App Developers in Las Vegas Who Audit Every Screen a Room Price Touches

Updated November 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

A push notification offers a room at $89, the resort fee appears two screens later, and the app has just done something the Federal Trade Commission’s fee rule tells it not to. App developers in Las Vegas have to know this one: since May 12, 2025, a covered price has to appear as a total, more prominently than any other figure, on every screen that shows one. This page audits six surfaces of a booking app, then what the fix costs. Progression is based in New York, works with Las Vegas operators remotely, and offers on-site sessions on request.

$89 on a push

A guest in Phoenix gets a notification at lunch: a room tonight for $89. She opens the app, picks the room and finds a resort fee on the third screen. The total on the receipt is $128 before taxes. Every figure in this example is hypothetical.

Both numbers are true. The first one is out of order. The notification showed the part and the receipt showed the whole, and the guest met them in the wrong sequence. The rest of this page follows that guest through six screens.

How app developers in Las Vegas start the audit

The Federal Trade Commission’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, 16 CFR Part 464, took effect on May 12, 2025, as the Federal Register notice states. It covers two kinds of goods and services: live-event tickets and short-term lodging, which the rule defines to include a hotel, motel, inn, short-term rental, vacation rental or other place of lodging.

The rule’s definition of a business includes one that offers goods or services online, in mobile applications and in physical locations. A booking app is inside it, and so is a partner’s feed that carries the same price. Start the audit by listing every screen, message and feed where a room price can appear.

What does the rule say about total price?

Under section 464.2, a business may not offer, display or advertise any price of a covered good or service without clearly and conspicuously disclosing the total price. In any offer, display or advertisement that represents a price, the total price must be disclosed more prominently than any other pricing information. Where the final amount of payment is displayed, it must be shown more prominently than, or as prominently as, the total price.

What counts as the total price?

Section 464.1 defines total price as the maximum total of all fees or charges a consumer must pay for the good or service and any mandatory ancillary good or service. Government charges, shipping charges and fees for optional ancillary goods or services may be excluded.

The cards list the parts in the order a guest meets them. Ask counsel how the definition applies to a fee your property charges. A developer’s job is to make the screens show the number counsel approves.

What does clear and conspicuous mean in an app?

The definition says that in any communication using an interactive electronic medium, such as the internet, a mobile application or software, the disclosure must be unavoidable. It also says a visual disclosure must stand out from accompanying text through its size, contrast and location, and must not be contradicted or mitigated by anything else in the communication.

Surface one: the push

A push message has a few dozen characters and a lock screen to share. The rule does not require a price in a message. If a price does appear, it is the total price, with the same prominence as anywhere else.

• Decide whether the message needs a price at all.
• If a price appears, build the message from the total and not the room rate.
• Keep the figure at the start of the message, where it cannot be cut off.
• Test the message on the shortest lock screen your guests use.
• Send the same total that the app will show on the next screen.

What if the message is too short for the total?

Leave the price out and say what the room is. A message that names the offer and opens the app is allowed to carry no figure at all.

Surface two: the search result

A search result lists rooms side by side, and guests compare the largest number on each. The total leads, and the parts follow in smaller type. A result that leads with the room rate invites the comparison the rule is written to prevent.

• Sort and filter on the total price and not on the room rate.
• Show the same total on a result and on the room card behind it.
• Put the breakdown beneath the total in smaller type.
• Make sure the total reflects the dates the guest searched.
• Do not show a lower number in a promotional banner above the list.

Per night or per stay?

Pick one basis for the headline figure and label it. If the headline is a nightly figure, it is a nightly total with the mandatory nightly fees in it. Ask counsel how to handle a stay that mixes nightly and one-time charges.

Surface three: the map pin

A map pin is the smallest place a price appears. It has room for a handful of characters, so whatever fits there has to be the number that counts.

• Label the pin with the total or with no price.
• Never label the pin with a room rate that the next screen contradicts.
• Keep the label legible at the default map zoom.
• Use the same wording on the pin and in the list behind it.

Can a pin show a starting price?

Only if the figure is a total price for the room it represents. A pin that shows the lowest room rate in the building is a displayed price, and the rule applies to it.

Surface four: the room card

The room card is where a guest decides, so it carries the full disclosure. The total price leads. Beneath it come the parts, and beside it a plain line on what is left out. The rule’s standard for an app is that a disclosure must be unavoidable.

Resort fees are the reason this page exists in Las Vegas. The Nevada Independent reported in November 2023, when the rule was still a proposal, that resort fees were ubiquitous in the city’s hospitality industry and ranged from $23.95 a night to $45 a night. Those are 2023 prices. A charge that guests have to pay to stay in the room belongs in the total whatever it is called.

• Name the fee on the card in the words the property uses.
• Include every mandatory fee in the figure at the top.
• State what is left out, such as taxes, on the card itself.
• Keep the disclosure out of expandable panels and tooltips.
• Use a contrast that works on a phone in daylight.

Do the fee’s words matter?

The rule looks at what a guest must pay, and not at what the charge is called. A mandatory facility, amenity or service charge belongs in the figure. Ask counsel about any fee that is hard to classify.

Surface five: the cart

The cart is where optional add-ons appear, and the rule treats them differently from mandatory fees. A fee for an optional ancillary good or service may be excluded from the total price, and a mandatory one may not.

Section 464.2(c) adds a disclosure duty. Before the guest consents to pay, the business must clearly and conspicuously disclose the nature, purpose and amount of any fee or charge excluded from the total price, the good or service it is for, and the final amount of payment.

• Start every optional add-on unticked.
• Show the total price again beside the continue button.
• List excluded charges with their amounts before payment.
• Keep a promotional code’s effect visible in the total.
• Do not move an item from mandatory to optional without counsel’s review.

Is a parking fee mandatory?

That depends on whether the guest can decline it and still get the room. If the guest can, it is an optional add-on. If every guest pays it, treat it as part of the total. Ask counsel about the edge cases.

Surface six: the confirmation

The confirmation shows the final amount of payment. The rule lets that figure be as prominent as the total price or more, and the total price should still be visible beside it.

The receipt is also the page the guest keeps, forwards and returns to when something goes wrong. Its numbers have to match every earlier screen. A confirmation that adds a charge the cart did not show is the clearest kind of mismatch.

• Show the total price, the excluded charges and the final amount in that order.
• Send the same figures in the confirmation email.
• Make a refund or cancellation screen read the same totals.
• Store the numbers the guest saw so support can read them back.
• Keep the receipt available in the app after checkout.

Which number does support read back?

The number the guest saw. Store the total, the excluded charges and the final amount with the booking so an agent can read the same figures the guest saw.

What an audit and a fix cost

An audit lists every surface where a price appears and what each shows. The fix changes how the number is calculated, passed on and displayed. Cost depends on how many places build the number now.

Market bands for the app

Bands run from the typical low to the published high.

We list no Las Vegas premium and no price per screen. Our app development cost guide explains what moves a quote, and a quote follows a written scope. Progression prints no price of its own for this audit.

A brief for your revenue team

Copy the card into a document and fill it in before the developers start. Teams that begin from a completed brief spend the first week building and not hunting for which screen reads which number.

Send the finished brief with the screenshots. Our app development page describes the build, and for the search side of a property’s marketing see SEO in Las Vegas.

Related services and guides

Pages that sit beside this audit:

• App development agency
• Software development company
• App development cost
• SEO company in Las Vegas

Frequently asked questions