An honest Hookset review, and when Malvavisco fits instead.
Looking for a Hookset alternative? Start with what Hookset does well and what it costs, taken from its own pages. Hookset is a new booking and guide platform for fishing lodges, fly shops and guides, with online booking and a weekly guide board. Malvavisco is built around running the stay: rooms, guides and boats, the kitchen, the bar and the bill, in English, Spanish or Portuguese. We wrote this page, and we say when Hookset is the better choice.
What is the best Hookset alternative?
It depends on what you want to change. If guests should book and pay online and your daily headache is assigning guides fairly, Hookset is built for exactly that. For a longer track record with online booking, LodgeRunner has served lodges since 2001. If the work is running the stay (rooms, meals and the bar on one bill, guides scheduled with their boats, staff in several roles, a team that works in Spanish), Malvavisco fits better, and our team moves your upcoming bookings over for free.
What Hookset does well
From Hookset’s own website, checked on 23 October 2026.
- Built for fishing lodges, and open about being new. Hookset is made for fishing guides, fly shops and full-service lodges. Its early access opened on 3 March 2026, and its site says it is in active development with bookings, guest management, guide allocation, rooms, payments and automated emails live (early access, changelog).
- Online booking with deposits. Every lodge gets a hosted booking page where guests pick dates, choose a package and pay the deposit; the Lodge plan adds a widget for your own website (source).
- Payments that chase themselves. Stripe Checkout with cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay into your own Stripe account; balance reminders 30, 14 and 7 days out, then an automatic charge on the due date (source). Group bookings can split the deposit or balance into a payment link per person (source).
- A fair guide board. On Pro and Lodge, a weekly drag-and-drop board that suggests a guide by skills, fishing method, availability and trip count, and colors each guide’s load so an overworked guide shows at a glance (source).
- Packages and rooms. Day trips, overnight packages, seasonal pricing and add-ons, priced per guest or flat (per boat for day trips). Rooms carry capacity, beds, a nightly price and a minimum stay, with shared rooms, turnover days and conflict detection (source).
- Guests who arrive prepared. Custom trip prep forms for skill, gear sizes and dietary needs, pre-filled for returning guests, with a dashboard of who has finished (source).
- Flexible billing. No contracts, and Pro and Lodge can pause billing for up to five months a year in the off-season (source).
- A founding partner program. Ten operations get the Lodge plan free for 12 months and a white-glove setup in which Hookset builds the account: packages, guide roster, booking page and guest list (source).
How much Hookset costs
As published on Hookset’s pricing page on 23 October 2026, in US dollars.
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly | Transaction fee | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free | 2% | 10 bookings a month, 1 guide, 1 team member, no rooms |
| Pro | $149 | $1,490 | 1% | Unlimited bookings, up to 10 guides, 5 rooms and 3 team members |
| Lodge | $299 | $2,990 | 0.5% | Unlimited guides, rooms and team; booking widget, reporting and priority support |
- The transaction fee applies to online payments, on top of Stripe’s own processing fee (typically 2.9% plus 30 cents in the US), and is deducted from each payout. Payments recorded by hand (cash, check, wire or a card taken outside Hookset) carry no fee (transaction fees).
- On the Free plan, new bookings are blocked after ten in a month until the month resets or you upgrade.
- No contracts or cancellation fees; Pro and Lodge can pause billing for up to five months a year.
Source: gethookset.com/pricing. Malvavisco doesn’t publish prices; it quotes after a demo.
Malvavisco and Hookset, row by row
Malvavisco wrote this comparison. Hookset’s column comes from its own website, checked on 23 October 2026, with a link for each row. Its details may have changed since.
