Selling tours for bus operators
Sell bus tours by the seat, the bus or the date.
Publish departures and sell seats, sell the whole bus to a private group, or let customers pick any date a coach is free. Tours and charters share the same coaches, so nothing is sold twice.
$40 per bus per month, with a 30-day free trial.
WHAT IT IS
GridOps gives bus and coach companies a way to build day tours and sell them by the seat, by the whole bus or on demand, from the same coaches as their charters and shuttles.
It replaces the PDF itinerary, the dates typed into a spreadsheet and the calls to check whether a coach is free.
Build the tour once with its stops and inclusions, schedule a season of departures in one go, and sell seats or the whole bus. On demand, customers only see dates when one of your coaches is free.
Your day, changed
What changes when your tours sell from the same fleet?
Seven moments of selling a bus tour. Step through them to see what changes.
Selling bus tours
Build it once, sell it three ways
A day tour can fill with individual guests, go to one private group, or run on the date a group chooses. GridOps sells all three from your real coaches.
Park entry
Gratuities
01
Build the tour once
Everything guests need to know.
A name, a one-line summary, a description and a main photo.
Stops in order: where guests board, where they stay and for how long, where they get off.
What’s included and what isn’t, one item per line.
Meeting point notes, so guests find the coach.
02
One tour, any buyer
Pick the ones that fit the tour.
Buy individual seats: guests share the coach.
Book the whole vehicle: one party takes the entire bus.
Customer picks the date: any date you have a free coach.
Seats and the whole bus sell first come on each date.
03
A season in one go
Months of departures at once.
Pick a date range, the weekdays and a start time.
Choose the coach that runs them, and its seats set the capacity.
Schedule up to a year of dates in one batch.
Dates when the coach is busy are skipped and reported.
04
One fleet with your charters
Nothing sold twice.
On-demand dates only appear when a coach is free.
When a charter takes the last free coach, that date leaves the tour calendar.
Tour departures sit on the dispatch board and the fleet calendar.
An unpaid tour checkout releases its hold after 30 minutes.
What else does a bus tour need?
Price private groups by size, keep every coach on one calendar, and get paid into your own account.
Group-size pricing
Group-size pricing
The whole-bus price steps up with the size of the group.
Pricing private groups?
See our bus tour pricing software.
Fleet
Fleet
Tours, charters and shuttles on one timeline per coach.
Checking a date?
See the fleet calendar.
Payments
Payments
Deposits and balances go to your own Stripe account.
Taking payments?
See how bus company payments work.
Everything around the tour, already handled
Your catalogue, money, customers and day come with every tour you sell.
Your tours
Duplicate a tour
Copy a tour to start the next one.
Stop selling a tour
Switch a tour off and it leaves your tour pages. Bookings already made carry on.
Tags
Tag your tours and find them by tag in your catalogue.
Your money
Seats and bus, paid differently
Set separate deposit or full-payment rules for seats and for the whole bus.
Your own Stripe account
Card payments land in your account, not ours.
Taxes on every booking
Your tax rules apply to every tour booking.
Your customers
Phone bookings
Book a customer from the departures list, then take payment.
A reminder before the tour
Customers get a reminder email before the tour starts.
Reviews after the tour
Ask for a Google review after the tour, with one reminder.
Your day
On the dispatch board
Tours sit beside charters and shuttles, with a Bus Tour filter.
On the fleet calendar
Each departure shows under its coach, with seats sold.
Bus and driver per date
Assign the coach and driver for each departure from dispatch.
Pricing
What does it cost to sell bus tours?
One price per bus, with tours, departures, group-size pricing and payments included. Shuttle and tour bookings paid online carry a 1.9% booking fee, billed monthly. The first 10 founding operators who join by December 31, 2026 pay $20 per bus and 0.9%, both locked for 3 years.
Questions operators ask about selling bus tours
Can one tour sell seats and private groups?
Yes. Turn on both, and each date sells first come: once a seat is sold, the whole bus is off for that date, and a whole-bus booking closes the seats.
How does on demand work?
Customers book the whole bus on a date they pick, and the calendar only offers dates when one of your coaches is free, after your lead time.
Can a tour and a charter end up on the same coach?
No. Tours and charters share one pool of coaches. A coach booked for one can’t be sold to the other at the same time.
How do I publish a season of dates?
Pick a date range, the weekdays, a start time and the coach. GridOps schedules every date at once and tells you which ones it skipped because the coach was busy.
Do my tours get their own pages?
Yes. Each tour gets a page with its itinerary, what’s included and a departures calendar customers book from.
Can customers pay a deposit?
Yes. Set a deposit or full payment for seats, and separately for the whole bus.
What happens if someone leaves checkout?
An unpaid tour booking is released after 30 minutes, so an abandoned checkout doesn’t keep holding seats.
Can I take bookings by phone?
Yes. Book a customer from the departures list, then charge a card, send a payment link or record a payment.
What counts as a bus?
Any vehicle that can be booked or dispatched counts as a bus.
Is there a fee on tour bookings?
Yes, 1.9% on tour bookings paid online, billed to you monthly, or 0.9% if you’re a founding operator. Charters have no booking fee, and Stripe charges its own card fee.
Ready to sell your tours three ways?
Book a demo and we’ll set up one of your tours, with a season of departures and your own prices.
Running charters and shuttles too? They share the same dispatch board. See everything GridOps does for bus tours.
Last updated October 1, 2026