Tern vs TravelJoy Pricing and Which to Buy

For one US travel advisor, TravelJoy is cheaper: TravelJoy Pro is $384 a year billed annually against $420 for Tern. The gap is small enough that the subscription is not the decision. Two other numbers are. TravelJoy Pro charges 3.5 percent plus 30 cents to take a client card payment while Tern charges 0.6 percent on top of Stripe, which works out to about 3.9 percent plus 30 cents, so past roughly $9,000 collected by card in a year TravelJoy is cheaper on both lines. And TravelJoy includes its AI in the Pro subscription, while Tern sells AI usage as a separate add-on from $19 to $149 a month. Buy Tern if you run an agency, because Tern publishes seat pricing down to $22 a seat a month and TravelJoy does not publish a team price at all. Buy TravelJoy if you are solo, collect meaningful money through the platform, and want the AI drafting in the base bill.

Every figure below was read off Tern's pricing page and help center and TravelJoy's pricing and Premium pages from a US connection in September 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a number, this piece says so rather than estimating it.

Tern vs TravelJoy pricing at a glance

Two lines deserve a second look. Tern's $49 is the solo monthly rate, the most expensive way to buy Tern, and the agency seat price only applies when the agency itself pays for the seat. Tern's help center is explicit that an advisor not sitting on an agency-purchased seat pays the full solo rate. On the other side, TravelJoy Starter has no annual option at all, so its $19 is $228 a year with no discount available. Full tier by tier breakdowns are on our Tern pricing and TravelJoy pricing pages.

Which is cheaper, Tern or TravelJoy?

Solo, TravelJoy Pro wins by $36 a year. That is three dollars a month, which is noise next to the fee difference further down this page, so treat it as a tie and decide on something else.

For a team, the comparison breaks in an interesting way: only one of these vendors will tell you the price. Tern publishes a full seat ladder. TravelJoy sells seats for team members as an add-on to Pro and does not print the rate anywhere public. The only clue TravelJoy gives is inside its Premium bundle table, which values two Pro team memberships plus one assistant at $40 a month together.

If you are building a budget for an agency of five or more, that opacity is the answer on its own. You can model Tern to the dollar from a public page. With TravelJoy you have to open the app, go to Settings, then Team, then Add member, and ask. Some agency owners are fine with that. Finance teams generally are not.

The fee nobody compares is what each one charges to take a client payment

This is the number that actually moves an advisor's annual cost, and almost no comparison of these two products mentions it. Both platforms collect client money. They charge very differently for it, and TravelJoy's rate changes with the plan you are on.

Tern's own worked example puts a $1,000 card payment at about $39.30 all in, which is Stripe's 2.9 percent plus 30 cents, Stripe's 0.4 percent invoicing fee and Tern's 0.6 percent stacked. TravelJoy Pro undercuts that by 0.4 percent on cards, and by considerably more on bank transfers if your clients will pay that way.

Run the break-even and the subscription argument disappears. Tern costs $36 a year more than TravelJoy Pro. At a 0.4 percent difference on cards, $36 is the fee on $9,000. So an advisor collecting more than about $9,000 a year through the platform pays less on TravelJoy Pro on both the subscription and the processing. An advisor collecting $60,000 by card saves around $240 a year on fees alone, which is more than either subscription costs.

The flip side: TravelJoy Starter's 5 percent is the most expensive card rate in this comparison by a wide margin. On $30,000 collected, Starter costs $1,500 in card fees against $1,050 on Pro. The $156 a year you save by staying on Starter is erased by about $7,800 of card volume.

AI is in the bill on one, and an add-on on the other

Both vendors sell AI, and they package it in opposite ways.

TravelJoy includes AI and automations in Pro at $32 a month annually. TravelJoy calls the drafting feature Itinerary Copilot, which turns raw pasted trip information into structured itinerary items, and TravelJoy Premium raises that allowance tenfold. If you want the larger allowance without Premium, TravelJoy sells a 10x Copilot add-on at $49 a month.

Tern includes a monthly AI allowance in the base subscription and sells more of it as Tern Pro, at $19, $39, $99 or $149 a month depending on tier. Tern Pro is billed monthly even on an annual plan, and Tern bills it to the individual advisor rather than to the agency. Since July 1, 2026 Tern has enforced usage limits across one shared allowance covering AI Chat, Smart Inbox, automation agents, AI Assist, the Chrome extension, Notetaker and AI Reconciliation, with notices at 75, 90 and 100 percent. Tern charges no overage fees.

For a solo advisor who wants real AI headroom, that packaging matters more than the sticker price. Tern at $420 plus the entry Tern Pro tier at $19 a month comes to $648 a year. TravelJoy Pro at $384 includes its Copilot allowance already. That is a $264 a year difference on the same job.

