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Nothing beyond the price on the tour. That price already includes our platform cost, and the breakdown on the tour page shows how it splits between the guide and us before you book.

Nothing is added at checkout: no booking charge, no service charge on the last screen, no charge for paying by card.

If the guide takes the whole price by card, you pay it all here when you book.

If the guide takes a deposit here and the rest in person, you pay a small deposit by card now and hand the rest to the guide on the day, in cash or on their card machine. The tour page says which, names the amount you will still owe, and says whether to bring cash. The total is the same either way.

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It depends on how the guide set up the tour, and the tour page says which. Instant book charges you when you book and confirms your place at once; request to book charges nothing until the guide accepts.

Instant book. Your card is charged when you book, and your place is confirmed the moment the payment goes through.

Request to book. The guide reads your request first. Nothing is charged until they accept; then you have 24 hours to pay, and your place is confirmed when you do. If the guide does not answer within 48 hours, the request expires on its own and you are charged nothing.

What is charged is the whole price, or the deposit alone if the guide takes the rest in person. The tour page and the checkout both say which.

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Sometimes, and the tour page tells you before you book. Most tours are paid in full by card when you book; some guides take a small deposit here and the rest in person on the day.

When that is how a tour works, the price breakdown says so and names the amount you will still owe. It also says whether the guide can take a card; if they cannot, bring that amount in cash.

You see the amount again at checkout, in your confirmation email, in the reminder the evening before, and on your ticket. The total is the same either way, and nothing is added for paying part of it in person.

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A shared tour takes bookings from different people until the date is full, so you may be walking with strangers. That is the usual arrangement and it is why shared tours cost less per person.

A private tour is yours. Once you book a date, nobody else can join it, however much room is left. Tours that work this way say Private tour on the tour page, next to the price.

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Yes, from your booking page, and you are told the exact amount before you confirm. Cancel inside the tour's free window and everything you paid comes back; after it, what returns depends on the policy the guide chose and on how you paid.

Every tour shows its cancellation policy before you book and again on your booking. If the guide cancels, you are refunded in full, whatever the timing.

If you paid the whole price by card, a cancellation after the free window returns the share the policy names, to the card you paid with.

If you paid a deposit, a cancellation after the free window returns nothing: only the deposit was charged, and it is kept. The rest was never charged, because it was to be paid to the guide on the day.

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Because each guide prices their tours in the currency they are paid in, so a list of tours can mix francs, euros and pounds. Prices are shown as the guide set them; nothing is converted for display.

You are charged in the currency shown next to the price, and your bank converts it at its own rate on the day. If you pay a deposit here and the rest to the guide in person, the amount still to pay is shown in that same currency.

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You can delete your GuidesUnited account yourself, from the website or from the GuidesUnited app, without asking us first.

Sign in and open your profile page. At the bottom is a card called Your data with two buttons: one downloads a copy of everything we hold about you, the other deletes your account. Download first if you want that copy, because afterwards we cannot give it back.

If you cannot sign in

Write to us from the contact page, using the email address the account is under, and say you want it deleted. We check that the request really comes from the account holder before we do anything.

What is deleted

Your name, email address, phone number and photograph. Your password, and everything set up to sign you in: authenticator apps, passkeys, recovery codes, and the record of which devices you used and from where. Any notification tokens belonging to the app, so your phone stops receiving anything from us. If you are a guide, your public guide page stops being published.

What we keep, and why

Bookings that were paid for, and the invoices belonging to them. Those are accounting records, and Swiss law says how long they are kept: that is an obligation rather than a preference we can waive. They are no longer connected to your name.

Reviews you wrote stay published without your name on them, because taking them down would quietly rewrite the ratings of guides who did nothing wrong. Messages you sent stay in the conversation you sent them to, for the person you sent them to.

A record that we sent you an email, and when. Your address and the subject lines are removed from it; what stays is the kind of message and whether it arrived, which is how we know the product is reaching people at all. Once your address is gone, nothing in it says who it was.

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Create an account, add guiding to it, and build your first tour. The builder runs to eight steps and takes about five minutes for a tour you already run; nothing goes live until you send it for review and we have read it.

The steps: the basics, how long it is and who it is for, where you meet, the itinerary, your price, at least three photos, the dates you are available, and a last look before you submit. You can leave and come back at any point, and there is a walkthrough on your dashboard if you would rather watch somebody do it.

Then choose how travellers pay you, on your profile. Either way makes you bookable. New accounts start on card, through us; switch on your profile if you would rather take the rest in person. You can change it later, and bookings keep the arrangement they were made under.

Card, through us. The traveller pays the whole price by card when they book, and your share is released to your Stripe account after the tour. This needs a Stripe account that can receive payouts, which Stripe sets up on its own pages with your bank details and some ID; a tour on this route goes live once that is done.

