Commission you expect each month
$10,200
At risk each year
$24,480
$2,040 a month at 20% leakage.
Bookings recovered to cover Growth
5
Growth is $399 a month. Recover this many short-paid bookings and the rest is yours.
Where the rates come from
Nobody publishes your agency’s leakage, so the calculator uses the figures the industry publishes about itself. Sion, which reconciles for more than a thousand agencies, says more than 40% of commissions carry a discrepancy or go unpaid; Trvlr puts the unpaid share alone above 20% (both quoted in Travel Weekly). Onyx CenterSource, the largest hotel commission clearing house, says manual recovery leaves up to 40% uncollected and that the average hotel commission is $21.50 a room night (eHotelier, August 2026).
The 5% option is ours, for an agency with a controller who reconciles every statement every month. If that is you, you already know your number and the calculator is not for you.
What the estimate leaves out
- Currency. The estimate is in one currency. Real reconciliation never combines two, which is why MarginShield reports per currency and applies no exchange rate.
- Timing. Late is not the same as short. A commission that arrives at 140 days is leakage in cash-flow terms and not in this arithmetic.
- Overpayments. They happen. They are not subtracted here, and in the product they are flagged for review and never netted against a shortfall.
The guide covers how to replace the estimate with a list.