Junk fee checker for your own checkout: first price vs. total before payment
In short: Check your own online checkout for mandatory fees that are not in the first price, with dated screenshots and a report reviewed by a person. First check free.
What "junk fees" means for a checkout
"Junk fees" usually means mandatory charges that are not in the first price a customer sees: a service fee, a cleaning fee, a resort fee or a per-ticket processing fee that only appears at the last step. The FTC fee rule covers live-event tickets and short-term lodging, and California and several other states ask for all-in prices in almost every sector.
What our checker does
- You give us the page where your customers start booking or buying, and confirm it is your own checkout.
- Our scanner opens it like a shopper, picks dates or tickets, and goes up to the last page before payment. It never pays, never logs in, never types personal details and never gets around bot protection.
- It reads the first price shown and every line of the price summary, and sorts each line: fee, government tax, optional add-on, discount. It checks that the lines add up to the total.
- A person reviews the result before it reaches your account.
What the report can show
- Mandatory fees that were not in the first price, and the first price with those fees added.
- "From" prices on listing or search pages that leave the fees out.
- A headline rate that differs from the rate actually charged.
- An optional charge, such as a tip, that is already selected in the total.
- A summary whose lines do not add up to the total.
- The rules each finding may relate to (US federal and state, Canada federal), with dated, fingerprinted screenshots of each step.
With a plan, we re-check on a schedule (every quarter, month or week) and email you when a new reviewed report is ready, because booking systems can change their pages without telling you.
Who it is for
Small businesses checking their own checkout: vacation rentals and small hotels, venues, events and attractions, and restaurants with online ordering, in the US and Canada. We don't scan competitors, and we don't give legal opinions or "compliant" stamps.
If the scanner can't reach your checkout
Some checkouts block automated browsers or sit behind a login. Use the capture extension to record your own checkout in your browser, or, for many vacation rental listings, connect Hostaway, Guesty or Lodgify.
Not yet available for businesses in Quebec. Reports are findings, not legal advice.