A deposit, then you take the rest. The traveller pays a small deposit by card here and hands you the rest on the day, in cash or on your own card machine. Nothing to set up, and it works from any country we accept guides from.

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Everything except one fixed platform cost, published on this site and itemised on every booking. You set the price, and the split is shown on the pricing step while you set it and again on every booking you receive.

The platform cost is carved out of the price, never added on top, and it is the same rate whether you sell four tours a year or four hundred. Nothing is charged on services you did not provide, and card processing comes out of our share, not yours.

Card, through us. Your share is the price minus the platform cost, and it reaches your Stripe account when the traveller pays.

A deposit, then you take the rest. The deposit is the platform cost, rounded down to a whole unit so it is a number you can both say aloud; the rounding is ours to give up. Everything else is handed to you on the day.

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It depends on how you chose to be paid, on your profile. Either way, nothing waits for the end of the month.

Card, through us. The traveller pays the whole price when they book, and your share sits in your Stripe account from that moment. We release it 24 hours after the tour ends, in an overnight run; how long your bank takes after that is up to the bank. Releasing after the tour rather than at booking is deliberate: a booking taken in May for August would otherwise leave you holding money for work not yet done, with nothing left to reverse if it were cancelled.

A deposit, then you take the rest. There is no payout to wait for. The traveller pays a deposit here when they book and hands you the rest on the day, in cash or on your own card reader. The deposit is the platform cost, and it is the only money we hold.

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You do. You are the seller: the tour contract is between you and the traveller, and we are an intermediary that collects payment on your behalf.

The traveller receives a numbered payment receipt from us for what we charged their card. It names you as the seller, says we collected the money for you, and says it does not replace an invoice you have to issue yourself. It is proof that they paid, nothing more.

Card, through us: the receipt is for the whole price. A deposit, then you take the rest: the receipt is for the deposit alone, and says so. What passes between you and the traveller on the day is between the two of you.

Whether you have to issue your own invoice, and what it must look like, depends on where you are and how you are registered. Your accountant is the person to ask; we cannot answer it for you.

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On the full price the traveller paid, not on the amount that lands in your account. The platform cost is something you bought from us, not a discount on what you sold.

So the whole booking is your turnover, and the platform cost is a purchase on your side of the books. This is how it works across this industry, and it is the detail that surprises people most often.

It is the same whichever way travellers pay you. If you take a deposit here and the rest in person, the deposit is still the platform cost you bought from us, and the price the traveller agreed to is still your turnover. Your earnings page and your monthly invoice show the two figures separately, so neither has to be worked out. Your accountant can confirm what applies where you are.

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Yes. At the start of each month we issue you an invoice for the platform cost of the month before, listing every booking it was worked out from. There is nothing to pay on it: it records what was already taken.

You can open and print it from your earnings page. If a booking was refunded, the platform cost on it was given back in proportion, and that credit appears on the invoice for the month the refund happened.

Card, through us. The platform cost came out of each card payment at the moment the traveller paid, before your share reached your Stripe account.

A deposit, then you take the rest. The platform cost is the deposit the traveller paid us when they booked. It never passed through your hands. The booking value on the invoice is the full price the traveller agreed to, not the part you were handed on the day.

We are established in Switzerland, so no Swiss VAT is charged on it. What that means for you depends on your country and how you are registered, and your accountant can tell you.

You can add a VAT or tax number and a billing address on your earnings page. They appear on your invoices from then on; ones already issued stay as they were sent.

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No. Card processing is between Stripe and us, and its cost is already inside the platform cost. Nothing is taken off your share for it, and Stripe sends you no invoice.

Card, through us. You open a Stripe account, because that is where your share is paid to, and you accept Stripe's terms as part of that. Stripe asks for your bank details and some ID on its own pages; we never see them. Stripe does not charge you.

A deposit, then you take the rest. You do not open a Stripe account at all. Nothing is paid out to you, so there is nothing to pay it into.

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Yes. Choose it on your profile, under how travellers pay you: the traveller pays a small deposit by card here to hold the booking and hands you the rest on the day, in cash or on your own card machine.

The deposit is the platform cost, rounded down to a whole unit so it is a number you can both say aloud. The traveller pays the same total either way and you end up with the same share; what changes is who hands over which part, and when.

You do not need a Stripe account for this. Guides in countries where Stripe cannot send payouts can sell today, and so can anyone who would rather be paid in cash or on their own card reader. One limit applies to every tour, whichever way you are paid: it is priced in one of the currencies we settle in, so a guide in Turkey prices in euros or dollars, not in lira.

Tell us whether you can take a card in person. We put that in front of the traveller before they book, at checkout, in their confirmation, on their ticket and in the reminder the evening before, so nobody arrives without the money.

