“What is the all-in total?”
Ask for one figure covering the room, every tax and every mandatory charge for your exact dates.
The number that actually matters
The nightly rate is not the price.
Taxes on the room, a mandatory resort fee, and a city tax collected at the desk can move a stay by a fifth before you have unpacked. StayCost adds all of them once, so two offers can be compared on the same basis.
Complete total
Everything you would actually pay for this stay.
Add the quoted figures
The complete total and a line-by-line breakdown appear here.
Ask for these three
The questions that close the gap between rate and bill.
A front desk can answer all three in under a minute. A listing page usually answers none of them.
“Which charges are paid at the property?”
City taxes and resort fees are frequently settled at check-out and never appear on a prepaid confirmation.
“Is that per room or per person?”
The single most common misunderstanding in European stay taxes, and it doubles the figure for two travellers.
Questions
What StayCost does and does not do.
It performs arithmetic on figures you supply. It never invents a price, a rate or an availability claim.
What is usually missing from an advertised hotel rate?
Three things: taxes calculated on the room rate, mandatory property charges such as resort, destination or facility fees, and a per-night city or tourist tax collected at the desk. A rate that looks cheaper per night can end up the more expensive stay once all three are added.
Does StayCost look up tax rates for me?
No, and that is deliberate. Stay-tax rates change every year and vary by property category. StayCost explains how the charge is structured in each destination and does the arithmetic once you enter the figure the property actually quotes you.
Is a resort fee a tax?
No. A resort or destination fee is a commercial charge set by the property, not a government levy — though it is often taxed as well. Ask for it as a per-night figure and add it separately.
Are my figures stored anywhere?
No. The calculation runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, no account is needed and no cookie is set. To keep several quotes side by side, use the Quote Locker, which also stays on your device.
Why does the tool ask for the number of guests?
Many European stay taxes are charged per person per night rather than per room, so the guest count changes the total. Where a destination charges per room, the guest field does not affect the result.