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The world’s two biggest B2B bedbanks — and a genuine plot twist. WebBeds now lists more properties than Hotelbeds, yet Hotelbeds’ entire portfolio is directly contracted while WebBeds re-aggregates most of its. That single fact reframes the whole comparison. Here is what it means for your OTA.
“WebBeds or Hotelbeds?” is the closest thing to a fair fight in the bedbank world — two global B2B wholesalers of similar scale, both selling net rates, both strong across multiple continents. But similar-looking suppliers can hide a decisive difference, and this pair has one: how much of their inventory they actually own.
WebBeds, the B2B arm of Web Travel Group, is the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing bedbank, and the WebBeds hotel API unifies five trade brands — JacTravel, Sunhotels, DOTW, Lots of Hotels and FIT Ruums — into 368,000+ hotels through one connection. Hotelbeds, part of HBX Group, lists fewer properties at 300,000+, but claims its entire portfolio is directly contracted. On paper WebBeds is bigger; underneath, the two are built differently — and that difference, not the headline count, is what should decide your choice.
Hotelbeds is a single-brand, direct-contracting bedbank. Through HBX Group and the acquisitions of Tourico Holidays and GTA, it contracts hotels itself and holds direct relationships with major chains including IHG, Hilton, Sheraton and Hyatt, as documented in AltexSoft’s hands-on Hotelbeds review. One brand, one contracting operation, one API.
WebBeds is a multi-brand marketplace. Built since 2013 through acquisitions, it operates a portfolio of regional trade brands — JacTravel (UK/Europe), Sunhotels (Mediterranean and Nordics), Destinations of the World (Middle East), Lots of Hotels and FIT Ruums — and sources inventory through 30,000+ direct contracts plus 70+ integrated third-party providers and 60+ chain groups. The WebBeds API unifies all of that into one feed. Where Hotelbeds optimises for owned, directly contracted depth, WebBeds optimises for aggregated breadth across strong regional brands. Neither model is “better” — they simply trade off differently, and the trade-off is the whole story.
Here is the fact that reframes everything: WebBeds overtook Hotelbeds on raw property count some years ago — an impressive feat given Hotelbeds’ decade-long head start — but the two totals are built from very different foundations. WebBeds lists 368,000+ hotels, of which roughly 30,000 are directly contracted; the remainder comes through its 70+ connectivity partners. Hotelbeds lists 300,000+ hotels and claims essentially all of them are directly contracted.
Why does this matter to an OTA? Directly contracted inventory generally means better rate control, fresher availability and fewer intermediary margins stacked on top. Re-aggregated inventory means broader reach, but some of those properties you may already be able to book through another supplier — and rates can carry an extra layer. So “WebBeds is bigger” is true and, on its own, misleading. The right question is which supplier gives you the better rate on the specific hotels your travellers book, and that varies by region far more than the headline numbers suggest. Overlap is the hidden variable — the same hotel reaching you from both, under different IDs — and it is the operational cost the free report below quantifies.
Unlike some supplier pairs whose maps barely overlap, WebBeds and Hotelbeds compete on more shared ground — which makes rate quality per region the deciding factor. WebBeds is strongest across the Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific, and its brand heartlands: DOTW gives it genuine depth in the Gulf, Sunhotels leads in the Mediterranean and Nordics, and JacTravel anchors UK and European touring inventory. It sells into 190+ destination countries through clients in 130+ source markets.
Hotelbeds is strongest across Europe, the Mediterranean, Latin America and global chains, with directly contracted depth in Spain, the Balearics and the Canaries that leisure OTAs treat as a benchmark. Both are credible in Europe and the Mediterranean — so there the choice comes down to which returns better rates on your actual hotels. WebBeds tends to pull ahead in the Gulf and parts of APAC; Hotelbeds tends to pull ahead in Western European leisure and chain coverage. For an OTA weighted toward MEA and APAC, WebBeds is the natural lead; for one weighted toward Western Europe and the Americas, Hotelbeds is.
Both are net-rate bedbanks: you receive wholesale prices, apply your own markup, and carry the working capital net rates demand. On paper the model is identical, so the meaningful difference is rate quality rather than rate type. Because Hotelbeds contracts directly, its rates on its core inventory tend to be tightly controlled with fewer intermediary layers. Because WebBeds re-aggregates much of its supply, its rate on any given hotel can be excellent where a strong brand like DOTW or Sunhotels holds the contract, but occasionally carries an extra margin where the property comes via a third-party provider. The practical implication: neither supplier is uniformly cheaper. On the hotels each contracts directly, each is hard to beat — which is precisely why OTAs serious about margin often test both on their real booking mix rather than choosing on totals.
