Guesty / hostaway / hospitable?? Help!

Phil Wrigley · 2023-09-26T18:52:15-07:00

Hi everyone,On the back of my last question on here I now have another! I’m sure this is one that’s been asked many times before so please don’t yell at me for asking it again. I did troll the forums and it’s really hard to get a definitive answer because it seems to be based a lot on personal preference.In your honest opinions, what is the most intuitive property management software solution to use for someone that is just starting the journey in self management? Up until now we have been using Evolve vacation rental to “manage” our properties and to cut a long story short, we are ready to take it on ourselves in order to scale our business. I have narrowed it down to three different brands - Guesty / hostaway / hospitable. A lot of people have said it doesn’t matter too much just to pick one and then change when it doesn’t work out but I kind of wanna get it right first time if I can! In terms of my background, we have four properties all in the same vacation rental market and we most commonly book through VRBO. We have an excellent team of cleaners handyman and other local professionals and been in the business for five years.What are the costs vs benefits of each platform? Which would work best for integration with VRBO? I had a demo call with Guesty and it looked good but I hear bad reviews about customer service and compatibility with VRBO. Help! :)

Dominic Battaglia

San Salvador, Toronto ON · Member since 2019 · 19 posts · 5 votes

1y

@Cliff H. The pricing for Hostaway varies depending on the number of listings you have. For example, if someone has 3 listings, they'll be paying around $50 each but if someone comes on with 50 they may be paying like $25 (these are not concrete numbers) they also have add ons like dynamic pricing and smart locks which are additional. Hostaway is not the cheapest software out there, but it has the most stable connections, reliability and 24/7 support.

Full disclosure, I dont only use them, but I am an account executive with Hostaway. I would be happy to go over your portfolio and give you a quote. I have been a real estate investor here in Canada since 2020 and prior to working with them, I found their solution to be the best value.

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Dominic Battaglia

San Salvador, Toronto ON · Member since 2019 · 19 posts · 5 votes

1y

@Cliff H. I work for Hostaway, and use it for my STR business (Been a real estate investor since 2020). Your price would be determined by the number of listings you have, if you want an annual term, if you want dynamic pricing and smart lock automations add ons etc.

For the base rate, you would be looking at $50/ listing tops. The more listings you have, the lower the price per can be, and also, if you choose to have add ons.

Hostaway has the top OTA connections in the industry and is the most intuitive PMS on the market if you are serious about scaling and if reliability is important to you. I'm more than happy to get you a quote. Just let me know!

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Ke Nan Wang

Developer · St. Augustine, FL · Member since 2018 · 311 posts · 384 votes

1y

I started with Guesty for Host (non-pro version) and transitioned to Hostaway and now we are with Hostaway for over a year and half and no complaints. Plus their customer service is always on point, I can always get ahold of someone quickly and resolve an issue when I needed 24/7, so far I haven't come to one incident where they couldn't resolve an issue for me. That's huge.

Guesty they have Guesty for Host and Guesty for Pro. At least that's how it was a year and half ago. Guesty for Host is a nightmare. You cannot get ahold of someone if there's problem. All you get is to submit a ticket. And we are talking about 1 day turnaround time back and forth. That's no way to resolve an actual issue. For us to go to Guesty for Pro, we will have to pay the minimum 4 unit fee. I have a friend who's a professional vacation rental property manager and he uses Guesty for Pro to manage 100+ units. So I think if you have 4 units or more, it doesn't make any difference whether you choose Guesty for Pro or Hostaway. But for those who have 4 units or less, Hostaway is way better than Guesty for Host.

Cost wise they are all very comparable, maybe $5 difference per unit per month and in exchange you may have a little more or less features.

They all have similar features (comparing the pro version). You shouldn't pay any onboarding fee. Some company markup their onboarding fee to like $1600 that's absurd, then they said they have a promotion and now it's $300.

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Cameron Akrami

Member since 2022 · 6 posts · 1 vote

1y

Quote from @Dominic Battaglia:

@Cliff H. I work for Hostaway, and use it for my STR business (Been a real estate investor since 2020). Your price would be determined by the number of listings you have, if you want an annual term, if you want dynamic pricing and smart lock automations add ons etc.

For the base rate, you would be looking at $50/ listing tops. The more listings you have, the lower the price per can be, and also, if you choose to have add ons.

