CoolStays

What CoolStays does

CoolStays operates a curated two-sided online marketplace that connects independent property owners with leisure travellers seeking unique holiday accommodation. The platform indexes 3,000+ hand-picked properties across the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and other destinations, organised into editorial collections covering treehouses, cabins, glamping sites, shepherd's huts, barn conversions, lighthouses, windmills, boatels, villas, and cottages. Discovery is driven by curated collection pages, editor's picks, last-minute deals, blog content, and multi-channel social media, with direct messaging between guests and owners facilitating bookings. The company was founded in 2012 in Brighton, UK, and remains privately held by co-founders Tim Wills, Claire Wills, John Stables, and Nick Wills, with no disclosed external institutional investment.

The underlying technology stack is standard SaaS marketplace infrastructure rather than a proprietary technology asset: AWS for hosting (data stored in EU-West-2 London and EU-West-1 Ireland), Cloudflare for security and DDoS protection, Stripe for payments, Zendesk and Zammad for support ticketing, Mailchimp and SendGrid for email, Google Analytics, Feefo and Yotpo for reviews, and Google Ads plus Meta Pixel for paid acquisition. The company has begun layering AI tools (OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude) for internal enquiry analysis, summarisation, and content classification, but no proprietary AI/ML model is disclosed. A dedicated Owners Portal at owners.coolstays.com handles supply-side onboarding and listing management, while a separate vouchers subdomain handles gift voucher sales and redemption.

The business model is subscription/listing-fee based rather than transaction-based: property owners pay to list on the platform, and CoolStays explicitly states it charges no commission and no booking fees to either owners or guests. Payments flow directly from guest to owner outside the platform's transactional rails, which is reinforced by a Safe Payment Guarantee covering guest payments up to £5,000. Ancillary revenue includes gift voucher sales (processed via Stripe and refunded via Revolut). The customer base is structurally long-tail: 3,000+ SMB independent hosts on the supply side and millions of individual leisure travellers, couples, families, and small groups on the demand side, with no enterprise anchor accounts. Marketing is led by content, earned media (374M combined press audience across 124 coverage pieces), social, and paid acquisition, while ESG positioning is anchored by an ongoing revenue-linked partnership with GreenTheUK supporting UK wildlife projects since 2022.

Name

CoolStays

Legal name

Coolstays Ltd

Website

https://coolstays.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

CoolStays is a curated online marketplace connecting independent property owners with leisure travellers seeking unique holiday accommodation. It lists 3,000+ hand-picked properties across the UK and Europe, operating on an owner subscription model with no commission or booking fees.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Vacation Rental Marketplace

SIC

Hotels, Rooming Houses, Camps & Other Lodging Places (7000)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYTHAMAJAC

Glamping Resorts & Luxury Camping

Travel & Hospitality/Vacation Rentals & Short-Term Stays/Campgrounds, Glamping & RV Parks

Keywords

• Unique holiday accommodation
• Vacation rental marketplace
• Handpicked travel stays
• Curated holiday homes
• Alternative accommodation booking

Headquarters

HQ city

Brighton

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices7 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Owner subscription / listing fees: CoolStays charges property owners to list their properties on the platform. The company explicitly states 'Coolstays do not charge commission or booking fees', indicating the revenue model is based on listing or subscription fees from property owners rather than transaction-based take rates. No per-booking commission is taken from guests or owners.
2. Voucher sales: CoolStays sells gift vouchers for stays at extraordinary properties. Vouchers can be redeemed through the platform's secure voucher redemption system, with refunds processed via Revolut.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

CoolStays operates a curated online marketplace of 3,000+ unique holiday homes (treehouses, cabins, glamping sites, lighthouses, windmills, boatels, barn conversions, villas, shepherd's huts, cottages) across the UK, Europe, and beyond. Independent property owners pay to list their properties, and travellers discover and book them directly through the platform's messaging system. CoolStays charges no commission or booking fees to guests; supported by a Safe Payment Guarantee up to £5,000, gift vouchers, and a sustainability programme via GreenTheUK.

