The Spafindo host guide
Everything a spa owner needs to know before, during and after listing a private suite — the real setup steps, how the money moves and what makes a listing book. Written for the first hosts, in plain language.
Read this first
Thirty minutes, six steps, one listing
Spafindo lists entire private spa & sauna suites that guests book by the hour and pay for in advance. Your listing is built in a six-step wizard inside your host portal: Business, Suite, Photos, Availability, Payouts and Review. All five setup steps — payouts included — must be complete before you can submit; the sixth is the review itself.
Applying takes a minute — sign in or create an account, then give us the name of your spa, its town, the area and a short description. That creates a draft listing only you can see. Nothing is public until you submit it and our team approves it.
You can leave the wizard at any point and come back; every step saves on its own. Most hosts finish in one sitting of about thirty minutes, plus the five minutes Stripe needs for payouts, which is part of the setup and not an afterthought.
Before you apply
Have these ready
You can add everything later, but the listing goes live sooner when you sit down with the following at hand.
A suite that is truly private
One party, one suite, a door that closes. No shared pools, circuits or changing rooms during a booking — that is the Spafindo standard and the first thing we check.
Photos of the space
Four to ten landscape photos, warm light, nobody in frame, at least 1,600 px wide. The cover shows the suite itself — sauna, water and lounge in one shot if you can.
Your prices per session length
A price for 90 minutes at least, for the whole suite, VAT included. Prices for 60, 120, 150 and 180 minutes if you offer them.
Opening hours and a cleaning buffer
When guests may start a session on each weekday, and how many minutes you need to reset the suite between two bookings.
Business and contact details
The name of the business, its street address, a phone that is answered and a contact email — new bookings and cancellations are sent there.
Documents for the visit
Public-liability insurance and your hot-water maintenance paperwork (Real Decreto 487/2022). We visit in person before a real listing goes live.
For payouts: ID and IBAN
Stripe onboarding asks for the identity of the business representative and a bank account. It takes about five minutes and is required before your listing can be submitted for review — we don't publish a spa that can't be paid.
Add-ons you would like to sell
Cava, a second set of towels and robes, late checkout, petals — with the price you charge on site. Optional, and worth having on day one.
The setup wizard
The six steps, one by one
Each step is a form in your host portal. Save it and the stepper ticks it off. “What we ask” is what the form contains; the tips are what we have seen make a difference.
Step 1 · Business
Business details
What we ask
Spa or venue name, town, street address, contact phone, contact email and your time zone — mainland Spain or the Canary Islands. We deliberately do not ask for your own website: it is never shown on your listing, because guests book and pay through Spafindo.
Why it matters
The name and town appear on your listing card. The address is shown to guests only in their booking confirmation, with a directions link. The contact email receives every operational notice — new bookings, cancellations, payout notes — so use one somebody reads daily.
Tips
- Use the name guests already know — the one on your door and on your Google listing.
- Give the full street address with postcode: it feeds the directions link guests tap on the day.
- Time zone matters: opening hours and every booking time follow it. Venues in the Canaries pick Atlantic/Canary.
Step 2 · Suite
Your suite: lengths, prices, buffer, guests, facilities
What we ask
A suite name and a description (40 characters minimum, aim for 120 or more). The session lengths you offer — 60, 90, 120, 150 or 180 minutes — with a price for each, in whole euros, VAT included, for the whole suite. A cleaning buffer of 0 to 60 minutes, minimum and maximum guests (1 to 8), the facilities in the suite and the languages you speak. Optional add-ons with their own price.
Why it matters
This is what guests read and pay for. The 90-minute price is your anchor: when you switch on another length, the wizard pre-fills its price from the 90-minute one, proportionally and rounded to €5 — then you edit it. The buffer keeps bookings apart so the suite is reset before the next party arrives; guests never see it.
Tips
- Price by length, not per person. The form shows the per-person equivalent at full capacity so you can sanity-check it.
- Make longer sessions slightly better value per minute — 120 minutes at a little less than 4/3 of the 90-minute price sells the upgrade.
- A 30-minute buffer suits most suites; 15 if you have two staff and a simple reset, 45 or 60 if the pool needs refilling.
- Write the description as a walk-through: the door that locks, the heat, the water, the light, what is laid out on arrival. Facts convert; adjectives don't.
