That's what the platforms are actually selling. The roughly 15% that sits between what the guest pays and what you keep is the fee for that plumbing, and most independent sites don't have it. So the guest goes back to the platform and books there.
What most owners have is a contact form behind a "book now" button, or a PMS widget in an iframe that ignores the theme. Some run a separate booking site with its own calendar. It drifts out of sync until two guests hold the same week. The fix is a site that reads availability out of the system your team already works in, then writes the booking back into it.
Take an $1,800 week. Fifteen percent of it is $270. Thirty of those a year on one property is $8,100 to the platform. Book that same week on your own site and you still pay the card processor its roughly 3%, about $54. You keep the other $216. Across those thirty weeks that's roughly $6,500 a year that used to be the platform's. That's the whole business case, and it's arithmetic, not a forecast.
Six pieces of plumbing, running on your own pages in your own theme
Everything below is in the plugin now; the search-to-payment path is what has been run end to end. More PMS adapters are still ahead. The FAQ says which ones exist today.
Search and results
Date + guest search with filters. Result cards carry photo carousels and urgency badges. When a week is full the empty state says "nothing open that week," instead of spinning. All of it renders on your own pages, styled by your theme's CSS.
A page per property
Gallery with lightbox, amenity list, review cards, availability calendar, rate display. Generated for each property from PMS data, each at its own URL.
A checkout that takes the card
Quote → confirm → card → done. Card processing runs on the SlimCD gateway, and the booking is written back to the PMS. The calendar your team sees is the calendar the site sells from.
The PMS stays in charge
Availability, rates and property data flow out of the PMS. Track and Barefoot adapters today. Your team keeps working where it works now, and the site follows.
Guest email from your domain
Confirmation and scheduled reminder emails go out on their own, from your address rather than a platform's. iCal export keeps outside calendars in step.
The conversion details
Favorites and wishlists for returning shoppers. Conversion tracking shows which page produced the booking, and there's a search widget that drops into any sidebar.
Install the plugin on WordPress, or let me host the whole site
The engine underneath is identical either way: same PMS sync, same checkout. Only where it lives changes.
On your existing WordPress site
- Booking pages generated inside the theme you already run
- You keep your domain, your SEO and your content; Lexaily adds the plumbing
- You install it and paste PMS + payment credentials into a settings screen
- Best if WordPress is already your home and you have someone who can update a plugin
A complete hosted booking site, with no WordPress at all
- Search, property pages and checkout, running on their own with no CMS underneath
- For operators on Squarespace, Wix, a static site, or no site at all who don't want to adopt WordPress just to book direct
- Runs the same templates and PMS mapping as the plugin
- Honest status: it's built as a working standalone site and has been exercised against real PMS data. I haven't opened it as a hosted product yet. Say "standalone" in the note below and you're first in line when I do
Three steps either way, and no rebuild
Install it, or let me host it
On WordPress it's a standard plugin install on the site you already have. No migration, no new theme. Booking pages get created inside the theme you're running. If you're not on WordPress, the standalone version runs on my end and you point a domain at it.
Connect PMS and payments
In the settings screen, point it at your Track or Barefoot account and paste your SlimCD credentials. Properties, rates and availability populate from there.
Send guests to your own site
Past guests, your email list, the QR sign on the fridge. Every one of those bookings lands on your site now, and the platform's cut stays with you.
Who it's for
Operators and small property managers on a professional PMS who already get asked "can we book direct?" and need the machinery to say yes. If you're running one to three doors without a PMS, Lexaily is the wrong first step. Start with the Direct Booking Launch Kit. It covers what has to happen before any software: collecting guest emails within the platforms' rules, the four emails that bring past guests back, and the discount math that keeps a direct deal profitable. It also compares the simpler booking setups, from a single booking link up to a full engine. Lexaily is that full engine, and it comes at the end of that path.
I built it because I needed it.
I'm Eric. For close to a decade, from the mid 2000s into the 2010s, I took a crew into Whistler every November. We deep cleaned more than 40 rental properties over two to three weeks, from condos to large homes. Every one of them had been professionally cleaned between guests all year. We were there for what those cleans missed.
Alongside that, I walked properties before guest arrival to confirm they were ready. That was steady work through my years at EMR Vacation Rentals, the company I founded in 2004 and sold to my business partner Blake MacKenzie in 2012. He runs it today and we still work together. So I have spent a long time standing in rentals somebody else had already called clean, writing down what was wrong with them.
I would rather you download a free file and find out whether it fits than take my word for any of this.
Leave an email. I'll reply myself.
The reply is about a demo on your own property data: your rates and your calendar, rather than a sample site. There's no public release date yet, and I'd rather say so than guess.
Which PMS platforms does it support?
Track and Barefoot adapters are built. The integration layer is designed so another adapter is a bounded job rather than a rewrite, though I only build them in the order operators ask for them. If you're on something else, name it in the note above. Adapter priority follows early-access demand.
Can I install it today?
Not from a public download yet. It's built and end-to-end tested; early access starts with a demo on your own property data, and what your stack surfaces gets fixed before anyone else's does.
What does it cost?
There's no public price yet. That's what early access means, and I'd rather say so than post a number I'll change. The shape of it: one flat license fee rather than a cut of your bookings, so a $40,000 month costs you exactly what a $4,000 month costs you. You'll get the exact figure in writing before you commit to anything. If it doesn't beat what the platform takes off you, don't buy it.
I'm not on WordPress. Can I still use it?
Yes. That's the standalone option: the whole booking site hosted by me, no CMS underneath, and you point a domain at it. It runs the same templates and PMS mapping as the plugin, and it works against real PMS data. I haven't opened it as a hosted product yet. Write "standalone" in the note above and you'll be first in when I do.
Do I need a developer?
For the plugin: if you can install a WordPress plugin and paste API credentials into a settings screen, you can run Lexaily. The standalone site has nothing to install. If you'd rather have it set up for you either way, that's a conversation with me.