Product overview

CoolStays is a curated online marketplace for unique holiday accommodation, offering a single unified platform that connects property owners with travellers seeking distinctive stays. The portfolio spans over 3,000 properties across diverse categories including cabins, glamping options (shepherd's huts, yurts, tipis), cottages, barn conversions, villas, treehouses, lighthouses, windmills, and boatels. The platform is supplemented by the CoolStays Vouchers gift product and the Safe Payment Guarantee that protects customer bookings up to £5,000. Property owners manage their listings through the separate CoolStays Owners Portal. The platform does not charge booking fees or commission to guests.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• CoolStays Marketplace A curated online marketplace connecting property owners with travellers seeking unique holiday accommodation. Property owners list properties through the platform and guests discover and communicate directly with owners via the platform's messaging system to arrange bookings. No commission or booking fees are charged on transactions.
• CoolStays Vouchers Gift vouchers for extraordinary stays across the CoolStays collection, redeemable towards bookings with property owners through a secure voucher redemption system, with refunds processed via Revolut.
• Safe Payment Guarantee Payment protection guarantee covering customer payments up to £5,000 when booking through the CoolStays platform, protecting guests against fraud.
• CoolStays Owners Portal Dedicated property owner dashboard and login portal at owners.coolstays.com for managing listings, enquiries, and bookings. Owners pay a subscription/listing fee to advertise on the platform.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 3,000 unique properties across the UK, Europe, and beyond in a curated collection
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration17 records

AI capability3 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• GreenTheUKcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022CoolStays partners with GreenTheUK as part of its commitment to be a carbon neutral business. Since the beginning of 2022, CoolStays donates a proportion of its revenue to GreenTheUK, which distributes funds to UK wildlife projects with measurable local impact. For 2025/26, CoolStays supports four projects: temperate rainforest protection in Devon and Cornwall via Plantlife; planting 800 climate-resilient trees in Devon and North Yorkshire via the Royal Forestry Society; restoration of 292m² of native oysters in the Solent via the Blue Marine Foundation; and kelp forest restoration survey sites in Sussex via the Blue Marine Foundation and Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Mr & Mrs Smith: Curated collection of boutique hotels and unique stays, with a paid membership/subscription model similar in spirit to CoolStays' no-commission positioning. Competes for the same high-end experiential UK traveler.
• Canopy & Stars: UK curated marketplace for unusual places to stay (cabins, treehouses, shepherd's huts, glamping). Directly overlaps CoolStays' portfolio mix and target traveler segment, and explicitly differentiates on hand-picked quality.
• Glamping Hub: Global marketplace dedicated to glamping and unique outdoor stays — cabins, yurts, domes, treehouses — overlapping the largest single CoolStays collection (Glamping). Comparable curation and traveler demographic.
• Kid & Coe: Curated family-friendly unique vacation rentals, including treehouses, castles, and glamping. Overlaps CoolStays' family/group stays segment and curated-stays niche.
• Plum Guide: Curated, vetted vacation rental marketplace focused on quality and design-led homes in Europe. Direct peer on curation + direct booking; similar target customer seeking memorable, high-design stays.
• Sawday's (Special Places to Stay): UK-based curated collection of unique and characterful places to stay, including B&Bs, hotels, glamping and self-catering. Closest direct competitor to CoolStays: same niche, same country, same curation-led positioning, with a longer operating history and strong editorial brand.

Broad incumbents

• Vacasa: Large North American vacation rental manager/marketplace. Differs in full-service property management model, but a comparable two-sided marketplace operating in the alternative-accommodation space.
• Airbnb: Largest global vacation rental marketplace; aggressively expanding categorized 'unique stays' (Airbnb Luxe, Icons, Originals). Not specialized in curation but functions as the dominant distribution layer that CoolStays owners and guests cross-shop.
• onefinestay: High-end curated vacation rental service (Accor-owned) emphasizing quality-vetted homes and concierge service. Comparable on curation and luxury-segment targeting, though more concierge-led than CoolStays.
• Booking.com: Global OTA with extensive vacation rental inventory plus dedicated unique-stay categories. Represents the commission-bearing incumbent that CoolStays explicitly differentiates against with its no-fee model.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about CoolStays