- Add-ons that sell: a bottle of cava, a second set of towels and robes, a 30-minute late checkout, petals or chocolates. Name the item plainly and price it as you would on site.
Step 3 · Photos
Photos: at least 3, up to 10
What we ask
JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 8 MB each. Photos are resized on your device before upload, so phone originals go up in seconds. Star one as the cover, reorder the rest, remove what you don't want, then save. Three photos are required to submit; we recommend four to ten.
Why it matters
The cover is the whole listing card and the top of your page — it does more for bookings than any sentence. Guests scroll the gallery to see whether the privacy and the state of the suite match the promise, and we compare the photos with the room during our visit.
Tips
- Cover: the suite itself, in landscape, warm light on — sauna, water and lounge in one frame if you can.
- No people, no staged couples, no stock imagery. Guests notice, and we take them down.
- At least 1,600 px on the long side; the uploader keeps up to 2,000 px, so send the original, not a WhatsApp copy.
- Shoot at dusk or with the lamps on rather than under fluorescent light; wipe the glass and fill the pool first.
- Order the gallery like a visit: entrance, suite, sauna, water, lounge, a detail or two, the view.
Step 4 · Availability
Availability: your weekday hours
What we ask
A seven-row table, Monday to Sunday: an open/closed switch per day and opening and closing times in 30-minute steps from 06:00 to 23:30. “Copy Monday to all days” fills the week in one tap. As you save, the wizard counts the bookable start times over the next seven days.
Why it matters
Guests choose a start time inside these hours, in 30-minute steps; a session must end by your closing time and can start at the earliest one hour from now. Existing bookings — plus your buffer on both sides — and any day you close are taken out automatically. There is no separate diary to keep.
Tips
- Open the hours you can actually staff. A listing with no bookable times in the next seven days doesn't convert.
- Evenings and weekends book first; late-morning weekday slots are where the quiet hours fill.
- Closing at 23:00 with 120-minute sessions means the last start is 21:00 — set the close to when the last guest leaves.
- Holidays, maintenance, a private event: close single days from the dashboard. You can't close a past day or one that already holds a prepaid booking.
Step 5 · Payouts
Payouts with Stripe
What we ask
“Set up payouts with Stripe” opens Stripe's hosted onboarding: the business, its representative's identity and an IBAN. About five minutes. You come back to the portal and the step ticks itself off.
Why it matters
Guests pay Spafindo at booking; your share is transferred to your Stripe account and paid out to your bank by Stripe every week. This step is required: you cannot submit your listing for review, and we cannot publish it, until Stripe says your account can receive payouts. It is the one step that protects you — it means the money for a booking is already on its way to you the day a guest books.
Tips
- Have the company's NIF, the representative's ID and the IBAN at hand before you click.
- If you leave Stripe halfway, “Finish payout setup” resumes where you stopped.
- Stripe emails its own payout notices; the Payouts card on your dashboard shows whether you are connected.
Step 6 · Review
Review & submit
What we ask
A preview of the listing as guests will see it — cover, name, town, a price for every length, hours, add-ons, facilities — next to a readiness checklist: business details, suite, at least three photos, opening hours and connected payouts. All five are required; when they are ticked, “Submit for review” sends it to us.
Why it matters
Submitting puts the listing under review: you get an acknowledgement by email and our team checks photos, prices and hours within two business days, normally after visiting the suite. We either publish it — you get a “your listing is live” email with the public link — or send it back with a note that stays on your dashboard until you resubmit. Meanwhile you can keep editing; changes carry over.
Tips
- Read the preview as a guest: is the price clear, the cover convincing, the description honest?
- Once live, edits reach guests right away and are spot-checked; big changes are best mentioned to us by email.
- A listing can also be paused by our team, for instance while you renovate — existing bookings still stand.
After you're live
Your dashboard, day to day
The host portal shows your status, three figures and the next fourteen days.
Status and figures
Draft, under review, live or paused at the top; then your upcoming prepaid bookings, this month's share after commission, and occupancy over the next seven days.
Agenda
A fourteen-day agenda, day by day: start time, length, guests, add-ons and the guest's name. Prepare the suite from here.
Quick actions
Edit the listing, change hours, manage photos, open your public page, close a day — each one jumps to the right wizard step.
Closing a day
Block a whole day for holidays, maintenance or a private event and re-open it with one click. Days with a prepaid booking stay open.