WebBeds exposes a single unified API across its five brands via the WebBeds Marketplace, so one integration reaches all of them — a real advantage over connecting each brand separately. Its API is provided through commercial onboarding rather than a fully public self-service portal. Hotelbeds’ APItude suite splits into Booking, Content and Cache APIs, uses SHA-256 signature authentication, and requires a formal certification ending in a real advance test booking before go-live, with a sandbox capped at 50 requests per day so content must be pulled in batches and stored locally. In both cases the recurring commitments are the same and unavoidable: content storage, hotel-ID mapping, deduplication against your other suppliers, and ongoing maintenance as each API evolves. Those costs repeat for every supplier you add directly — which is exactly what the build-versus-buy math below turns on.
| Dimension | WebBeds | Hotelbeds |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Multi-brand marketplace (5 brands) | Single-brand direct bedbank |
| Total inventory | 368K+ hotels | 300K+ hotels |
| Directly contracted | ~30,000 + 70+ providers | Essentially all (100%) |
| Reach | 190+ dest. countries · 130+ source markets | 195+ countries |
| Regional strength | MEA, Gulf, APAC, Med (Sunhotels), UK/Europe | Europe, Mediterranean, LATAM, chains |
| Rate model | Net rate | Net rate |
| API | Unified Marketplace API (commercial onboarding) | REST/JSON APItude (Booking/Content/Cache) |
| Best for | MEA/APAC depth, multi-brand breadth | European/leisure depth, chain & rate control |
Figures reflect each supplier’s current published positioning. “Total inventory” and “directly contracted” are different measures — a larger total can contain more re-aggregated supply, which is the central distinction in this comparison.
Because these two overlap more than most, decide on rate quality in your regions, not on totals. Choose WebBeds if your travellers book the Middle East, the Gulf, Africa or Asia-Pacific, if you value multi-brand breadth (DOTW, Sunhotels, JacTravel) through one connection, or if MEA and APAC are your growth markets — the WebBeds hotel API is built for exactly that reach. Choose Hotelbeds if your travellers book Western Europe, the Mediterranean, Latin America or global chains, and you want the rate control and availability freshness that come with a fully directly contracted portfolio — the Hotelbeds hotel API is the leisure benchmark. Choose both if you want the best directly contracted rate on every hotel — because each wins on the properties it contracts itself.
And “both” is where this pair gets operationally expensive: because they overlap, running both directly produces the most duplicate listings of any comparison in this series — the same hotel arriving from WebBeds and Hotelbeds under different IDs, at different rates. Resolving that by hand is exactly the maintenance burden that erodes margin. An aggregator turns it into a non-issue: one integration reaches both suppliers (and 100+ others), with duplicates resolved by a dedicated mapping partner so the same hotel shows once, the best rate winning automatically.
Both bedbanks — plus 100+ more suppliers — live in days, deduplicated so the best rate always wins.
Explore the Universal Hotel API →Related reading: Hotelbeds vs RateHawk · TBO vs Hotelbeds · Best hotel API providers 2026
By total property count, yes — WebBeds lists 368,000+ hotels against Hotelbeds’ 300,000+, and it overtook Hotelbeds on this measure despite launching a decade later. But the counts are built differently: WebBeds directly contracts around 30,000 hotels and re-aggregates the rest through 70+ providers, while Hotelbeds claims its entire portfolio is directly contracted. Bigger on total inventory does not mean more directly contracted inventory.
WebBeds is a multi-brand marketplace (JacTravel, Sunhotels, DOTW, Lots of Hotels, FIT Ruums) that aggregates 368K+ hotels through direct contracts plus 70+ providers, strongest in MEA, the Gulf and APAC. Hotelbeds is a single-brand bedbank whose 300K+ portfolio is essentially all directly contracted, strongest in Europe, the Mediterranean and Latin America. The core difference is breadth-through-aggregation versus depth-through-direct-contracting.
Neither is uniformly cheaper. Each tends to offer the best rate on the hotels it contracts directly — Hotelbeds across its European and Mediterranean core, WebBeds across its brand heartlands like the Gulf (DOTW) and the Mediterranean and Nordics (Sunhotels). Where WebBeds sources a property through a third-party provider, its rate can carry an extra margin. The only reliable way to know is to test both on your actual booking mix by region.
Yes. WebBeds unifies its trade brands — including Destinations of the World (DOTW), Sunhotels, JacTravel, Lots of Hotels and FIT Ruums — through the single WebBeds Marketplace API, so one integration reaches all of them. This is a genuine convenience compared with connecting each brand separately, and it is a large part of why WebBeds’ single connection delivers such broad multi-region coverage.
If margin matters and your travellers span their regions, yes — each offers the best directly contracted rate on different hotels, so running both lets you always surface the cheaper option. The catch is that they overlap heavily, so running both directly generates a lot of duplicate listings that must be reconciled. An aggregator removes that burden: one integration reaches both, with deduplication handled automatically so the same hotel shows once at the best rate.
Reach WebBeds’ five brands and MEA/APAC depth alongside Hotelbeds and 100+ suppliers through one normalised API — deduplicated, live in days, with the per-supplier build already done.
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