Yachts For Kings earns money in six ways. A charter referral pays us roughly $3,000 to $9,000 on a $300,000 booking, a day charter affiliate click pays 6 to 12% of the booking fee, and a closed yacht sale referral pays $50,000 to $500,000 on a multi-million-dollar transaction. The site has been live since February 2026 and we have never moved a yacht, a broker, or a builder up the rankings in exchange for money. This page documents every revenue stream, the partners behind it, and the firewall that keeps the rankings clean.
The 30-second version
Yachts For Kings is monetized on the link, not the page. The editorial — what we cover, what we rank where, what we pass on, what we name as failing — sits inside an editorial firewall. The commercial team negotiates the rate cards on referral and sponsored content. The two sides do not vote on each other's work. The publisher, Fredrik Filipsson, has a final say on both and a written commitment not to overrule editorial for revenue. That commitment is the entire product.
Stream one: weekly charter referral fees
The largest revenue line in Year 1 is referral commission on weekly charter bookings at $50K to $2M per week. We hold direct referral agreements with Burgess, IYC, Northrop and Johnson, Fraser, Camper and Nicholsons, and a small number of independent charter brokers in the Mediterranean and Caribbean. The commission rate is 1 to 3% of the charter fee. On a typical $300,000 Mediterranean charter, that is $3,000 to $9,000.
We also use aggregator affiliates (BoatBookings, YachtCharterFleet) for inventory we cannot route to a direct broker partner. Aggregator referrals pay a fixed fee of $500 to $5,000 per booked charter, lower than direct broker commission but easier to scale across long-tail destinations.
Critically: the rate paid to us by each broker is materially the same. Burgess does not pay more than IYC, IYC does not pay more than Northrop and Johnson. We negotiated this on purpose. If two brokers can deliver an equivalent charter on the same yacht, the ranking is decided by service, response time, and post-contract conduct, not by the commission line.
Stream two: day charter affiliate
The day charter funnel is monetized through GetMyBoat, Click and Boat, Sailo, and the yacht-experience verticals of Viator and Klook. Standard affiliate commission is 6 to 12% of the day charter booking, paid out of the platform's take rather than the operator's net. A reader booking a 12m motor yacht in Mykonos at $4,500 a day pays the same price they would pay clicking direct to the platform. We are paid roughly $270 to $540 on that booking.
Day charter is high frequency, lower per-transaction, and the funnel into our weekly-charter audience over time. A 35-year-old chartering a boat for the day in Saint-Tropez is the same reader who, six years later, becomes a weekly charter client. The day charter pillar is built to be useful to them now, not to monetize them aggressively.
Stream three: yacht brokerage sale referral
The lumpiest and most consequential line. We hold referral agreements with Burgess, Edmiston, Camper and Nicholsons, Fraser, and Northrop and Johnson on yacht sales. Industry standard for buyer-side broker referral on a multi-million-dollar sale is a 10 to 25% share of the listing broker's commission, which works out to $50,000 to $500,000 on a $5M to $50M transaction. Payment lands only when the deal closes, and superyacht sales typically take 9 to 18 months from first viewing to closing.
We model brokerage revenue at one to two closes per quarter at maturity. The upside is real. One closed Feadship or Lürssen sale can fund the site for the year. The corruption risk is also real, which is why the editorial firewall on this line is the strictest of the six.
Stream four: sponsored content
Shipyards and tourism boards can buy sponsored editorial. Sanlorenzo, Benetti, Sunseeker, Heesen, Baltic, and several Mediterranean and Caribbean tourism boards are on the rate card at $10,000 to $100,000 per sponsored guide depending on scope. Every sponsored piece is labeled at the top of the page with the word "Sponsored" in the same eyebrow position as the section label on editorial pages. Sponsored pieces sit at separate URLs (typically under /sponsored/[partner]/) and are excluded from our best-of rankings.
What sponsored content cannot do: change the position of a yacht, broker, or builder in any best-of guide, comparison, or destination ranking elsewhere on the site. If we rank Sanlorenzo's SX120 fifth in a 35m-to-40m bracket, no sponsorship buys the SX120 a higher slot. We have lost two sponsorship deals to this policy in our first six months and we expect to lose more.
Stream five: display advertising
Below the editorial fold on certain page templates we run a display unit through Mediavine or Raptive. The luxury travel RPM in the yacht vertical runs $35 to $65, higher than general travel because of spend density. Display is the smallest line in Year 1 and shrinks as a share of revenue over time as referral closes grow. We do not run pop-ups, interstitials, or autoplay video advertising.
Stream six: premium listings (Year 2 onward)
From 2027 we will offer enhanced listings to brokers, crew agencies, and charter management firms at $500 to $5,000 per month. Enhanced listing means richer media, longer copy, and direct contact routing on inquiry forms. It does not mean rank position. A premium-listed broker who delivers poor service will be ranked behind a free-listed broker who delivers good service. The listing fee buys placement format, not editorial verdict.
What we do not do
We do not accept payment to remove a negative review. We have been asked twice in our first quarter. We declined both times.
We do not accept paid placements in best-of guides. The ranked order in every best-of is editorial. The "Editor's Pick" tag is editorial. The "passed on" section, which appears on every best-of and every broker review, is editorial.
We do not accept charter trips, sea trials, or boat show hospitality from operators we cover, unless it is a working visit where we pay our own travel and accommodation. We accept lunch on the yacht because refusing it is rude. We do not accept the week.
We do not publish revenue figures by quarter or by partner. We publish the mechanism and the ranges. The exact share by partner is commercially sensitive and disclosing it would identify referral negotiations to competitors.
Approximate revenue mix
The shares below are forecast, not audited. They will move year to year and will be re-published when the mix changes materially.
| Revenue stream | Year 1 share (2026) | Year 3 share (forecast 2028) |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly charter referral | 50% | 30% |
| Day charter affiliate | 15% | 20% |
| Yacht brokerage referral | 5% | 20% |
| Sponsored content | 15% | 20% |
| Display advertising | 10% | 5% |
| Premium listings | 5% | 5% |
Brokerage referral grows fastest in absolute terms because the unit economics compound: one closed $40M sale pays more than 100 weekly charter referrals. The mix shifts toward brokerage even as charter and day charter volumes grow.
The firewall, in plain language
The editor and the contributors do not know which broker is paying what rate. The publisher does. The publisher does not write or assign editorial copy. When a commercial dispute reaches the publisher, the documented rule is that editorial wins unless the commercial issue is a factual error, in which case the page is corrected. We have not yet had a commercial-versus-editorial dispute reach the publisher in 2026. When we do, we will document it on this page.
The reader correction email at editor@yachtsforkings.com goes to editorial only. The commercial team does not see reader corrections and cannot influence them.
Why we publish this page
Industry press in yachting does not publish revenue mix. Burgess does not. Boat International does not. SuperYacht Times does not. The reader of a Boat International review of a Feadship cannot tell whether the page is editorial, advertising, or a negotiated compromise. We are different because the difference is the product.
If you find a page on this site that does not match the disclosure model on this page, email the editor. We will correct it within five working days.
For the affiliate-link mechanics specifically, including FTC and ASA compliance, the affiliate disclosure page carries the technical detail. For the editorial review process, see the methodology page. For the rules the editorial side operates under, see the editorial standards page.