Working with lodge rate sheets
Lodge rate sheets are where your costs actually live, and they arrive in every format imaginable: PDFs, spreadsheets, seasonal tables, special-offer emails. Reading them correctly and keeping them current is quiet, unglamorous work that decides whether your quotes are right. This guide covers what to look for and how to stay on top of dozens of them.
7 min read · Updated 24 July 2026
What is an STO rate?
An STO rate (standard tour operator rate) is the net, unpublished rate a lodge or camp gives registered tour operators and travel trade partners. It sits below the public rack rate, and the difference is where your margin lives: you pay the lodge the STO rate, sell at or near rack, and keep the spread.
Rate sheets label it in different ways: STO, net, trade or agent rate. Always confirm which rate a sheet is showing before you cost from it. Quoting from rack when you hold an STO rate overprices the trip; assuming a rack column is net quietly erases your margin.
What a rate sheet actually contains
A rate sheet is more than a nightly price. Before you use one to cost a stay, find each of these:
| On the sheet | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Validity / season dates | The same room has different rates across high, shoulder and green seasons |
| Room / tent types | Standard, luxury and family units price differently |
| Board basis | Room only vs half board vs full board vs game package |
| Rack vs net / STO rate | You cost on the net (agent) rate, not the published rack rate |
| Single supplement | Solo travellers cost more than half a double |
| Child policy | Age bands or a percentage of the adult rate, with per-room limits |
| Resident rates | Separate rates for residents and citizens |
| Park fees included or excluded | Some rates bundle park/concession fees, most do not |
| Min stay, blackout & special offers | Long-stay, honeymoon and early-bird deals; blackout dates |
Normalise before you store
Rate sheets do not agree on structure. One camp quotes per person sharing, another per room; one splits the year into three seasons, another into six. Before a rate is useful across every quote, normalise it: per person per night, on a defined board basis, mapped to the seasons your itineraries use. Consistent structure is what lets the cost engine do the arithmetic reliably.
Let the import read the sheet
Itero Desk’s AI rate-sheet import reads PDF, Word and Excel rate sheets and turns them into seasons and rates in your library, so you normalise once instead of re-keying every stay. It picks up board-basis and child pricing where the sheet provides them.
Keeping rates current
Rate sheets go stale. New tariffs land at the turn of the year, camps push mid-season changes, and currencies shift. A quote built on last year’s sheet looks fine and quietly loses margin. Build a habit around it:
- Diary the annual tariff refresh for your core camps before peak-season quoting starts.
- Log the source and date of each rate so you can tell at a glance what is current.
- Re-import when a camp sends a revised sheet, rather than patching one number.
- Watch the currency the sheet is quoted in, and how you convert it into your selling currency.
The traps that catch everyone
- Costing on the rack rate instead of your net / STO rate.
- Forgetting the single supplement on solo travellers.
- Mixing two seasons in one stay that straddles a season boundary.
- Assuming park fees are included when the sheet excludes them.
- Missing a child policy and defaulting children to the adult rate.
One library, every quote
Once your rate sheets are imported and normalised, every itinerary prices from the same current library. See how to price a safari itinerary for how those rates combine with park fees and transport into a final quote.
Quick answers
What is an STO rate?
An STO (standard tour operator) rate is the discounted net rate a lodge or camp offers registered tour operators, below the published rack rate. The operator adds their own margin when reselling the stay.
What is the difference between a rack rate and an STO rate?
The rack rate is the full published price a lodge charges direct guests. The STO rate is the lower trade rate offered to tour operators, and the gap between the two is the operator margin.
Do STO rates include park fees?
Usually not. Most rate sheets exclude park, concession and community fees, which bill on top of the bed-night rate. Check each sheet, because a few packaged rates do bundle them.