Yachtzy: a yacht party and charter booking app

Yachtzy, a yacht party booking app: 45 iOS screens, guests find and book events, owners list boats and take requests, built full stack in under 6 months.

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The engagement

Client: Yachtzy
Industry: Yacht parties and charters
Year: To follow
Duration: Under 6 months
Delivered: 45 screens, iOS, a guest side (search, event page, booking, payment, reviews, membership) and a yacht-owner side (yachts, create event, requests, payments, featured events), built full stack
Stack: To follow
Role: Full-stack development: design and build of the mobile app

Yachtzy is an iPhone app for booking yacht parties and charters. A guest finds an event, picks the date, the duration and the persons, and books; a yacht owner lists the boat, posts the event and accepts each request. Plainbuilt designed and built it full stack and delivered it in under 6 months: 45 iOS screens on both sides. One line carries the design: the guest sees the whole price before the tap, and the owner has the last word.

Who is Yachtzy for?

Two kinds of people. Guests who want a day on the water in Miami or Miami Beach: a party, a cruise, a fishing trip, a water sport or a sail, with a spot for one person or room for the whole group, as the onboarding puts it. And yacht owners who have a boat to fill: they list it, post an event with a price per person, and decide who boards.

What did Plainbuilt build?

The full app, 45 screens on iOS, front to back. On the guest side: three onboarding slides, sign in with Google, Facebook, Apple or email, sign up with code verification, and password reset; a home with location search, an Events near me carousel, activity rows and featured destinations; search results with a filter sheet; the event page; booking details with the price breakdown; payment method and add card; a past event with rate and review; reviews; and a profile with personal information, a premium membership at $4.99 per month, settings, notifications, location settings, help and support, about, privacy policy and terms of use. On the owner side: a home with the owner's events and their request counts, and an empty state that asks for the first event; the two-step create event with an add-boat sheet and a My Yachts list; requests with accept and reject, and past requests; the event page with its attendees and their payment status; payments; past events; the three featured-event tiers and a How featured works page. Both sides share the three-tab bar: home, bookings and profile.

What does the booking flow look like?

Search a place, or pick one from the featured destinations. The results list each event with its price per person, rating, bookings count and passenger capacity, the featured one first. Open one and the page scrolls through the description, the included features, the add-ons and the boat details to Book Now. The booking screen holds the date, the start time and the duration, a stepper for the persons, and the pricing information: the boat event price, the add-on and the 5% transaction fee, then the total. Book sends the request to the owner, who accepts or rejects it; the owner's event page then marks each accepted attendee's payment as received or pending. After the day, the past event asks the guest for a rating and a review.

Why does the app have two sides?

Because a yacht booking has two people in it, and they need different screens. A guest needs to search, compare and pay; an owner needs to describe the boat once, post events and decide who comes. Yachtzy keeps them in one app with the same tab bar and the same account screens, and separates them with color: royal blue for the guest, amber for the owner. A request stays a request until the owner accepts it, and the featured tiers, from $4.99 for 3 days to $19.99 for 30, are how an owner buys the top of the feed when a boat has room to fill.

How does a guest find a yacht event near them?

The home opens on a photo, a search field that asks where the person wants to enjoy, and an Events near me carousel: each card carries a photo counter, the price per person, the location, the rating with its bookings count, the title and the passenger capacity. Under it sit activity rows (Celebrating, Cruising) and featured destinations (Miami, Miami Beach). A search for Miami Beach lists the matching events with the featured one first under its badge, and a filter sheet narrows them by duration (2 to 8 hours), price ($1 to $500), activity and boat length.

What does a guest see before booking?

One scrolling page. The photo with the per-person price badge, then the location, the hours and the date, the title, the rating with its bookings count, and the event description. Below that, a grid of eight included features with a line icon each (speakers on deck, champagne, food, first aid kit, air conditioning, children's life jackets, shower, bathroom), the add-ons priced per person with an Add button each (Flyboard Flying $50, Jet Skis $100, Water Skis $75), the boat's name, type, year and length, and Book Now.

How is the price worked out?

The booking screen fixes the date, the start time and the duration in one strip, then a stepper sets the number of persons. Pricing information lists the boat event price, the add-on the guest chose and a 5% transaction fee as separate lines before the booking total: on the sample screen, $600, $50 and $32.50, for $682.50. The person sees what the fee is before the Book button, not on a receipt after.

How does a yacht owner list an event?

In two steps. The first takes the title, an optional description, a video and image upload, the location, the price, the date and the start time, and a duration chip from 2 to 10 hours. The second takes the included features as chips from a search field, add-ons with a title and a price each, and the boat, picked from the owner's My Yachts list, where the name, type, year, length, model and capacity were entered once on the add-boat sheet. Then Create Event.

How does an owner handle requests and fill the boat?

The owner's home lists each event with its photo, location, date and request count. A booking request arrives with the guest's name, the event, the date, the hours, the number of persons and the amount, and the owner accepts or rejects it; the event page then tracks each attendee as accepted, payment received or payment pending, and Payments lists what came in. An event can be featured from its card: Feature at $4.99 for 3 days, Yachtzy Plus Feature at $7.99 for 10 days or Yachtzy Gold at $19.99 for 30 days, which the app's own help page says puts the event at the top of customers' feeds for a limited time.

The decisions

Two sides, one app.
A guest and a yacht owner get the same three-tab bar (home, bookings, profile) and the same account screens, but the guest side runs on a royal blue and the owner side on amber. The color tells the person which side they are on without a label.
The fee is a line, not a surprise.
The 5% transaction fee is its own line under Pricing information, between the add-on and the booking total, so the person can check it against the $650 above it. The simpler screen would fold the fee into the price; this one shows the arithmetic.
Everything about the boat on one page.
The event page scrolls from the photo and the price badge through the description, the eight included features, the add-ons and the boat's name, type, year and length to Book Now. Nothing about the boat is a tap away from the booking button.
A request, not an instant booking.
A booking is a request until the owner accepts it. Requests carry the guest's name, the event, the date, the hours, the persons and the amount, with Accept and Reject on each, and the event page tracks each attendee's payment. The owner keeps the last word on who boards.

What was the outcome?

Built and delivered in under 6 months

One outcome per item, dated, or not disclosed: never an estimate.

More screens

Which of our services apply

Mobile app development

Common questions

Did Plainbuilt build Yachtzy?

Yes. Plainbuilt designed and built it full stack and delivered it in under 6 months.

What do the 45 Yachtzy screens cover?

On the guest side: three onboarding slides, sign in with Google, Facebook, Apple or email, sign up, code verification, forgot and reset password, the home with location search, search results and filters, the event page, booking details, payment method and add card, a past event with rate and review, reviews, profile, personal information, the premium membership, settings, notifications, location settings, help and support, about, privacy policy and terms of use. On the owner side: the home with events and their request counts and its empty state, the two-step create event, the add-boat sheet, My Yachts, requests with accept and reject, past requests, the event page with attendees and their payment status, payments, past events, the featured-event tiers and a How featured works page.

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