Hostaway has the top OTA connections in the industry and is the most intuitive PMS on the market if you are serious about scaling and if reliability is important to you. I'm more than happy to get you a quote. Just let me know!

Hey Dominic, can you help? Our PM for our STR has us on Hostaway. We're taking over management this month, and want to stay with Hostaway, migrating the property to our own account. I plugged in my info, but got a message saying Hostaway isn't taking single properties. How can we get this done?

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Collin HaysBusiness Member

Property Manager · Gatlinburg, TN · Member since 2020 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes

1y

We really like Brightside.

[email protected]806-672-7102

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Karl DentonPro Member

Rental Property Investor · Mansfield, CT · Member since 2021 · 225 posts · 131 votes

1y

Hospitable I have heard all good things, I know they were running a 14 day trial period for BP users I believe. Worth reaching out to there support team. I talked to them at BPCON this year and they were really helpful answering all my questions. I hope to try them out myself to assist in self managing.

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Paul Stewart

Specialist · Atlantic City NJ · Member since 2018 · 114 posts · 50 votes

1y

I have been with Hospitable since they were "smartbnb" have 92 listings on their software. Overall I am very happy with them. The API to VRBO sometimes is a issue but since most my business is on Airbnb its not a huge game changer. We were going to switch to Hostaway last year since they have direct API connection to VRBO. The day we were set to switch over I was told with their direct API, VRBO no longer will process payment and for our business model I was not setting up 90 plus listing stripe accounts or doing the accounting for that process. We ended up staying with Hospitable and have been fine with it. I do like Hospitable direct booking options and that they can process payments, tax etc. on their end and each DB site can have a different pay out options for different clients. MY only issue now is we are looking to partner with Marriot Home and Villa's but Hospitable does not have a partnership for API connection to Marriot so looks like I am most likely looking to either go to Hostaway or Hostfully. For direct bookings does Hostaway or Hostfully over payment processing?

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Matthew Brown

Member since 2020 · 32 posts · 13 votes

1y

Hospitable for sure. There is an issue with disconnecting calendars from time to time (mostly booking.com), but they have a very attentive helpline and product team who are constantly making updates with it.

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Cliff H.Pro Member

Rental Property Investor · Nashua, NH · Member since 2014 · 587 posts · 477 votes

1y

Looking over Hospitable’s features/pricing page it’s clear they’ve added a few more features from when I looked at them a few years ago. Basic pricing seems reasonable at around $30/property/month, but that’s clearly their basic pricing with a bit of nickel and diming as you add in additional capabilities:

1. They’re only supporting the Big 4: AirBnB, VRBO, Booking.com, and Google Rentals. No Expedia, Travelocity, or others, correct? Suspect that’s sufficient for most US-based hosts since other channels are more popular with the globally channel managers like BookingAutomation, Lodgify, and others but is a gap for attracting international stays.

2. The direct booking capabilities offer a choice between charging hosts 1% or 7% of a direct booking, with the primary difference being payment processing and insurance policies. Those guest protection policies for most other channel managers are simply priced as a flat rate <$100 per stay insurance policy. More percentage-based fees are a bit disappointing since on larger homes or longer bookings of, say, $10k a 7% processing fee would equate to $700 in channel fees for bookings hosts effectively created on their own.

Still, the addition of an API and ongoing development of the solution over a time where many other channel managers have been sitting on their laurels is encouraging.

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Kwame Koom-Dadzie

Investor · Humble, TX · Member since 2016 · 54 posts · 22 votes

1y

@Zachary Cain Humphrey, IGMS has been pretty good , been with then two years , never had a double booking , pricing fair

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Garrett BrownPro Member

Rental Property Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2024 · 505 posts · 551 votes

1y

Hospitable all the way

[email protected]

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Marc Bowman

Maryville, TN · Member since 2024 · 9 posts · 1 vote

1y

Quote from @Collin Hays:

We really like Brightside.

Hi Collin,

I appreciate the support. It seems like more times than not, when I post something on here it gets deleted, or at least I can't find it. BrightSide is a great product and most of the issues people complain about with other software we don't have. We are a small company and take personal care of our clients. I think if people took a few minutes to compare us with the larger, international companies, they would be pleased.

