Free tool
Charter booking admin time calculator
See how many hours a season disappear into booking calls, float plans and weather reschedules before you ever untie a line.
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Charter weather cancellation cost calculator
Work out what scrubbed trips and no shows take out of your season, and how much of that a deposit policy keeps on your side of the ledger.
A blown out Saturday in July does not just cost the trip. It costs the fuel you already bought, the mate who showed up, the bait you cannot sell twice and the party that books somebody else next year. Most captains carry that loss as a feeling rather than a figure, which makes it very hard to argue for a firmer deposit rule.
This calculator turns it into a season number. Enter the trips you booked, what an average trip brings in, how many were lost to weather, how many were client no shows or late cancellations, how many you managed to move to another date, and what deposit you take at booking. The result is your unrecovered exposure and what it works out to per booked trip.
Your result
Revenue lost to trips that never ran
$18,050
Canceled trips minus the ones you successfully moved to another date.
Deposits you keep on client cancellations
$1,425
Assumes your deposit is non refundable when the client cancels late or fails to show.
Unrecovered exposure for the season
$16,625
What the scrubbed days cost after the deposits you were able to hold.
Exposure per booked trip
$118.75
Spread across every trip on the calendar, this is what weather risk adds to each one.
These figures are an estimate from your own season inputs, not a quote or a promise of recovered revenue.
Why the captain call and the client cancellation need different rules
When you call a trip for weather, most captains reschedule or refund, because charging a party for a decision they did not make is how you lose them and how you lose a chargeback. When the client cancels inside your window or does not appear at the dock, that is a different situation, and the deposit is what protects a date you turned other bookings away for.
Writing those two paths separately is the single change that moves the numbers above. One rule covers your call, one covers theirs, and both are shown before money changes hands. That is also the record a card processor will look for if the charge is disputed months later.
Turning the number into a deposit policy you can defend
Take the exposure per booked trip from the calculator and compare it against your current deposit. If the exposure is meaningfully higher, your deposit is doing less work than you think and the boat is absorbing the difference.
Raising a deposit costs you fewer bookings than captains fear, particularly with parties traveling in from out of state who expect to put money down. What loses bookings is a vague policy discovered at cancellation time. Say the number, say when it becomes non refundable, and put it on the confirmation the client agrees to.
Questions about this calculator
Should I count trips I moved to another date as lost?
No, and that is why the reschedule field exists. A trip that actually ran on a different date is revenue you kept, just later in the season. Only count reschedules that were fished, because promised reschedules that never happen are real losses.
What deposit percentage do most charter captains take?
It varies by port, trip length and how far parties travel. Offshore boats and long lead time bookings usually sit higher than a local half day. The useful test is whether the deposit covers what you actually lose on a scrubbed date rather than matching what the boat in the next slip charges.
Does a non refundable deposit hold up in a card dispute?
It holds up far better when the client agreed to the language in writing before paying, when the terms appeared on the confirmation, and when you can produce a timestamped record. That combination is what a processor asks for. Verbal policies almost never survive.
More free tools and working documents
Working document
Charter trip intake and float plan packet
One page you fill in while the party is still on the phone, so the trip, the money, the weather rule and the float plan are all settled before you hang up.
Make that number hold at the dock
The figure above only earns its keep when it sits on the confirmation before the deposit clears and the date comes off your calendar. Ask for a walkthrough and we will put your weather terms and your deposit in front of the party at the moment of booking, then let the float plan write itself from the same trip record.