The trip cap on TravelJoy Starter

TravelJoy Starter is the cheapest plan either vendor sells, and the cap is the reason it is cheap. Twelve trips a year is one a month. A working US advisor selling 30 to 60 trips a year passes it by spring.

Expressed per itinerary, Starter costs $19 each at its cap. TravelJoy Pro at $384 a year costs $9.60 an itinerary at 40 trips, and Tern at $420 costs $10.50. The crossover is around 17 trips a year: below that Starter is genuinely the cheapest way to run a small book, and above it Starter is the most expensive plan on this page per trip sold. Tern does not sell a capped plan at all, which is why Tern has no equivalent entry price.

Starter also has no AI, no group bookings and no seats for team members, so most advisors treat it as a first season plan rather than a destination. We priced the wider category, including AXUS, Travefy, Tourwriter and Safari Portal, on our itinerary builder for travel agents page, and Tern against the other common shortlist entry in Tern vs Travefy pricing.

What each one is better at

Read as a decision: Tern is the agency buy and TravelJoy is the solo buy. Tern gets stronger the more advisors and the more commission reconciliation you have, and Tern is the only one of the two whose bill you can forecast without a sales conversation. TravelJoy gets stronger the more client money runs through the platform and the more you lean on the drafting AI, because TravelJoy puts both of those in the base plan.

What neither Tern nor TravelJoy does

Both products are where a trip gets presented, paid for and tracked. Tern imports and tidies itinerary content, and TravelJoy Copilot structures information you paste in. Neither one decides that nine days in Portugal for a couple with a $6,000 budget should be three nights in Lisbon and not four, which day the Douro fits, or whether dinner in Alfama leaves room in the budget. That research is still where an advisor's evenings go, and it is the part that stops you carrying more clients.

That step is what TripAgent.ai covers. You describe the client and the trip, meaning destination, length, party, total budget and style, and it writes a day by day itinerary with morning, afternoon and evening blocks, an estimated cost on activities, food and local transport, travel times between stops and a running total against the budget. Ask for any day to be rewritten and it rewrites that day. Export the plan, then rebuild what you keep inside Tern or TravelJoy instead of starting from a blank page. TripAgent.ai does not book anything and is not a CRM. The planner is at the top of this page, plans are $49, $99 and $199 a month or half that billed annually, and opening an account costs nothing and includes a one-time demo. When a corporate or incentive client wants the same trip as a pitch document rather than a web link, you can turn the exported document into a presentation and send that instead.

For how advisors fit a drafting step beside the CRM they already pay for, see AI for travel agents.

Frequently asked questions about Tern vs TravelJoy

Is Tern better than TravelJoy?

Tern is better for agencies. Tern publishes a seat ladder from $33 down to $22 a seat a month and includes commission reconciliation, supplier payments and central billing on agency plans. TravelJoy is better for a solo advisor: TravelJoy Pro is $384 a year against $420, includes AI drafting in the base plan, and charges 3.5 percent plus 30 cents on client cards against Tern's roughly 3.9 percent.

How much does Tern cost compared to TravelJoy?

Tern is $49 a month solo, or $35 a month billed annually, which is $420 a year. TravelJoy is $19 a month for Starter with a 12 trip cap, $39 a month or $32 billed annually for Pro, which is $384 a year, and $99 a month or $79 billed annually for Premium, which TravelJoy lists as $948 for the first year.

Which has the longer free trial, Tern or TravelJoy?

Tern's free trial runs 14 days and TravelJoy's runs 7. TravelJoy does not ask for a card, so nothing happens if you walk away. Tern starts billing when the trial ends unless you cancel first and allows one trial per person. Seven days is tight, so start a TravelJoy trial with a live client brief already in hand.

Does TravelJoy or Tern charge more to take client payments?

Tern charges more on cards and less is published about bank transfers. Tern adds 0.6 percent on top of Stripe, which totals about 3.9 percent plus 30 cents. TravelJoy Pro charges 3.5 percent plus 30 cents on cards and 1.5 percent on ACH, while TravelJoy Starter charges 5 percent and 3 percent. On $5,000 by card that is $195.30 through Tern against $175.30 through TravelJoy Pro.

Is TravelJoy Starter worth it at $19 a month?

Only under about 17 trips a year. Starter allows 12 trips annually, which works out to $19 per itinerary at the cap, against $9.60 on TravelJoy Pro at 40 trips. Starter also excludes AI, group bookings and seats for team members, and its 5 percent card fee costs an extra $450 on $30,000 collected compared with Pro.

Does Tern publish agency pricing and does TravelJoy?

Tern publishes a full agency ladder: $33, $28 or $25 a seat a month for 3 to 24 seats on monthly, quarterly or annual billing, $31, $27 or $23 for 25 to 99, and $29, $25 or $22 for 100 to 499. TravelJoy does not publish a seat price for team members. You add members inside the app under Settings, then Team, and the rate is quoted there.