"Choosing the right booking platform can make or break your activity center's growth. The difference between a marketplace and a dedicated SaaS tool is more significant than most owners realize."-- Activity Center Growth Report, 2026
Sawyer (formerly HiSawyer) has established itself as a popular marketplace and SaaS platform for kids' activities. By connecting parents with local classes and camps, Sawyer offers providers a way to gain visibility through its discovery-driven model.
But visibility comes at a cost -- literally. Sawyer's marketplace model means commissions on bookings, your brand displayed alongside competitors, and limited control over the parent experience. In this comparison, we'll break down exactly how Bookingo and Sawyer differ so you can decide which platform truly serves your center's long-term goals.
Marketplace Commission vs. Flat-Fee Freedom
Sawyer charges a commission of typically 20-30% on every booking made through its marketplace. While their paid plans (starting around $59/month) reduce this rate, marketplace-sourced bookings still carry a significant per-transaction fee. For a busy center processing hundreds of bookings per month, those commissions can quietly erode thousands of dollars in annual revenue.
Bookingo Solution
Bookingo uses a flat monthly fee with zero commission on bookings. Whether you process 50 or 5,000 bookings per month, your cost stays the same. This means every dollar of revenue from your classes stays in your pocket, making growth predictable and profitable.
Marketplace Dependency vs. Brand Independence
Sawyer's core value proposition is its marketplace -- a directory where parents discover kids' activities near them. The downside? Your classes appear right next to your direct competitors. Parents browsing for a gymnastics class will see your listing alongside every other gymnastics provider in the area, making it easy for them to comparison-shop and choose a rival.
Competitors shown alongside you
Limited branding on marketplace pages
Parents belong to Sawyer, not you
Bookingo Solution
With Bookingo, you own your entire booking experience. Parents book directly through your branded portal -- no competitor listings, no marketplace distractions. You build direct relationships with families and retain full control over your customer data and brand identity.
Limited Scheduling Flexibility
Sawyer was built primarily as a marketplace discovery tool, not a comprehensive scheduling engine. Its class listing capabilities work well for simple one-off sessions and camps, but activity centers running recurring classes, trial sessions, rolling memberships, and waitlists often find themselves working around the platform's limitations rather than with them.
Bookingo Solution
Bookingo was purpose-built for complex scheduling scenarios that real activity centers deal with daily. From trial classes that auto-convert to memberships, to recurring schedules with holiday exceptions, to multi-week camp sessions with flexible drop-in options -- Bookingo handles it all without workarounds.
Parent Communication & CRM Gap
Sawyer focuses on the transaction -- getting a parent to book a class. But what happens before and after that booking? There is no built-in CRM for tracking leads who visited your page but didn't enroll, no automated follow-up sequences for trial class attendees, and limited tools for ongoing parent engagement. This means potential enrollments slip through the cracks and re-enrollment depends entirely on manual outreach.
No lead tracking or pipeline
No automated follow-up sequences
Limited parent engagement tools
Bookingo Solution
Bookingo includes a built-in CRM with lead tracking and parent lifecycle management. Track every inquiry from first contact to enrollment, automate follow-ups after trial classes, and maintain ongoing engagement with families through targeted communications -- all without needing a separate CRM tool.
Reporting & Analytics
Sawyer provides basic reporting on bookings and revenue, but it lacks the deep analytical capabilities that growing centers need to make strategic decisions. There are no AI-powered insights, no revenue forecasting tools, and limited ability to analyze trends across class types, seasons, or demographics. When you need to decide which programs to expand or which time slots to optimize, you are left exporting data to spreadsheets.
Bookingo Solution
Bookingo delivers AI-powered analytics with revenue predictions and actionable recommendations. Identify your highest-performing programs, forecast seasonal demand, spot at-risk enrollments before they churn, and receive data-driven suggestions to maximize occupancy and revenue -- all from a single dashboard.
Multi-Location Management
Sawyer was designed around individual provider listings on its marketplace, not centralized operations across multiple branches. If you run two or more locations, you may find yourself managing separate accounts, duplicating class setups, and losing the ability to see a unified view of enrollment, revenue, and staffing across your organization. This fragmented approach becomes increasingly painful as you scale.
Bookingo Solution
Bookingo provides centralized multi-location management from day one. View enrollment and revenue across all branches from a single dashboard, share instructor schedules between locations, maintain consistent pricing and policies, and let parents book at any location through one unified family account.
Comparison at a Glance
| Feature | Sawyer | Bookingo |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Model | Commission on marketplace bookings | Flat monthly fee |
| Marketplace | Yes (parents see competitors) | No (you own bookings) |
| Family Accounts | Basic | Full (sibling discounts, family invoicing) |
| CRM | None | Built-in lead & parent tracking |
| AI Insights | None | Revenue predictions & recommendations |
| Multi-location | Limited | Centralized management |
| Scheduling | Basic class listing | Complex scheduling, trials, memberships |
Conclusion
Sawyer has carved out a niche as a marketplace for kids' activities, and it can be a useful discovery channel for new providers looking for initial visibility. However, as your center grows, the marketplace model's limitations become increasingly apparent -- from commission fees that scale with your success to the lack of ownership over parent relationships and data.
Bookingo takes a fundamentally different approach: flat-fee pricing that rewards growth, complete brand ownership, advanced scheduling, built-in CRM, AI-powered insights, and true multi-location support. If you're serious about building a sustainable, scalable activity center business, Bookingo gives you the tools to do it on your terms.
Ready to own your booking experience?
See how Bookingo's flat-fee pricing, built-in CRM, and powerful scheduling tools compare in action. Book a personalized demo and discover why activity centers are choosing independence over marketplace dependency.