I did not like Risk Free so I opted out. It sounded good at first, but I soon realised it caused too many problems, eg all my availabilties are minimum 2 nights, but they automatically changed to single nights, and guests are told they do not need to pay in advance, plus booking.com do not pay for cancelled bookings if you require guests to book a day before arrival. This stops all the precautions I had in place to avoid the worst kind of guests.
I did not like Risk Free so I opted out. It sounded good at first, but I soon realised it caused too many problems, eg all my availabilties are minimum 2 nights, but they automatically changed to single nights, and guests are told they do not need to pay in advance, plus booking.com do not pay for cancelled bookings if you require guests to book a day before arrival. This stops all the precautions I had in place to avoid the worst kind of guests.
Yes, 15% fees is high, giving you only 85% income.
But I look at it this way: I get more bookings by using booking.com, and 85% of a lot of bookings is better than 100% of a few bookings.
Do not be blackmailed by threats of bad reviews. We have competitors with a lot of very bad reviews, they still get lots of bookings.