Having a short-term vacation property in a hot touristic destination can help make a decent buck and guarantee a pretty comfortable life. But it can also give the host a big headache considering that there are numerous tasks and arrangements to handle to make the Airbnb business flourish. From communicating with clients and controlling check-ins and check-outs to organizing cleaning/maintenance and dealing with guest reviews, routine activities on Airbnb do require much time, effort, and focus.
The range of responsibilities gets even broader when you run several rental properties on Airbnb, which can make your business extremely stressful and hard-to-control. To take the routine burden off the shoulders, many hosts utilize professional Airbnb management software to automate the workflow, eliminate the human factor, ensure smooth business performance, and, ultimately, provide an excellent stay experience.
Since the market abounds with all possible tools and products, choosing the right Airbnb management application is quite a challenge. In this guide, we will cover the best Airbnb management solutions that will help you manage your vacation rental lodgings more efficiently and profitably.
Hosty
Developed specifically for the hospitality industry, Hosty is a cutting-edge Airbnb property management solution with robust functionality to address all vital processes in such a sphere. With Hosty, you are able to fully control, streamline, and update all your rental properties through a single, intuitive dashboard.
Meant to make every part of this job easier, Hosty comes with all the bells and whistles to let rental managers run their business as smoothly as possible:
- Channel Management Tool allows seeing and administering all your listings across versatile accounts in a single interface.
- Booking Engine helps to view all relevant booking information, accept/decline reservation requests, and modify confirmed bookings from a single place.
- Central Inbox features makes it possible to easily interact with guests and maintain an excellent response rate.
- Multi-Calendar synchronizes all your booking calendars in a single screen so that you can both control all your rentals and allocate cleaning/maintenance tasks without interfering with guests’ stays.
- Listing Management Module helps to view and edit your entire rental portfolio from the single dashboard.
- Airbnb Automation is an essential feature of Hosty app that puts your entire Airbnb business on auto-pilot with automated replies, message templates, pricing, guest reviews, and reports.
When you think that such rich functionality cannot be cheap, think twice. Hosty is one of those rare property management solutions that are extremely affordable. There are three subscription plans to choose from, each of which having its perks and benefits for users.
- Hosty Basic is free to use, provided you run no more than 4 properties.
- Hosty Advance is available for $5 per month for each property connected to the app (recommended for managers administering more than 5 properties simultaneously).
- Hosty Pro costs $7 per month for each property connected to the app (best for large-scale Airbnb entrepreneurs).
You can test the premium version of Hosty for free within 14 days to decide whether this plan fits your expectations and requirements. At the end of a demo period, you will automatically be switched to a free version. And if you decide to upgrade to a Pro account, you can easily do it manually. The platform never charges you any fee for setting, canceling, or upgrading your subscription plan.
Guesty
Guesty is a powerful tool for short-term property managers who want to optimize time-consuming procedures, provide a better guest experience, and improve control over their businesses. The solution enables users to merge listings from different booking marketplaces such as Airbnb, TripAdvisor, HomeAway in a single dashboard and effortlessly handle them.
The offered functionality makes it possible to automate daily processes, ensure seamless communication with clients, assign tasks to teammates, generate performance reports, process payments, synchronize calendars, create branded booking land pages, and more. Mobile-friendly, Guesty allows users to manage their properties on-the-go.
Guesty does not offer ready-to-use subscription plans. Instead, the company encourages users to get in touch and specify the peculiarities of their property, so that Guesty can elaborate on a custom pricing model to fit the unique requirements of each business. A free trial period is available to see Guesty in action without paying real money.
iGMS
A nifty program for orchestrating vacation rental properties, iGMS offers a variety of features every host needs to win the time back spent on struggling with repetitive Airbnb operations. Integrating with popular vacation rental brokers like Airbnb, Booking.com, HomeAway, and Vrbo takes the complexity factor out of the whole business. The most remarkable features offered by this provider are
- Automation tools;
- Cleaning and maintenance management;
- Direct booking management;
- Key exchange management;
- Multiple accounts management;
- Native smart messaging;
- Payment processing and invoice management;
- Mobile app.
There are three subscription plans to pick from, and the service does come at some cost. Such as, with the Flexible Plan, a user is charged with $1 per booked night. The Pro Plan charges $20 per property per month. And the Enterprise Plan offers customized solutions based on a business’s size and needs. A trial, free of charge period is available for 14 days.
Your porter
Your Porter is cloud-based software that helps hosts and managers administer plenty of vacation rentals through a centralized platform. It offers a wealth of functionality to solve all Airbnb managerial and administrative issues. With this product, users can improve the flow of communication with guests, delegate tasks to the personnel and monitor their execution, tackle reviews, synchronize availability and rates between different platforms, create appealing booking landings, accept payments/deposits, and get financial reports. The software integrates with the trendiest property listing marketplaces like Airbnb, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor. The variety of subscription plans is not extensive, though. The Pro-Host plan charges $7 per listing per month, billed annually (unlimited accounts, 21-day trial). The Expanding Host plan costs $5 per listing per month, billed annually (5 accounts maximally, 21-day trial).
Kigo
Kigo provides a solution to every need of a short-term rental business. The product is built to automate and simplify tedious, time-taking procedures typical for Airbnb enterprises. This software offers the following features:
- Channel manager;
- Operations management;
- Guest experience management;
- Payments integration;
- Reservation and booking software;
- Website builder;
- Revenue management;
- Document management.
The price of Kigo services depends on the needs and scale of the business. However, to set up and implement the platform to your vacation rental accounts across all desired websites, you will have to pay $1000, without mentioning extra services like Kigo Platinum Support ($500 per month), Kigo Checkout ($49 per monthly subscription plus a $299 setup fee), and Premium Websites ($59 per monthly subscription plus a $499 setup fee). For demonstrative purposes, the company offers a 14-day trial period.
Running a short-term vacation rental business is undoubtedly an ordeal, requiring from a manager to be utterly responsible, attentive, and communicative, otherwise, the business will not succeed. Implementing smart Airbnb management software will save you from the stress of controlling everything on your own through comprehensive automation and optimization of repetitive Airbnb activities. Once we have narrowed your choice with all-time the best 5 Airbnb management solutions, so you can easily choose the right option to meet your budget, needs, and the size of your business.
Written by Scott Weathers