STRAIGHT ANSWERS, NO SALES DECK
Harbor management, answered.
Everything harbormasters and marina managers ask us — about slips, waitlists, moorage billing, and how BinnacleHarbor actually works. Something missing? Ask a human.
Harbor and marina basics
What is a marina slip?
A slip is a designated berth where a vessel ties up — the boating equivalent of an assigned parking space. Slips are rented transient (nightly), monthly, seasonally, or annually, and are usually sized by maximum length overall (LOA).
What is a transient slip?
A transient slip is short-term dockage for a visiting vessel — a night, a weekend, or a few weeks while cruising. Transient moorage is often a harbor's most underused revenue because tracking arrivals, nightly fees, and departures by hand is tedious.
What is moorage?
Moorage is the fee a vessel pays to occupy a slip, mooring, or dock space. In Alaska and the Pacific Northwest it is the everyday word for what other regions call dockage.
What does a harbormaster do?
The harbormaster runs day-to-day harbor operations: assigning slips, collecting moorage, tracking arrivals and departures, maintaining docks and floats, enforcing harbor rules, and coordinating during storms or emergencies. In most municipal harbors it is a small team wearing every one of those hats at once.
What is the difference between a harbor and a marina?
In practice: a harbor is often a public facility run by a city, borough, or state agency, while a marina is usually privately owned. Both assign slips, bill moorage, and manage waitlists — BinnacleHarbor is built for both, with the audit trail and record-keeping public harbors answer for.
How do harbors and marinas make money?
Typical revenue lines: monthly and annual slip moorage, transient nightly fees, waitlist fees, fuel sales, utilities (shore power, water), pump-outs, haul-outs and dry storage, launch ramp fees, and ice or shop sales. Software mostly earns its keep by capturing transient and utility revenue that leaks past paper systems.
What is a slip waitlist and how does it work?
When a harbor is full, vessels queue for the next open slip — first come, first served, matched by vessel length. At busy harbors (Homer and Seward in Alaska are famous for it) waitlists run years long and carry annual renewal fees, so keeping the list accurate and defensible matters.
What is a haul-out?
A haul-out lifts a vessel out of the water — by travel lift, crane, or hydraulic trailer — for bottom work, surveys, storage, or winter. At working harbors the daily lift schedule is a choreography of haul-outs and launches, traditionally run on phone calls and a whiteboard by the lift operator.
What is harbor management software?
A system that replaces the whiteboard, clipboard, and spreadsheet: live slip map, vessel check-ins and check-outs, moorage billing and online payment, waitlists, lift scheduling, maintenance logs, messaging, and reporting in one place that the whole staff can see at once.
Running your harbor on BinnacleHarbor
What is BinnacleHarbor?
Harbor and marina management software: a live harbor map, 30-second vessel check-in, automated nightly billing, online payments, waitlists, maintenance and issue tracking, and a free portal for your boaters. It is built in Honolulu with Pacific harbors — Hawaii and Alaska first — as the home waters.
See the product tourHow long does setup take?
You can register, spin up demo data, and see your harbor on the live map in under a minute — no credit card. Loading your real docks and slips is a same-day job, and during onboarding we will load your slip list with you.
Start the 30-day free trialDoes it replace my spreadsheet or whiteboard?
Yes — that is the whole point. The live SVG harbor map shows every slip color-coded by status (open, occupied, reserved, maintenance), and every check-in, fee, and note is attached to the vessel visit instead of a cell in a spreadsheet only one person understands.
How does the 30-second check-in work?
Each slip gets a QR code. A arriving boater scans it, enters vessel and contact details, accepts your slip agreement, and the slip flips to occupied — while your staff get an email and an instant push notification on the Dockmaster app. No office visit required.
How does billing work?
You set nightly, weekly, and monthly rates per slip class. Active visits accrue automatically each night, utility and fuel charges are added as line items, and captains pay by card from their phone. Monthly and annual lease holders can be put on recurring billing.
Can boaters pay online?
Yes. Connect your own Stripe account at signup and boaters pay you directly — you keep the principal, payouts hit your bank in about two business days, and the platform fee is a flat 2% on top of Stripe's standard card rate.
See the full fee breakdownDo you support monthly and annual slip leases?
Yes. Recurring leases bill automatically through Stripe on your connected account, with renewal reminders and a one-click unsubscribe for the lease holder. Past-due leases are flagged for follow-up.
How does waitlist management work?
The waitlist keeps queue order by signup date and matches by vessel length. When a slip opens up, the next matching captain is notified automatically — by email, and by text message where SMS is enabled — with a link to request the slip.
Can boaters request haul-outs and launches online?
Yes. Turn on lift requests and your public guide gets a request form: boaters pick haul-out or launch, staff work a first-come queue on the Lift Queue board, and the captain gets email and text updates at every step — queue position, confirmed lift time, in the slings, and done. The lift crew stops being a switchboard.
Can boaters get text messages?
Yes. Check-in confirmations, reservation updates, and waitlist offers can go out by SMS, and boaters can text the harbor's number back — replies land in the same message thread your staff already use. Two-way SMS is rolling out now; ask us to enable it for your harbor.
Can I put a live harbor camera on my public page?
