What is the best MotoPress Hotel Booking alternative for a holiday cottage or B&B?

MotoPress Hotel Booking is an established plugin, well suited to hotel-style properties; staying on it is a reasonable choice if its Lite or paid version covers your needs. Looking at an alternative such as GDA Kraft Booking (Global Digital Agency) makes sense if you want, without a licence, card payment with a deposit and automatic balance, iCal sync with Airbnb and Booking.com, or an appointment mode on the same site. A built-in migration tool (Kraft Booking › “Migration”) carries over much of the data; this article gives the method.

What MotoPress Hotel Booking does well

According to its wordpress.org page (verified on 12 October 2026 on wordpress.org):

• the free Lite version includes availability search, seasonal rates, additional services and coupons;
• it accepts PayPal, payment on arrival and bank transfer;
• sync with OTAs and additional payment gateways, including Stripe, are presented as paid-version features;
• the plugin claims more than 10,000 active installations.

It is a mature tool, with an ecosystem of themes and add-ons, designed around hotel vocabulary (room types, physical rooms, services).

When should you stay on MotoPress Hotel Booking?

• Your site works, your guests book and you have no unmet need.
• You use PayPal and want to keep it: it is not among the announced features of GDA Kraft Booking to date.
• You already have the paid version and its features suit you.
• Your site relies on a theme built specifically for MotoPress and a redesign would be costly.
• You do not want a beta tool: GDA Kraft Booking is in public beta 0.1, with version 1.0 planned for June 2027.

Changing booking tools costs time. If there is no clear gain, do not change.

When should you look at an alternative?

• You want iCal sync without buying a paid version: it is included in GDA Kraft Booking, like Stripe (via Kraft Pay), with just a free Kraft GDA account.
• You want a deposit with the balance charged automatically to the saved card, with 3-D Secure authentication handled by email.
• You want to add treatments, workshops or tours by appointment on the same site (“Appointments” or “Both” mode, included).
• You build with Divi 5, Elementor or Gutenberg and want native elements.
• You want a password-free guest portal, with automatically numbered invoices and credit notes.

Matching the concepts

The two tools do not name things the same way. This table helps you prepare the migration.

How do I migrate, step by step?

GDA Kraft Booking includes a migration tool from MotoPress Hotel Booking: Kraft Booking › “Migration”. It creates the accommodations as drafts and never deactivates MotoPress. Plan the switchover outside the high season.

1. Take stock: list of rooms, seasons and prices for the next twelve months, services, active coupons, upcoming bookings with amounts already paid.
2. Install GDA Kraft Booking on the same site, without publishing its elements: download it from the Kraft GDA customer area (free account), then link the site to that account (see Install and connect Kraft Booking). This edition includes everything, online payment included: there is no add-on to install.
3. Run the migration: in Kraft Booking › “Migration”, choose “MotoPress Hotel Booking” and click “Analyse without changing anything”; after reading the report, type IMPORTER and click “Run the MotoPress import” (tick “Also import bookings and customer data” to carry over bookings). Room types, rooms, rates and seasons are carried over; then recreate the services (“Services” tab) and coupons (“Promotions”), and check the prices with the “Quote simulator” in Kraft Console (“Rates” view) by comparing three typical stays with MotoPress.
4. Check upcoming bookings: if you did not import them, enter them (or use Bookings › “Import bookings (CSV)”); record the amounts already collected with “Add an offline payment”, as the import does not carry over payments, so that the dates are blocked and the balances are correct.
5. Invoices: GDA Kraft Booking numbers invoices automatically (yearly series) and no starting number can be set to date; keep the invoices already issued by MotoPress.
6. Switch the syncs over: if you used MotoPress's sync, replace its export URL on Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo with the GDA Kraft Booking one, and import their calendars on the “Syncs” tab (see iCal sync with Airbnb and Booking.com).
7. Replace the forms on your pages with your builder's GDA Kraft Booking elements.
8. Make a test booking, then deactivate MotoPress only once everything has been checked. Keep its data for as long as your accounting requires.

During the short period when both tools coexist, close bookings on one of them to avoid the same date being sold twice.

Frequently asked questions

Can I import my MotoPress bookings automatically?

Yes. In Kraft Booking › “Migration”, tick “Also import bookings and customer data” before running the import: bookings are carried over with their status and total amount. Payments already received are not carried over: record them with “Add an offline payment”.

Do bookings paid online with MotoPress carry Kraft fees?

No. Amounts already collected and recorded manually in GDA Kraft Booking carry no service fee. Only new payments collected online via Kraft Pay do.

Does GDA Kraft Booking handle several rooms like a hotel?

Yes, each room is a unit (bookable lodging) of the accommodation, with its own calendar, and the Search element returns the accommodations available for given dates. See the comparison of accommodation booking plugins for an overview.

How long should I allow for the migration?

It depends on the number of rooms, seasons and upcoming bookings. Set aside time to check every price and every carried-over booking, and choose a quiet period of the year.