The part worth thinking about: the booking is held on a deposit, not on the full price. If somebody cancels late or does not turn up, they lose the deposit and you have lost the day. Today the deposit stays with us and nothing is paid to you for it. That is the trade, and it is yours to make.

You can switch back to card payment through us on your profile once you have a Stripe account that can receive payouts. Bookings you already have keep the arrangement they were made under.

Your paperwork does not change: your turnover is still the whole price the traveller agreed to, the platform cost is still something you bought from us, and we still send you a monthly invoice for it.

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Four ways, and the pricing step explains each one as you pick it.

Per person charges each traveller the same rate. Per person, cheaper for bigger groups lets you set a rate for each group size. One price for the whole booking, by group size sets one price for each group size, whoever comes, which is how most private tours are sold. One fixed price charges the same for the whole booking regardless of how many come.

If you choose group-size tiers, the editor counts how many of your group sizes have a price and tells you when every one is covered. A size with no price is a traveller who cannot book.

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Both, on the details step.

Notice needed sets how many hours before the start time instant booking closes. At 0 somebody can book a tour starting in ten minutes; at 24 they cannot book one starting tomorrow morning.

Private tour means one group per date. The first booking closes that date whatever its size, so nobody is added to somebody else's day.

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No. A confirmed booking closes those hours on every tour you run, not just the one that was booked, with a turnaround gap either side so you are not expected to finish in one place and start in another at the same minute.

This is on by default and you do not have to do anything for it. If you work with other guides and want your tours bookable at the same time, you can turn off Only book me for one tour at a time in your guide profile, where you can also set how long the gap between tours should be.

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On your dashboard calendar, once. Block the days there and they close on every tour you run, so there is no need to go through each tour's availability and untick dates.

Time off is absolute: it applies whether or not you allow overlapping bookings, and it does not touch bookings that are already confirmed. If you need to get out of one of those, cancel the booking itself so the traveller is told and refunded.

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Every tour is read by a moderator before it goes live, and edits to a live tour are read again. When something needs changing you get the list of what and why, on the tour itself, and the tour stays exactly as you left it until you resubmit.

The usual reasons are a description that does not say what actually happens, photos that are not of the tour, or a group size with no price behind it.

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The traveller is refunded in full, always, whatever the tour's cancellation policy says. That policy governs what a traveller gets back when they cancel, not what happens when you do.

If they paid the whole price by card, all of it goes back. If they paid a deposit, the deposit goes back; the rest was never charged.

Cancelling is sometimes unavoidable and we would rather you did it early than went ahead with a tour you cannot run. Do it as far in advance as you can: it is somebody's trip, and the further out you cancel the more chance they have of finding another guide.

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A headset room turns your phone into the microphone and your travellers' phones and earbuds into the headsets. You talk, and they hear you in their ears, even at the back of the group. There's no set of receivers to hand out at the start, charge the night before or collect at the end, and nobody installs anything: you open a page on your phone, they open a link on theirs.

Your voice reaches their earbuds as you speak, and it is not recorded or kept. It works one way, like a radio. They hear you, you don't hear them, and questions still come to you face to face.

When it helps

• A loud square, with traffic, a busker and two other groups. You talk instead of shouting, and nobody has to lean in.
• A path or a vineyard terrace where the group strings out in a long line. The people at the back get the story too, not only the three walking beside you.
• A market, where raising your voice over the stalls would feel rude. You speak quietly and they still hear you.
• A minibus or a boat, where people sit apart. You keep talking from your seat instead of walking up and down the aisle.
• A cathedral, where you have to keep to a whisper. A whisper is enough, and the whole group hears it.
• The traveller who wanders off for a photo. They can drift a little and still hear you, and you don't have to wait for them or tell it twice.

When it doesn't

• A small group standing right next to you. Your own voice is enough, and that close they would hear you twice.
• A site with headset rules of its own. Some sites require their own headsets, so check each site's rules before you plan on the room there.
• Underground. In a crypt, a cellar or a cave there is often no signal, and the room goes quiet. Your travellers' pages reconnect by themselves when you come back up. After a long stop down there the room may have ended by itself, so tap Reopen room and ask them to tap Listen again.

How you open one

1. Open your dashboard on your phone, in Safari or Chrome.
2. On the home page, tap Open a headset room, choose the tour you're giving, or No tour, and tap Create the room. If travellers booked this departure through GuidesUnited, open its room from the departure's page on the Check in tab instead, because the links in their reminders and on their tickets lead there. That room opens an hour before the start.
3. Read the short checklist on the page, then tap Open room. Your microphone is on but muted, so people can join while the group gathers and hear nothing yet.
4. Let people in: hold up the QR code for them to scan, or tap Add people to send them the link in a message.
5. Tap Go live when you start talking, and Mute whenever you need a private moment.
6. When the tour is over, tap End room. Everyone is disconnected.

