How it works

Set up once, then take bookings of your own

1Melo is designed to slot in beside the listings you already run. You do not migrate anything, and you do not have to stop using the marketplaces to start taking direct bookings.

1. Add your property

Set up the listing details, stay rules and nightly rates once. Each property gets its own direct booking page.

2. Connect your calendars

Paste the iCal feed from each marketplace you list on, and publish 1Melo’s own feed back to them.

3. Accept direct bookings

Choose how guests reach you: publish a 1Melo Direct Listing, or embed the booking form on a website you already have. Both use the property you just set up.

1. Add your property

Start with the things a guest needs to know and the rules you want enforced: where the property is, how many it sleeps, when check-in and check-out happen, and the shortest and longest stay you will take.

Then set your pricing. There is a base nightly rate, and on top of it you can add seasonal rates for the periods that price differently and single-date overrides for the nights that are exceptions. Cleaning fees, pet fees and taxes go in once and are applied to every quote from then on, itemised so a guest can see exactly what they are paying for.

2. Connect your calendars

This is the step that keeps you out of trouble, and it works in both directions.

Inbound: every major marketplace publishes an iCal feed of your reserved dates. You copy that address into 1Melo once per listing, and 1Melo fetches it on a schedule from then on. Those dates then block your direct booking page automatically.

Outbound: 1Melo publishes an iCal feed of its own, covering direct bookings, the events it imported and any nights you blocked by hand. You paste that address into each marketplace so a direct booking closes those dates everywhere else.

Be realistic about timing. iCal is a polling format: each platform fetches the other side on its own schedule, so changes travel in minutes to hours rather than instantly. Nobody using iCal — including us — can honestly promise real-time sync. What 1Melo does guarantee is that a direct booking re-checks availability inside the booking transaction, so it cannot double-book dates it can already see.

3. Accept direct bookings

Share your booking page directly, or embed the booking form into a site you already run. A guest picks dates on a calendar that only shows what is genuinely open, sees an itemised quote, enters their details, accepts your rental terms if you have set any, and books.

If you have connected PayPal, they can pay at that moment. If you have not, the booking is recorded and you settle payment however you do today.

From there it is yours to run: the reservation appears in your list, the dates close on your calendar and go out on your feed, a confirmation email goes to the guest, and a message thread opens so you can send arrival instructions without waiting to be asked.

What happens after a booking

The dates are held immediately and published on your outbound feed.
The guest gets a confirmation page and an email they can return to.
A conversation opens against the booking, ready for you to write first.
The exact charges the guest agreed to are stored and never recalculated.
You can confirm, cancel or complete the stay, and refund if you took payment.

Nothing is deleted

Cancelling releases the dates without erasing the record. What a guest was quoted stays answerable long after the stay.

Guest data stays yours

Contact details live on your own authenticated screens. The public booking and messaging pages deliberately publish far less.

Built for teams too

Add the people who help you run the place, each with only the access their job needs — enforced on the server, not merely hidden.

Get Started More on calendar sync

Still weighing it up?

Read how owners think about direct bookings before committing.

Read the guides

Keep reading

How direct booking works in 1Melo — the booking page, the embeddable form and what a guest sees.

How calendar synchronization works — what iCal does well, and what it genuinely cannot do.

How guest messaging works — the shared inbox and the guest's own secure page.

The full FAQ — payments, marketplaces, setup and pricing.