Yes. Paste a camera URL in settings and your public boater guide shows a live view — HLS streams (.m3u8) play in a real video player, still-image cams refresh inline. No camera yet? We can help you stand one up; live harbor cams are something we run in production ourselves.
What weather information is built in?
Your public guide embeds NOAA tide predictions for your station and current marine conditions. Staff can send storm advisories, and the Standard plan adds Apple push storm alerts to boater devices.
What is the AIS arrivals layer?
The harbor map can overlay live AIS traffic within your watch radius, so you can see who is inbound before they hail you on the VHF. It also powers an arrivals scan that flags vessels approaching your harbor.
Can I track maintenance?
Yes — log dock, electrical, plumbing, pump-out, and safety tasks with photos, priorities, assignments, and due dates. Recurring tasks re-create themselves on your schedule, and the full history per asset is there when budget season comes.
Is there an audit trail?
Every mutating staff action is written to an append-only audit log — who did what, to which slip or visit, and when. For municipal harbors answering to a city council or the state, that record is the difference between an argument and an answer.
How do reservations work?
Captains request a slip from your public guide page. You approve or decline from the dashboard; approval can include a slip assignment and an optional deposit collected through Stripe. Confirmations go out by email, and by text where SMS is enabled.
Is there a digital slip agreement?
Yes. Self check-in records the captain's acceptance of your slip agreement with a timestamp and IP address, attached permanently to the visit.
Can I message all my boaters at once?
Yes — harbor notices broadcast to your owners for closures, storm prep, work on the floats, or fuel price changes, alongside the per-visit message threads.
Does it work out on the dock?
Yes. The dashboard is a progressive web app that keeps working through connectivity drops, and the Dockmaster iOS app covers daily patrol walks — slip-by-slip checks recorded as you walk the floats.
Are there iOS apps?
Two companion apps are in TestFlight today: Dockmaster for staff (patrols, push alerts, visit management) and an Owner app for slip holders. The owner portal also installs as a PWA on any phone, so nobody has to wait on an app store.
How is my data protected?
Staff sign in with Google or credentials plus optional TOTP multi-factor authentication, with ADMIN, MANAGER, and VIEWER roles. Payments never touch our servers (Stripe handles card data), the audit log records every change, and your data exports to CSV any time — it is yours.
Can I run multiple harbors or marinas?
Yes. The Pro plan consolidates multiple organizations under one operator console — each harbor keeps its own staff, slips, and billing, and you see the roll-up.
See the Pro tier
For boaters and slip owners
What do my boaters get?
A free owner portal: current balance and fees, message thread with the harbormaster, document and photo upload, and card payment from their phone. It is included in every plan — there is no separate owner charge.
Do boaters need to create an account or download an app?
No. Check-in sends a magic link — tap it and they are in their stay, no password. The portal installs to a phone's home screen as a PWA for anyone who wants the app feel.
How does a boater check in?
Scan the QR code posted at the slip or dock, fill in the vessel details, accept the slip agreement, done. The harbormaster is notified instantly.
Can boaters message the harbormaster?
Yes — each stay has a two-way message thread with push notifications on both sides, and where SMS is enabled a boater can simply text the harbor's number and the reply lands in the same thread.
The harbor directory and claiming your page
What is the BinnacleHarbor directory?
Public guide pages for harbors — arrival notes, VHF channel, slip rates, amenities, live NOAA tides, and a reservation request form — starting with Alaska and Hawaii harbors. Boaters find them when planning a cruise; harbormasters can claim and run them.
Browse the directoryMy harbor is already listed — how do I claim it?
Open your harbor's page and hit the claim button. We verify you are actually with the harbor, then hand you the keys: you control the rates, amenities, photos, camera, and everything else the page shows.
Is claiming my harbor page free?
Yes. The public guide page is free to claim and keep updated. Paid plans only enter the picture if you want the operations side — the live map, check-ins, billing, and waitlist.
My harbor is not in the directory. Can it be added?
Yes — ask, and we will build the page with you. Directory pages carry real arrival information boaters need, so we would rather build it with the harbormaster than scrape something half-right.
Can the guide page run on my harbor's own domain?
Yes. Point a domain like guide.yourharbor.com at us and your public guide serves from it — useful when the harbor's main website is hard to update.
Pricing, trials, and contracts
How much does BinnacleHarbor cost?
There is a genuinely free plan — $0 per month, we only earn a 2% fee when your boaters pay by card. Paid plans with automated billing and priority support start at $79 per month, sized by slip count, with annual pricing that saves two months.
Full pricingIs there a setup fee or long-term contract?
No setup fees, no long-term contracts, no per-seat charges. Plans are month to month and cancel anytime; annual plans credit unused months toward a restart within 12 months.
How does the free trial work?
30 days, every feature, no credit card. On day 31 the account goes read-only unless you add a card — your data stays exportable either way.
Do you work with municipal harbors?
Yes — city, borough, and state-run harbors are exactly who this is built for, alongside private marinas. Month-to-month terms keep procurement simple, and the audit log and CSV exports satisfy public-records habits.
Where is BinnacleHarbor made?
Honolulu, Hawaii — a few blocks from the Ala Wai. The harbors we grew up around, from Oahu to Prince William Sound, are the ones this is built to serve first.
Easier to try than to keep reading about.
Demo data in under a minute. 30 days free. No credit card, no contract.
Or start with your free directory page — find your harbor.