No published standard exists for chauffeur commission. One US chauffeur company publishes 10% on the base fare, and software vendors’ guides suggest 10-15% for transfers. Commission comes straight out of your margin: 10% on a €200 trip with a 30% margin leaves €40 rather than €60. Write down what the percentage applies to, including extras, tolls and cancellations, and pay monthly with a statement.
How much commission do travel agents expect?
There is no published standard for chauffeur work. One chauffeur company that publishes its trade terms, Detailed Drivers in the US, offers agents “10% on base fare, paid monthly with itemized statements”. Trade guides written by travel software companies put transfers at around 10-15%, which is a rule of thumb from vendor blogs rather than measured data. Treat both as a place to start, and test any figure against your own margin.
The right number for you comes from what the trip leaves after you pay it. An agent will happily take 15% of a trip that loses you money, so you do the sum first.
What does commission actually cost you?
Commission comes straight out of your margin, because your costs stay the same whoever sold the trip. A 10% commission on a 30% margin takes a third of what you earn.
- The customer pays €200 Your public price, the same as on your website.
- The agent keeps €20 10% of the price, as agreed.
- Your costs are still €140 The driver, fuel, the vehicle and any subcontractor, in this example a 30% margin.
- You keep €40 Against €60 on the same trip sold directly.
Whether that is a good deal depends on the alternative. If the agent brings a customer you would never have reached, €40 for no advertising can compare well with what an ad costs you. The cost per lead guide shows how to work that side out. On the other hand, if the agent is selling to people who already use you, you are giving away €20 for nothing.
So look at what you pay for a booking through each channel, and set the commission where the agent is still your cheaper route to new work. Use the same approach for hotels and online platforms, so that you can compare all of them in one table.
Commission or net rate?
Offer the model that suits the partner, and decide before your first email. The net rates guide explains how to set both.
| Commission | Net rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sets the price | You: the customer pays your public price | The agent: it buys from you and adds its own margin |
| What you receive | Your price, less the agreed share | The agreed net price |
| What the customer sees | Your price and usually your name | The agent’s price, often under the agent’s name |
| What you must watch | Paying commission on the full amount, including extras | The agent’s price undercutting your own, or your own undercutting the agent’s |
| Often suits | Independent agents selling one trip at a time | Tour operators and DMCs building whole programmes |
Many partners ask for net rates because they want to control the final price, and you do not need to know what they charge. With a net rate of €170, an agent may sell the same €200 trip at €200 or at €220, and you keep €30 either way in this example. Commission gives the agent a reason to sell at your price, while a net rate gives you a fixed income from each trip.
What should the commission apply to?
Write down exactly what the percentage is calculated on, because disputes usually start here. Detailed Drivers, for instance, pays on the base fare. Decide whether commission applies to these items, and put the answer in your terms.
- Extras: waiting time, extra stops, child seats and meet-and-greet.
- Pass-through costs: tolls, parking and airport fees, which you pay out to someone else.
- Tax: whether the percentage is taken before or after VAT or the local equivalent, which your accountant should check for your country.
- Changes and cancellations: whether commission is still due on a booking that was cancelled or changed, and on a no-show.
- Repeat trips: whether the agent earns commission only on trips it booked, or also when its customer later comes to you directly.
The last one matters most, and it is easiest to settle early. Paying only on bookings made through the agent is the simplest rule, and writing it down prevents a difficult conversation later.
How and when do you pay?
Pay on a simple, predictable schedule, because agents remember the suppliers who pay on time. Monthly works for most companies. Send a statement listing each booking, its date, the customer reference, the price and the commission, as Detailed Drivers says it does. Pay after the trip has taken place, so that you are not paying commission on a trip that later gets cancelled.
Your booking system should record which agent sent each trip. Without that, you will be building statements by hand from emails, and you will not be able to see which agents are worth your time. The hotel partnerships guide describes the same habit for hotels: mark every booking with its source and look once a month at who has gone quiet.
How do you offer it without hurting your margin?
Start with what you can afford on your busiest routes, and treat a higher rate as something a partner earns.
- Set a limit per route: short transfers may not support the same percentage as a full day, so calculate each route separately.
- Reward volume: offer a better rate to agents who send a stated number of trips a season, so a high rate pays for itself.
- Keep your own prices in line: never sell the same trip to the agent’s customer for less on your website or an OTA, or the agent will not come back.
- Review once a season: rates set for one season should be checked against fuel, wages and vehicle costs before the next one.
Put the rate, the model and these terms in your partner pack, so that an agent can read them without a call. At Irish Transfer, outreach to agencies and tour operators started in October 2025, and 45+ of them now work with the company or are in a relationship with it. The Win hotel and agency work page shows how that was built.