Websites for fishing charters and the people who run boats
A charter website should do one job: turn someone scrolling at 9pm into a booked trip. I build sites that do that, and I build them as someone who has actually run a boat, shot the sunset photos, and shipped software for marine businesses.
Most web designers have never smelled a live well. This one throws a cast net.
That sounds like a joke. It is not. The reason charter sites so often feel generic is that they are built by someone who has never been on the water, working from a template and a stock photo. They do not know that the booking question is really a weather question, that your season has a rhythm, that the fish and the tide and the wind all have to line up before a trip is worth selling.
I do know that. I built Archer Airboat Tours, I am building marine apps (a maintenance logbook and a fishing-forecast engine that scores Gulf species hour by hour), and when I am not at the keyboard, chances are I am on the water. You get a website that speaks your customer’s language because it was built by someone who speaks it too.
A site built to book trips, not just look nice
Built to get booked
The whole point of a charter site is the phone ringing. Clear trip options, real prices or a fast quote path, and a booking or contact step that works from a phone on a dock, not just a desktop.
Mobile-first, actually
Your customers find you on their phone the night before a trip. The site loads fast on cell signal and reads clean on a small screen, because that is where the booking actually happens.
Photo-forward
Fish, boats, sunsets, happy people holding tarpon. Charter sites live and die on the photos, so the layout is built to show yours off (and I shoot this stuff myself, so I know the difference).
Found on Google
Set up to rank for the searches that matter: "[your town] fishing charter," "inshore charter near me," your species and your water. Structured data, fast pages, and local signals baked in from day one.
Yours, not rented
No monthly booking-platform tax skimming every trip on somebody else’s domain. The site is yours. If you want deposits, waivers, or a booking calendar, I build them in.
Runs by someone who gets it
I do not need the charter world explained to me. Tides, weather windows, why a slow season is slow, why the mate matters. I speak the language, so you spend less time translating.
Real marine work, not a mood board
Archer Airboat Tours →
A live tour-operator site I designed and built. Real booking-focused marketing site for an on-the-water business.
VesselLog
A boat-maintenance app (in active development): service schedules, engine hours, tides. Built for people who run their own boats.
TideBite
A fishing-forecast app that scores every hour for fishing quality across Gulf species. Because when I am not building, I am fishing.
Keep your booking platform or fire it. Your call.
If you are already on FareHarbor, Xola, or Square, good: those work, and I am not going to talk you into blowing up a system mid-season. I build the site around what you have, your calendar drops in clean, and the only thing that changes is that people can actually find you.
If you are on FishingBooker or another marketplace and you are tired of watching a slice of every fare leave the boat, there is another way: a booking flow built into your own site, deposits through Stripe, no per-trip commission, no middleman owning your reviews. That is the Store / Booking package below, and the math on it usually makes sense faster than captains expect (one season of commissions is a lot of website).
Straight numbers, up front
Get Found
$1,500 to $2,000
A clean, fast site that gets you found. For charter captains, mobile marine repair, and detailers running on a Facebook page or nothing at all.
Full Business Site
$2,800 to $3,800
A real presence for a real operation: bait and tackle shops, marinas, and established charters that need more than one page and a phone number.
Store / Booking
Starts at $5,000
Taking bookings or selling online: charter reservations or tackle e-commerce built in. Shopify builds start at $4,500.
Every project gets a written quote in my client portal before anything starts: line-item scope, exact price, click to accept. After launch, care plans from $60 a month keep it updated and backed up.
Straight answers
How much does a fishing charter website cost?
Most charter sites land in the Get Found range, $1,500 to $2,000, and that covers design, build, and launch (the numbers on this page are the real ones, not a "call for pricing" dodge). If you want booking and deposits built in, that is the Store / Booking package. Every project starts with a written line-item quote in my client portal, so the price you accept is the price you pay.
I already get trips from FishingBooker and Instagram. Do I need a website?
Honest answer: if you are booked solid every season, maybe not. But the marketplaces take a cut of every trip and they own the customer relationship, the reviews, and the search ranking. A site of your own is where repeat clients find you directly, where Google sends people searching your town and your species, and where nobody skims the fare. The captains who feel it most are the ones whose whole season lives on somebody else’s algorithm.
The full argument, written out →Can you set up online booking and deposits?
Yes, two ways. If you already use FareHarbor, Xola, or Square, I build the site around it and your calendar drops in clean. If you want to own the whole flow, I build booking into the site itself with deposits through Stripe, so there is no per-trip commission at all. Which way is right depends on your volume and how much of each fare you are comfortable handing over.
How long does it take?
A Get Found site typically launches in two to three weeks, and the biggest variable is honestly how fast the photos and trip details reach me. Your quote comes with a timeline, and you can watch the build move through its stages in the client portal: on the hard, sea trials, launched.
Will it work on a phone?
Everything gets designed for a phone screen first, because that is where bookings happen: the night before a trip, on one bar of signal at a boat ramp. Fast load on weak cell service is a requirement here, not a nice-to-have.
My photos are ten-year-old shots of dead fish on a tailgate. Help?
Ah, one of my favorite questions, mostly because my answer starts with "do I need to bring my own rod and reel?" Photography is an add-on, and for a charter that means I ride along on a real trip. What actually books trips is the catch, so that is what we shoot: fish coming over the rail, your clients grinning behind a fat grouper, your water on a good day. We will get the boat at golden hour too (I have a documented glamour-shot weakness), but the fish sell the trip. The boat just closes it.
Do you only work with Florida charters?
I am based in Punta Gorda and most of my on-the-ground work is Southwest Florida, but I work remote with charters and marine businesses anywhere. The tides change, the job does not.
Can you run my social media?
No, and you deserve the real reason: it is the same reason I do not sell SEO retainers. Running social media never ships and never finishes, and the people who are great at it genuinely love that rhythm. I do not (my own accounts are admissible as evidence: the silence over there is monumental), and paying someone to do a job they would rather not be doing is how you end up with a business page that posts like a hostage. What I will happily do is the words: site copy, service pages, your review-ask text, even a month of post copy drafted in one sitting so posting becomes paste-and-go. Copywriting is written once and keeps working (and it is already on my menu, from $150 a page).
What happens after launch?
Your call. Care plans start at $60 a month for updates, backups, and small changes, or you take the keys and run it yourself. Either way the domain and the site are yours: no hostage-taking, no proprietary platform you cannot leave.