For fishing charters & guides
Your charter website, built for you.
Send us your website, or just your business name and town. We build your new site free, you check it from your phone, and it starts booking trips. No setup fee, no commissions, cancel anytime.
Rather do it yourself? Start free and build it in minutes, or see how it works.
Answer captain questions. Get a finished website.
Start from what exists
Pull your listing straight from Google Business, import your old website, or answer a five-minute interview. Contact info, photos, reviews, trips: carried over.
Check the details
Your trips and rates, target species and seasons, the boat, the captain's bio. Everything is editable from your phone, and anything you leave blank starts with ready-made wording you can change.
Publish and take bookings
Go live free on yourname.firstmatesite.com with a trip-request form that lands in your inbox. On Captain, use your own domain and take bookings through the booking tools you already use, or the built-in calendar.
Rather not do it yourself? We will.
Send us your Google listing or your old website and we set your site up for you, then make your first round of changes free. Just email a list: "swap the top photo, full day is $800." After that, change anything yourself from your phone, or email us.
This is what you'll use. No manual needed.
The same screens on your phone or your computer. Real screenshots from our sample charter.
Change a price in seconds
Open Trips & Rates, change the number, save. It shows on your site right away.
Trip requests come to you
Name, date, party size and their note, in your inbox and your email. Tap to call or reply.
See what your site is doing
Visits, phone taps, booking clicks and requests, plus a checklist of what is left before you publish.
New: the phone app
Trip requests buzz your phone the moment they come in.
Put First Mate on your home screen, no app store needed. Get an alert for every trip request on any plan. On Captain, answer questions from your Message button, post a fishing report from the dock and block a day in two taps.
See everything it doesThe whole rig, standard.
Not a page builder with a hundred decisions. A complete charter site with the right pages already built, on every plan. Anything markedCaptaincomes with the $29 plan.
Pages that sell trips
- A page for every trip with rates, duration, and what's included
- A page for every species you target, with your seasons and techniques
- Photo gallery, captain bio, boat specs, crew, and FAQ
- Your own extra pages for anything else: parking, what to bring, gift cards (2 free, 5 on Captain)
Keep anglers coming back
- Site stats on every plan: visits, phone taps, booking clicks, and requests
- Fishing reports with their own pages, so every good trip is a reason for Google to send the next oneCaptain
- A mailing list in your name, signups from the footer and the request form, one-click CSV exportCaptain
Booking, your way
- Trip requests land in your inbox and your email, with party size and dates
- Checkout from the booking tools you already use, or any booking embedCaptain
- Availability calendar with multi-trip days, Google, Outlook and Apple calendar sync, and trip remindersCaptain
Trust and Google
- Search-engine structure wired in: sitemaps, meta tags, local schema
- Your Google reviews brought over when your site is built
- Google reviews kept in sync every week, with a Sync now buttonCaptain
- USCG licensed captain and insurance on file badges when Unreel Charters has verified you, updated automatically
- A review form for new anglers, with photos, that you approve before it showsCaptain
- Your own domain with automatic SSL (free sites use yourname.firstmatesite.com)Captain
Six color themes. Zero design homework.
Colors and type, chosen for fishing photos. Switch anytime; your content flows into whichever you pick. Two on the free plan, all six plus your own brand colors on Captain.
Clean Coastal
Offshore Dark
Fly Water Minimal
Tropic Punch
Classic Navy
First Light
From a captain
“I'm not a writer, so fishing reports were the thing I always put off. First Mate helps me write them in a couple of minutes, and the site is easy enough that I update it myself now. Honestly, I almost deleted the first email because it sounded too good to be true. Glad I didn't.”
Pricing
You keep every dollar of every trip.
Flat monthly plans. No commissions, no contracts, no percentage of your bookings. Paid plans start with a free 14-day trial.
Founding price: our first 50 captains keep $29/mo for as long as they stay subscribed.
Deckhand
$0/mo
Get on the water. A complete site on a free subdomain.
- Full website on yourname.firstmatesite.com
- All standard pages: trips, species, boat, crew, gallery, FAQ, contact
- Import from Google Business Profile or your old website
- Trip-request inbox with email alerts
- Phone and request-form booking
- 2 color themes
- 2 custom pages of your own
See all 9 featuresShow fewer
- Site stats: visits, phone taps, booking clicks, requests
- Search-engine structure built in: sitemap, meta tags, local schema
Most popular
Captain
$29/mo
Your own domain, every theme, every booking integration.
- Everything in Deckhand
- Custom domain with automatic SSL
- Run more than one business? Add each one for $15/mo
- All 6 color themes + your own brand colors
- Cover video, homepage slideshow and page cover photos
- Works with the booking tools you already use, plus custom embed booking
- Availability calendar with Google, Outlook, and Apple sync
See all 16 featuresShow fewer
- Automatic trip reminders to you and your anglers
- Fishing reports blog
- Mailing list signup with CSV export
- Message button: anglers text, WhatsApp or send a quick question
- Widgets on your pages: gift cards, video, merch store links
- Sponsors bar and page: logos that link to your sponsors
- 5 custom pages of your own
- Angler reviews with photos and moderation
- AI copywriting for every page
No card needed. Drops to Deckhand after the trial unless you subscribe.
Need something custom? Tell us what you want and we'll tell you what it takes.
Already have a website?
Switching is easier than you think.
The questions captains ask before they move from their current site.
How long does it take to switch?
Often the same day. We build a draft from your Google listing or your current website, you look it over and change what you like, and it goes live only when you press Publish.
Do I keep my domain?
Yes. It stays registered in your name wherever you bought it (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace, anywhere). You never transfer it to us: you change two website records we show you, an A record and a www record, and your domain points to your new site. Using your own domain is part of the Captain plan.
Will my email keep working?
Yes. Those two records only move the website. Your email runs on separate records (called MX records), and we never ask you to change them. Just leave them where they are.
What happens to my old site?
Nothing. We don't touch it or delete it; once your domain points to First Mate, visitors simply see the new site. The old one stays with your old host until you cancel there, so save anything you want first, and keep that account if it also runs your email.
Will I lose my spot on Google?
Any site move can cause a short dip while Google reads the new pages, and it usually settles within a few weeks. Your First Mate site is built the way Google likes to see a local business: a sitemap, local business details on every page, and a page for every trip and species.
Who owns my site's content?
You do. Your photos, text, trips and reviews are yours, as our Terms say. You can download a copy of everything, photos included, from Backup & export in your dashboard at any time, on any plan.
What if I stop paying for Captain?
Your site stays live on its free firstmatesite.com address with everything you added kept. Captain features, including your own domain, switch back on the moment you subscribe again.
Your next charter starts with being findable.
Free to build. Publish when it looks right to you.
Start free