1 Reply

Collin HaysBusiness Member

Property Manager · Gatlinburg, TN · Member since 2020 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes

1y

Quote from @Marc Bowman:

Quote from @Collin Hays:

We really like Brightside.

Hi Collin,

I appreciate the support. It seems like more times than not, when I post something on here it gets deleted, or at least I can't find it. BrightSide is a great product and most of the issues people complain about with other software we don't have. We are a small company and take personal care of our clients. I think if people took a few minutes to compare us with the larger, international companies, they would be pleased.

We’ve had fantastic success with Brightside and I highly recommend it!

[email protected]806-672-7102

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Michael CalveyPro Member

Head of Sales at BiggerPockets · Denver, CO · Member since 2023 · 124 posts · 154 votes

1y

Quote from @Garrett Brown:

Hospitable all the way

Hey there!

Totally understand wanting to get it right the first time. If you're looking for an intuitive and user-friendly solution, I'd highly recommend giving Hospitable a try. They've partnered with BiggerPockets and have built a strong reputation for making self-management seamless, especially for hosts managing a handful of properties like yours.

Hospitable is known for its ease of use, automated messaging (a lifesaver for responding to guests!), and dynamic pricing features. Plus, they integrate smoothly with VRBO, which is great since that's your main booking platform.

With your solid team of local pros in place, Hospitable can really help streamline operations so you can focus on scaling.

Give it a shot—it might be the perfect fit!

Happy to intro you to their team if you'd like.

[email protected]

1 Reply

Miles HobsonPro Member

Toronto · Member since 2024 · 20 posts · 14 votes

1y

Hey I work for Hospitable and happy to answer any questions you might have. I can get you booked for a demo call to answer any questions or concerns you have and we'll tell you honestly if we're not the right solution for you. No need to jump on a call for a quote or anything though (pricing is here) and we're transparent with feedback from hosts and what we're building (we host public bi-weekly Town Halls where you can ask us anything).

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Peter StewartBusiness Member

Real Estate Broker · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2018 · 160 posts · 168 votes

1y

I researched all of them before getting into the STR game, and settled on Hospitable. It's fantastic. I've been using it for close to 3 years now managing several properties, and I have not had any issues.

Initial set up was pretty easy. I spent the most time customizing the messages (I use 95% of what they write, just add/tweak a bit to make them my own).

The automated messaging is the best. I get compliments all the time about how responsive I was.

Calendar syncing between Airbnb and VRBO has been seamless and flawless - never once had a double booking.

I use Resort Cleaning and it links perfectly to Hospitable to automate my cleaners.

Ultimately though, all 3 platforms are excellent and will do what you need them to do.

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Paul Stewart

Specialist · Atlantic City NJ · Member since 2018 · 114 posts · 50 votes

1y

Quote from @Miles Hobson:

Hey I work for Hospitable and happy to answer any questions you might have. I can get you booked for a demo call to answer any questions or concerns you have and we'll tell you honestly if we're not the right solution for you. No need to jump on a call for a quote or anything though (pricing is here) and we're transparent with feedback from hosts and what we're building (we host public bi-weekly Town Halls where you can ask us anything).

Hey Miles
When are we going to see a Marriott home and villas API connection. We might have to leave hospitable due to hospitable not having a integration into home and villas.

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Miles HobsonPro Member

Toronto · Member since 2024 · 20 posts · 14 votes

1y

@Paul Stewart it's not on our roadmap yet, so I can't give you a timeline, unfortunately. I think you may have already upvoted the feature on our feedback page but you're welcome to find other hosts that want it and encourage them to upvote it too to signal to our product team that there is high demand for the feature https://feedback.hospitable.com/p/marriott-home-and-villas-i...

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Paul Stewart

Specialist · Atlantic City NJ · Member since 2018 · 114 posts · 50 votes

1y

Yes I did upvote it. I really hope you guys will consider it. I think it would help bring in more larger scale managers to hospitable. I feel like hospitable is known for more small scale managers or those with only a few listings. I have had others mention that to me and try to swing me to other PMS. I really like Hospitable though and know other larger scale managers would favor hospitable over other PMS if there were some more channel integrations. Hopefully it is something will we see in the future.

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Guesty / hostaway / hospitable?? Help!

Guesty / hostaway / hospitable?? Help!

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