How we (theoretically) make money

The short version: when you click through to book a hotel or flight from this site, we sometimes earn a small commission. You don't pay extra. The longer version, with the bits the regulator wants and a bit of honesty about the maths, is below.

Who pays us, and when

We're registered (or about to be registered) with these affiliate programmes:

• Booking.com— pays us a share of the booking commission when you click through and book a stay within their cookie window.
• Trivago— pays cost-per-click when you click through to a hotel comparison.
• Kiwi.com— pays us if you book a flight after clicking through.
• Amazon Associates(UK / US / DE depending on your location) — pays a small percentage on any items you buy in the same Amazon session after clicking through from the Shop.

Every link to one of these partners carries rel=“nofollow sponsored” so search engines and your browser know it's a commercial link.

What the commission doesn't influence

The order destinations appear in the roulette and the classic search is set by the weather scorer alone — sun hours, temperature, rain, wind, consistency, season fit. Commission rate never enters that calculation. We'd rather rank a destination below another if the weather warrants it, even when the lower- ranked one pays better per click.

Same with the hotels we name on destination pages. They're picked editorially — review scores, value, what we'd book ourselves — and the commission rate doesn't enter the choice.

You can always book direct

If you'd rather book directly with the hotel or airline, do that. Sometimes it's the better deal. We're not trying to be the only path between you and your trip — just the best way to figure out where the trip should be.

The actual maths

Being honest with myself: this probably never pays for the domain, let alone anything else. Affiliate sites that actually earn tend to have two things this one doesn't — paid traffic budgets in six figures, and a content moat built over many years. So the maths is roughly: we'd need a few thousand bookings a year, we'd need someone to find the site first, and we'd need them to click through rather than book direct. Each step trims a zero off the back of the next.

What it's actually for, then: a small contribution to the internet. A useful thing that didn't exist before now does. It's honest about uncertainty, doesn't fake scarcity, doesn't rank by commission, and tells you plainly when a destination is a bad idea in a given month. If we earn enough to cover hosting, great. If you book through us anyway, also great — thank you. If you book direct, completely fine. The site does its job either way.

What we won't do

No fake scarcity (“only 2 rooms left!”). No countdown timers. No manufactured urgency. We don't rank destinations by commission rate. We don't write SEO content we wouldn't read ourselves. If a destination is a bad idea in a given month — Phuket in September, mainland Greece in August, Punta Cana in mid-September — we say so plainly, even if it costs a click.

That's the deal. If anything on the site feels off against this disclosure, write to hello@sunroulette.com.

Last updated May 2026.