How to calculate tour profit
Not how much came in: how much stayed. Per departure, per tour, per season.
By the minhOS team
Updated 11 October 2026
Tour profit is the revenue you actually received for a departure, after marketplace commissions, card fees and refunds, minus the direct costs of running it, minus a fair share of your monthly overhead. Divide profit by the revenue received and you have the margin. Worked out per departure and added up per tour and per month, it tells you which tours earn, which quietly lose, and what the season is really worth.
The three numbers you need
- Contribution per seat: what one sold seat adds after its own per-person cost. It tells you whether selling one more seat is worth the effort.
- Profit per departure: the contribution of all seats, minus the departure's fixed costs and its share of overhead. It tells you whether running the departure was worth it.
- Profit per tour per season: every departure of that tour, added up. It tells you which tours to keep, promote, re-price or drop.
The method
Step 1: count the revenue you received, not the price you listed
A €99 seat sold through a marketplace that keeps 25% (this example's assumption; use the commission in your own agreement) is €74.25 of revenue. A €99 seat paid by card is €99 minus the card fee. A refunded seat is zero, plus whatever the refund cost you. Count list prices and the gap between what you listed and what you received hides exactly where the margin went.
Step 2: subtract the direct costs of the departure
Use the same two columns as in the pricing guide: per departure (guide, vehicle, fuel, permits, the share of insurance) and per person (food, tickets, gear). What is left is the departure's contribution.
Step 3: subtract a share of overhead
Take the month's overhead (software, accountant, phone, licences, hosting, marketing spend, equipment wear) and split it across the departures you ran that month. Splitting by departures is simple and fair enough; splitting by revenue flatters the expensive tours. Either way, decide once and keep to it.
Step 4: add up by tour, then by month
One line per departure in a sheet, grouped by tour. Now the question “which tour made the most last month, and which one is quietly losing?” has an answer in a column.
A worked month
Illustrative: the €99 hike from the pricing guide, over one month. 12 departures and 60 seats sold, 36 of them direct and 24 through a marketplace that keeps 25% in this example.
| Item | Euros |
|---|---|
| Direct seats: 36 × 99 | 3,564 |
| Marketplace seats: 24 × 74.25 | 1,782 |
| Revenue received | 5,346 |
| Per-departure costs: 12 × 205 | −2,460 |
| Per-person costs: 60 × 12 | −720 |
| Contribution | 2,166 |
| Overhead for the month | −900 |
| Profit | 1,266 |
| Margin: 1,266 ÷ 5,346 | 23.7% |
Count list price instead, 60 × €99 = €5,940, and you would believe the profit was €1,860. The €594 difference is exactly the marketplace's share of 24 seats (24 × €24.75). That is where “I work too much for what I earn” comes from: the number in your head and the number in your account differ by the commission.
Per seat, the same month: a direct seat contributes 99 − 12 = €87; a marketplace seat 74.25 − 12 = €62.25. In this example, every seat that moves from the marketplace to your own site is worth €24.75. That arithmetic is behind the guide on reducing marketplace dependency.
Two tours, one month: the popular one loses
Illustrative: two tours from one operator in one month, with €900 of overhead split by departures.
| Item | Tour A, boat trip | Tour B, cooking class |
|---|---|---|
| Departures | 20 | 6 |
| Average seats sold | 8 | 6 |
| Price received per seat | 60 | 85 |
| Per-person cost | 18 | 20 |
| Per-departure cost | 300 | 150 |
| Revenue (departures × seats × price) | 9,600 | 3,060 |
| Direct costs (departure costs plus seat costs) | −8,880 | −1,620 |
| Contribution | 720 | 1,440 |
| Overhead share (20 of 26 departures, 6 of 26) | −692 | −208 |
| Profit | 28 | 1,232 |
Tour A is full, busy, photographs beautifully and makes €28 in a month. Tour B runs 6 departures and makes the money. Without this table you promote A, because it is the one everyone asks about, and wonder why the season felt so tiring. The fix is not to drop A: re-price it (the pricing guide shows how), raise its minimum group, or stop spending marketing money on it.
Blind spots that hide profit
- Your own time: if you guide, put a day rate in the costs; if you do the admin, it belongs in overhead. A business that only works because you work unpaid is not profitable; it is a job with expenses.
- Refunds, no-shows and weather cancellations: count them as revenue lost and as costs already paid, like the guide you booked and the lunch you ordered.
- Card and payment-link fees: small on each booking, real over a season.
- Equipment wearing out: wetsuits, bikes, helmets, tents. Divide the replacement cost by the departures it survives.
- Overhead that exists in winter too: rent, insurance and software are paid in January as well; the guide on forecasting seasonal revenue deals with the timing.
- VAT: which regime applies to your tours is a question for your accountant. Whatever it is, work with prices net of VAT.
A spreadsheet layout you can copy
One row per departure, with these columns: date, tour, channel, seats, price listed, price received per seat, revenue received, per-departure cost, per-person cost times seats, contribution, overhead share, profit. Sum by tour, sum by month. It takes an evening to set up and ten minutes a week to keep, and it ends the March surprise.
Where minhOS fits
In minhOS the cost variables you set for pricing give you a live price per seat, and you can enter the actual costs of each trip. The payments summary shows gross, fees, net and refunds, so you see what was received rather than what was listed. A monthly revenue view and five-year projections let you look at a season before you run it. You fill these in and read them yourself; none of it runs on its own. An expense ledger, where every invoice you pay is recorded against a trip, is next. The Greek tax stack is next too, and so are connections with accounting.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good profit margin for a tour operator?
We are not aware of a trustworthy published figure for small operators in Greece, and we won't invent one. The useful comparison is with the income you need from the year: does the season's profit pay you what you decided you need? The 23.7% in the worked month above is arithmetic on stated assumptions, not a benchmark.
Do I include my own salary?
Yes, twice: a day rate when you guide (a direct cost) and your admin time in overhead. Otherwise the numbers only work while you work unpaid.
Should I count marketplace bookings at list price?
No. Count what reaches your account. The commission is the marketplace's revenue, not yours.
How do I split overhead across tours?
By departures is the simplest and fair enough. By seats or by revenue can be defended too. Pick one, write it down, and don't change it mid-season.
What about VAT?
Ask your accountant which regime applies to your tours, then use prices net of VAT in your calculations. This guide gives no tax advice.
Can I do this without software?
Yes: the layout above is a spreadsheet. Software starts to matter when the sheet stops being kept, which in a busy July is easy to let happen.