| Feature | MalvaviscoLodge software | Hookset |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Remote lodges in the Americas where a stay includes guided days, meals and a bar: fishing, hunting, guest ranches, eco lodges | Fishing guides, fly shops and full-service fishing lodges; in active developmentSource |
| Rooms and multi-night stays | Rooms or cabins booked for the stay or night by night, with holds, check-in and check-out | Overnight packages and rooms with capacity, beds, nightly price and minimum stay; 5 rooms on Pro, unlimited on LodgeSource |
| Online booking and card payments | No: staff enter bookings from email, phone and agents, and record cash, transfer and card-terminal payments with receipts. Mercado Pago links in Argentine pesos are built but not yet live | Hosted booking page on every plan, a widget on Lodge; Stripe, with a 0.5–2% fee on top of Stripe’sSource |
| Waivers and e-signatures | No: guests cannot sign waivers in Malvavisco | Custom trip prep forms; waivers and e-signatures not mentionedSource |
| Guides, boats and horses | Named guides with skills and languages; boats, horses, vehicles or floatplanes as assets; overlap, capacity and skill checks on every assignment | Weekly guide board that suggests guides by skills, availability and fair rotation; boats not scheduled as a resourceSource |
| Kitchen | Included meals planned per stay, a daily dietary brief, kitchen tickets from preparing to ready to served | Dietary needs on trip prep forms and meals-included options on packages; no kitchen tools mentionedSource |
| Bar and shop | Point of sale on the booking’s bill, with stock counts, supply orders and supply receipts | Not mentionedSource |
| Staff roles | Eleven roles enforced on the server, including guide, kitchen, housekeeping, finance and owner read-only; two-factor sign-in | Three roles: owner, manager and staff; 1, 3 or unlimited team members by planSource |
| Currencies and taxes | Rates in about 30 currencies, one per booking, reported separately with no automatic conversion; your own tax rules | Prices in US dollars; other currencies not stated; sales tax through Stripe Tax by state and ZIP codeSource |
| Staff interface language | English, Spanish or Portuguese, set per workspace | Not stated; website in EnglishSource |
| Offline | No: needs an internet connection; the kitchen screen disables its buttons when its data goes stale | Not statedSource |
| Price | Not published; quoted after a demo | Free, $149 or $299 a month, plus 0.5–2% of each online paymentSource |
When to choose each
Stay with Hookset, or choose it, if…
- Guests should book a package and pay the deposit online, and balances should charge themselves
- Rotating guides fairly through a busy week is your biggest daily problem
- Groups want to split the payment, each person with their own link
- You want a free plan, a published price and the option to pause billing in the off-season
Choose Malvavisco if…
- The kitchen and the bar should work from tickets that land on the guest’s bill, with stock counts
- You want each guide scheduled with the boat, horse or vehicle they need, with overlap checks
- Front desk, guides, kitchen, housekeeping and finance each need their own role
- Your team works in Spanish, or you bill in pesos, reais or other currencies and want each one reported on its own
- You run more than fishing: a hunting lodge, a guest ranch or an eco lodge
What Hookset’s pages don’t cover
We found no kitchen tools beyond dietary questions, no bar or point of sale, no waivers or e-signatures, no mention of currencies other than US dollars and no interface language other than English. Hookset says it is in active development, so some of this may be on its way; ask during its 15-minute demo. For a wider field, see the best fishing lodge software comparison and our LodgeRunner and Fishing Outfitter reviews, or how Malvavisco runs a fishing lodge.
Hookset reviews and alternatives
For a fishing lodge that wants online booking, automatic deposits and balances and a fair guide board, it covers those well on paper, and it publishes a free plan and its prices. It is also new: its early access opened in March 2026 and its site says it is in active development. We found no kitchen, bar, waiver or currency features on its pages.
Free (10 bookings a month, 2% transaction fee), Pro at $149 a month or $1,490 a year (1%, up to 10 guides and 5 rooms) and Lodge at $299 a month or $2,990 a year (0.5%, unlimited guides, rooms and team). The fee applies to online payments, on top of Stripe’s own processing fee.
For running the lodge, yes: bookings for the whole party, rooms, guides and boats, the kitchen, the point of sale, payments and reports. It does not replace Hookset’s online booking page, Stripe payments, automatic balance charges or split pay.
Yes, for free. Send us what Hookset exports and our team sets up your rooms, rates, services, guides and assets, enters every upcoming booking with its deposits, loads your guest list and rebuilds your emails. Past bookings stay in Hookset.
Hookset’s white-glove setup and free year of the Lodge plan are for ten founding partners it selects. Malvavisco’s free migration is for any lodge switching from Hookset or another system; Malvavisco’s subscription is quoted after a demo.
Its website is in English and doesn’t mention other interface languages or currencies. Malvavisco’s staff app runs in Spanish, English or Brazilian Portuguese.