Guests and the address
Guests receive your address, a directions link and a “Contact venue” email button in their confirmation and booking page. Answer within a few hours — most questions are about parking and arrival.
Showcase listings
While Spafindo launches, the demo suites on the site are showcase listings — visible, marked as such, not bookable and kept out of search engines. Your listing is a real one: live prices, live availability, prepaid bookings.
Money
Commission, payouts, cancellations and refunds
Commission
Spafindo earns a commission on each paid booking — 17.5% of the booking total by default (session plus add-ons). The prices you set are VAT-inclusive; the commission itself carries 21% VAT. Example: a €145 booking carries a €25.38 commission and leaves €119.62 to you. Your dashboard shows the rate that applies to your venue.
Payouts
Card payments are split at the moment of booking: your share is transferred to your connected Stripe account and Stripe pays it out to your bank every week. No invoices to chase, no waiting for the guest to arrive.
Gift vouchers
Guests may pay part or all of a booking with a Spafindo gift voucher. The voucher-covered share can't travel through Stripe with the card payment, so Spafindo settles it to you separately and emails you a “payout sent” note when it does.
Cancellations
Guests can cancel free of charge more than 24 hours before the start and get a full refund; the slot is released for others. Inside the final 24 hours nothing is refunded — the booking stands and so does your share, which protects the time you set aside.
Refunds
A refund goes back the way it came: the card part to the card, the voucher part onto the voucher. If you or Spafindo cancel a booking — for a breakdown, say — the guest is always refunded in full and your share of that booking is reversed. Tell us as early as you can.
Taxes and invoicing
You supply the session; Spafindo collects the guest's prepayment in its own name and passes on your share, and invoices you the commission with its 21% VAT. Whether you invoice the guest or Spafindo, and how you book the platform's share and the voucher settlements, depends on your setup — ask your gestor. We keep the numbers straightforward: the dashboard shows the total, the commission and your share for every booking.
This guide explains how it works in practice. The binding version — commission, payouts, cancellations, the notice we give before pausing a listing and the 30 days either side can end the collaboration — is section 13 of our Terms & Conditions. Read the partner terms →
Notifications
The emails you will receive
All go to your venue's contact email (or, until you set one, the email you signed in with) — the first two in the language you applied in, the rest in the language of your account. Stripe sends its own payout notices separately.
- Application received — the moment your draft listing is created, with a link to the wizard.
- Listing submitted — when you press Submit — confirms it is with our team and that we answer within two business days.
- Sent back — our note about what needs a tweak; it also shows on your dashboard until you resubmit.
- Your listing is live — with the public link to your suite page.
- Listing paused — if we hide it temporarily — existing bookings still stand.
- New prepaid booking — suite, date and time, guests, length, the amount paid, the reference and the guest's name — full details in your portal.
- Booking cancelled — date, time and reference of the cancelled booking, and who cancelled — the guest or the Spafindo team. The slot is free again.
- Payout settled — when Spafindo settles the voucher-paid share of a booking to you, with the amount.
Reviews and what converts
How reviews work — and what makes guests book
Reviews on Spafindo come only from real visits: a guest can review your suite once their booked session has started, one review per booking, and it is published on your suite page with a star rating and, if they wrote one, a short comment. There are no placeholder reviews and no way to buy placement. After the visit, Spafindo emails the guest a single “How was your visit?” request — the best thing you can do for that review is the welcome itself.
What makes a listing convert
- A cover photo that shows the suite — water, heat and lounge in one frame — beats any headline.
- A description that says what happens: who lets them in, what is warm on arrival, what is laid out, how the door locks.
- A clear 90-minute price and at least one longer option; guests who compare choose the suite whose prices they understand.
- Bookable times in the next seven days, including at least one evening and one weekend slot.
- Two or three add-ons priced as on site — a bottle of cava and late checkout sell most.
- Answer guest emails within a few hours, and greet them by name: it turns into the review.
Host questions
Frequently asked by hosts
Does it cost anything to list?
How long does approval take?
Can I submit without connecting Stripe?
How do I set prices for different session lengths?
What is the buffer for?
Can I keep my own diary alongside Spafindo?
What happens when a guest cancels?
What if I have to cancel a booking?
Can I edit a live listing?
Who invoices whom?
Ready to open your quiet hours?
Create your listing in a minute, finish the six steps at your own pace, and we take it from there.