Swellbase vs Checkfront

Why outdoor centres are switching from Checkfront to Swellbase

Checkfront is an established booking platform that's easier to use than some of the legacy giants. But for outdoor centres, it still falls short—you end up managing bookings in Checkfront while juggling a separate scheduling tool for staff, manually copying details to calendars, and acting as the middleman between your system and your team.

Swellbase takes a different approach: purpose-built for outdoor centres, with everything in one place. Modern booking widgets that convert, and an interface your whole team can use—from owner to instructor.

In a nutshell

End the dual-system chaos

Many outdoor centres using Checkfront find themselves running two systems in parallel: Checkfront for bookings, and a separate tool for staff scheduling. This creates an enormous amount of manual work.

The result is a three-step workflow for every booking: receive it in Checkfront, transfer details to your calendar, then message your instructors. It's laborious and error-prone, with plenty of opportunities for overbookings and miscommunication.

Swellbase eliminates this entirely. Bookings, scheduling, and staff management live in one system. When a customer books, capacity is automatically managed around your available staff. No duplicate data entry, no missed messages, no chaos.

A modern booking experience

Your customers expect a fast, modern checkout experience. Checkfront's embedded widgets have dated styling and confusing navigation. That friction at checkout costs you bookings.

Checkfront also can't handle multi-lesson discounts automatically—only group size discounts work. This creates awkward situations where customers booking multiple lessons see a higher price online than what's displayed on your in-centre boards. Not a good look.

Swellbase offers modern, high-converting booking widgets that embed seamlessly on your site. Your customer sees a clean, modern booking experience. It's a win win.

Your whole team can use it

Checkfront tends to become an owner-only tool. The system is too complex to hand over to staff, so the owner becomes the information bottleneck—manually sending booking details to instructors on WhatsApp, answering questions about participant info, acting as the middleman for everything.

Onboarding new staff involves a lot of background setup work, and introducing someone new to the system can be overwhelming. Your instructors just want to turn up and do their lessons—they shouldn't need to navigate a complicated dashboard.

Swellbase is built for your whole team. Instructors get a simple portal showing exactly what they need—their schedule, participant details, medical info—without the complexity of the full system. The owner isn't the bottleneck anymore, and staff can access the information they need directly.