The platform playbook for service businesses

Last updated: September 18, 2026

Can you run your own website alongside Treatwell, Werkspot, or Thuisbezorgd?

Yes, and it's exactly what online retailers have done with bol.com next to their own webshop for years. The platform keeps bringing in customers who have never heard of you, while your own site catches repeat bookings and direct requests you don't pay commission or lead fees on. You keep both channels running and change where returning customers end up.

What online retailers already figured out

Ask an online retailer if they sell on bol.com and the answer is usually yes. Ask if they also have their own webshop, and the answer is yes again. The marketplace brings in buyers who don't know them yet; their own shop keeps the margin on everyone who comes back. Running both at once even has a name in e-commerce: multichannel.

That logic never really landed with service businesses. A hairdresser is either on Treatwell or has their own site. A plumber either answers Werkspot leads or waits for word of mouth. The math is the same either way: the platform is expensive for acquisition, and your own channel is cheap for retention. You need both, each doing the job it's actually good at.

What the platforms actually charge

The numbers differ by industry, but the pattern holds. At Treatwell, a first-time customer's booking costs you 35% in commission, repeat appointments cost 0%, and a plan starting at 35 euros a month sits on top. What that means for a salon is covered in our guide on becoming less dependent on Treatwell.

With Werkspot, you pay per shared customer contact. According to a cost breakdown by Adaptoo, lead prices run between 3 and 75 euros per job; signing up is free, and the basic membership costs 29.95 euros a month. You pay for that lead even when another tradesperson lands the job. More options are laid out in the guide on Werkspot alternatives.

Thuisbezorgd started at 6% commission per order, according to NOS. By 2017 that had already risen to 12%, and 13% was announced the following year. For a restaurant running on thin margins, every percentage point shows up directly in what's left at the end.

Why you keep the platform anyway

Cutting the platform loose entirely sounds bold and usually costs you revenue. The platform has something you can't easily rebuild on your own: a stream of people searching today who want to book today. People open Treatwell looking for a hairdresser, and Werkspot when they have a leak. That demand is already sitting there waiting.

So the playbook treats the platform as a paid acquisition channel. You accept the commission or lead fee as the cost of that first introduction. Where it goes wrong is when you keep paying that same cost for customer number two, three, and ten. A regular who keeps rebooking through the platform costs you commission or lead money every single time, when you could have reached them directly all along.

How the work splits between platform and your own site

Here's what the split looks like when you set it up on purpose:

The platform recruits: new customers who don't know you yet come in through there, and that's what you're paying for
Your own site holds on: repeat appointments, direct requests, and anyone who googles your name after a good experience
Your own site also catches the checkers: people who spot you on the platform and look you up before they book
Reviews and photos on the platform still get kept up, because it stays your storefront for strangers
Price talk, quotes, and one-off questions run through your own channels, where nothing is metered

How to move customers from the platform to your own site

The move happens the moment the customer is standing in front of you, in the chair, or just had a job finished. That's when the trust the platform brokered for you at the start is in your own hands.

Mind the rules, though. Platforms often ban actively steering customers away inside their own environment, so do this in your own business and through your own channels, and check what your particular platform's terms say.

Just say it out loud at checkout: next time you can book directly through my site
Put your website address on the appointment card, the invoice, and the confirmation email
Ask happy customers for a review on your own Google profile, because that visibility belongs to you
Save phone numbers or emails customers give you directly, with permission, and send the reminder yourself from now on
Make booking direct more appealing than the platform, for example with wider time slots or a faster reply

Same playbook, three industries

For a salon, this means: keep Treatwell running for new faces, and teach every regular that your own site is the shortest route to an appointment. That 35% commission then only gets paid where it belongs, on the very first booking.

For a tradesperson: use Werkspot for the weeks when the calendar has gaps, while your own site, with real project photos and a clear service area, catches requests from people who saw your van on the street or got your name from a neighbor. That request doesn't cost you anything per lead.

For a restaurant: stay on Thuisbezorgd for the stranger placing a one-off order, and point to your own site on the menu, the bag, and the receipt for regulars. Trade publication Misset Horeca has described how restaurants cut commission costs substantially by moving orders to their own channel.

What your own site needs, at minimum, to do this

No webshop bells and whistles required. The site needs to do three things: come up when someone searches your name plus your town, make clear within a few seconds what you do and where, and offer a way to book or request directly with no middleman. That can be a booking button, a short form, or a WhatsApp link.

One detail that often gets missed: put the domain in your own name. That costs about 15 euros a year, and it means your address stays yours no matter what happens with a builder or a platform. Rent your address from a platform instead, and you start from zero the day you switch.

Frequently asked questions

Isn't it double work keeping up two channels?

The platform profile mostly needs upkeep when prices or hours change. Your own site otherwise runs itself once it's live. Most of the effort is just the habit of pointing customers to your own address at checkout, and that costs one sentence.

Am I even allowed to take customers off a platform?

In your own business, or after a job is done, you can tell people how to reach you directly. Inside the platform's own environment, the terms you agreed to usually apply, and those typically ban actively steering people away. Check your platform's terms before, say, sending messages through their chat.

Do I lose bookings if I lean less on the platform?

As long as your profile there stays active and well kept, nothing changes for people who don't know you yet. You're only shifting where returning customers end up. Build it up gradually and check after a few months how many appointments are already coming in direct.

Does this still work if I've only just started out?

Especially then. A new business needs the platform more for those first customers, and that's fine. Anyone who routes every phone number and every happy customer to their own address from day one never has to go through a painful untangling later.

What if the platform changes its rates or terms?

That's exactly the risk this playbook hedges against. Thuisbezorgd went step by step from 6 to 13 percent commission. With your own channel running alongside it, an increase like that only affects what you pay for new customers, and it stops touching the customers you already have.

A website built to carry this

The [[PAKKET-LINK]] from Rachel Elz Studios is built for exactly this: a complete website for EUR 1,200 flat, excl. VAT, ready in 2-3 weeks, hosting included. The domain goes in your own name, which costs about 15 euros a year. And it works on a see-it-first-then-pay basis: you review the site before an invoice ever shows up. That gets your own channel standing next to your platform within a month.

See the Get Found package