Ended it too soon, or want it back after lunch? Tap Reopen room, and your travellers tap Listen again on their page. A room you open from the home page closes by itself after the length of your tour plus two hours, or six hours with No tour. Until then you can reopen it, and the page shows the time.

For now, keep your screen on while the room is open: once the screen locks, your phone may stop sending your voice. Pocket mode makes that easier. It turns the screen black and makes all of it one big button to mute and go live, so you can hold the phone or clip it on without pressing anything by accident. To get the page back, press and hold the button that says Hold to unlock.

What your travellers do

Nothing to install and no account to make. They scan your QR code or open the link you sent, put their earbuds in and tap Start listening. A chime plays, and the page asks whether they heard it in their earbuds, so a phone playing out loud is caught before you begin.

Then the page tells them what to do with the phone. In Chrome on an Android phone it says they can lock it and put it away. On an iPhone, for now, it asks them to keep the screen on.

Anyone with your QR code or link can listen, up to a limit: your tour's group size plus a few, or 30 with No tour. Their page has no share button, so adding people is up to you. If the link of a room you opened from the home page reaches people it shouldn't, end the room and open a new one. The new room has a new link, so show its QR code to the group again.

If you use the room on a tour, say so on the tour itself: in the tour editor, under Details, set Audio for the group to Headset room. Your tour page then asks travellers to bring earbuds, and those who booked through GuidesUnited find a listening link in the reminder the day before and on their ticket.

Listening uses their mobile data. Anyone whose phone plan doesn't cover the country should check their roaming before the day, and the reminder tells them so.

What to bring

• A clip-on microphone that plugs into your phone, with a foam or fur windscreen. Close to your mouth it picks up your voice rather than the street, and the windscreen keeps the wind out of everyone's ears.
• A charged phone, and a power bank for long tours.
• Two or three pairs of wired earbuds to lend to whoever forgets theirs. If you always bring some, pick the Audio for the group answer that adds headsets for anyone without earbuds, and your tour page says so.

Before you open the room, turn on Do Not Disturb, so a call doesn't cut in. If you wear Bluetooth earbuds yourself, disconnect them, so your phone uses the clip-on and not their microphone.

How to speak

Softly, in your everyday voice. The people standing next to you hear you twice, once in the air and once, a moment later, in their earbuds, and the quieter you speak, the less that echo gets in the way. There's no need to project to the back: the back hears you as well as the front.

[COUNSEL] Your microphone also picks up the people around you, your group and anyone passing. Tap Mute for anything private: a word with one traveller, a chat with the driver, a question at the ticket desk. Tap Go live when you're back.

If it fails

Carry on. Your tour worked before there were headset rooms, and it works without one. Gather the group a little closer, use your own voice, and reopen the room at the next stop.

Glance at your screen now and then. If the count says 0 listening, or the room says Off air, nobody is hearing you. If it says Off air, tap Back on air.

What it costs

Nothing extra. The headset room is included in the platform cost, travellers pay nothing more to listen, and using it, or not, never changes where your tours appear.

We're testing it

Headset rooms are new, and we're testing them with a few guides first, which is why you may not see Open a headset room on your dashboard yet. Want to be one of them? Message us from the contact page, and tell us where you guide and which phone you carry.

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Here is what changed for guides between the end of August and the third week of September, most important first.

You can take the payment yourself. The traveller pays a small deposit by card when they book and hands you the rest on the day, in cash or on your own card machine. You do not need a Stripe account for this, so guides in countries where payouts are not open yet can sell today. You choose it on your guide profile, under how travellers pay you.

Your tours, in the languages you guide in. When a tour or a change to it is approved, we draft it in the other site languages the tour runs in. Nothing goes live until you have read each version beside your original and published it, and you can still edit a version after publishing it. You find them in the sidebar of the tour editor.

Travellers can find you by city and by language. The guides page lists every guide, each city has a page of its own, and so does each language spoken by the guides there, such as French-speaking guides in Porto. Every guide card has a button to ask for a private tour, so a traveller can reach you even before your first tour is published.

How the list is ordered. Guides are ordered by their reviews, by keeping the bookings they accept, and by answering travellers. Among guides who are level on those, a profile with a photo and a bio of a few sentences comes first. What you pay us never changes the order.

Travellers are asked for a review. The morning after a tour, the traveller gets one short message asking how the day went, and only one.

Editing a tour is easier. A change that touches nothing we check, such as the languages a tour runs in, now goes live straight away. You can send changes for review from any step of the editor. Adding themes works again, and you can now browse all of them instead of guessing their names. Your tours list shows what each tour still needs, the editor warns you before unsaved changes are lost, and all of it works on a phone.

For operators. If you manage your calendar in Bókun, you can connect it, so a seat sold here is taken there too. And booking emails can go to a reservations address that is not the one you sign in with.

News like this now also appears in your notifications, under the bell.

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