Hostaway Review: From Our Team of Superhosts

As Airbnb hosts we understand how much time and effort it takes to fully optimize a short term rental. It can be a headache at times, especially when you are doing everything by yourself. Luckily, tons of tools can swoop in and help make their jobs more tolerable. This is how using a property management rental software like Hostaway can come in handy.

How handy you ask? Well, join us as we give our thoughts on Hostaway’s different features, user experience, pricing, and public reviews. Hopefully, we can help you Airbnb hosts and property managers out there to see if it’s a useful addition to your vacation rental.

Best Hostaway Features and How Hosts Can Use Them for Their Airbnb

Hostaway is an all-in-one tool for vacation rentals and property management. It offers an extremely wide array of tools and features that we simply cannot cover in-depth. So, we’ve chosen what we believe are their best and most useful features to discuss.

Property Management

The Hostaway software offers a suite of property management features designed to streamline and automate various aspects of running a short-term rental business. As hosts, we've found these tools to be incredibly valuable in simplifying our day-to-day operations. It also has great scalability, accommodating all of our vacation rentals with ease.

One of the standout features is Hostaway's all-in-one Property Management System (PMS). This solution allows you to manage your entire portfolio from a single dashboard, whether you have a handful of property listings or hundreds. The PMS includes a reservations manager, which enables you to efficiently track bookings, inquiries, and guest information. You can also create special offers and upsell services, such as extended stays, directly through their solid booking engine.

In our experience, Hostaway's property management features have significantly reduced the time and effort we spend on administrative tasks. By automating key processes and centralizing our data, we can focus on delivering exceptional guest experiences and growing our business. The platform's amazing user interface, extended functionality, and variety of customization options make it a reliable partner in vacation rental management.

Channel Manager

As experienced Superhosts, we understand the importance of efficiently managing listings across multiple booking platforms. Hostaway's Channel Manager is a standout feature that has significantly streamlined our operations and increased our visibility to potential guests.

Hostaway's Channel Manager is a crucial tool for Superhosts managing listings across multiple major booking platforms. Its direct integration with major OTAs like Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Expedia ensures seamless synchronization of bookings, rates, and availability, minimizing the risk of double bookings and saving time on manual updates regardless of your sales channels.

The user-friendly interface allows for easy distribution of listings, while the multi-calendar feature enables efficient management of properties in different locations. Hostaway's responsiveness to market trends and continuous expansion of its integration capabilities help hosts stay ahead in the competitive vacation rental industry.

Overall, Hostaway's Channel Manager has been a delight to use. Its direct channel integrations, user-friendly interface, and adaptability to market trends have allowed us to efficiently manage our listings, increase our visibility, and grow our business. We highly recommend it for your channel management needs.

Hostaway Dynamic Pricing

We understand the critical role that pricing plays in maximizing occupancy and revenue for to boost property performance. Hostaway's Dynamic Pricing feature allows users to optimize rates based on real-time market data and demand.

Let us first preface this by saying Hostaway’s Dynamic Pricing tool is an Add-On offered by the platform. It costs an extra monthly fee, depending on how many listings you turn it on for, so be careful.

Hostaway's Dynamic Pricing works by analyzing factors such as seasonality, local events, and competitor pricing, the tool provides the most competitive rates for listings daily. The seamless integration with Hostaway's other features automatically updates rates across all connected booking channels, ensuring consistency and saving time on manual adjustments.

The customizable nature of the Dynamic Pricing feature allows hosts and property managers to set their own base rates, minimum and maximum prices, and pricing rules based on their specific needs and goals.

In our experience, Hostaway's Dynamic Pricing tool has provided a good experience. Its direct integration with other Hostaway features makes pricing optimization a breeze. It’s definitely a desirable tool if you’re looking for a true do-it-all channel management and property management system. However, we suggest checking out other third-party dynamic pricing tools as they do have better customization options and recommendations.

Other Hostaway Features

Unfortunately, we can’t go on forever about the different features, but here’s a short list of the other tools they offer:

• Automation Tools - Features automation of processes such as messaging, guest reviews, tasks, and payments, streamlining the workflow for you or your team members.
• Marketing - Includes setting up a direct booking website, WordPress plugin, coupon management software, and a website builder.
• Services - Offers real-time notifications, an open API, revenue management capabilities, and a dedicated Hostaway mobile app.
• Operations - Hostaway can handle payment processing, contract signing, guest invoicing, automated payments, and proper task management/assignments.
• Communication - Features a unified inbox, automated messaging, a separate owner and guest portal, along with native support for SMS & WhatsApp, enhancing overall guest communication.
• Analytics & Reporting - Hostaway provides occupancy reports, owner statements, financial reporting, and expense tracking, keeping your stats and data available all the time.
• Add-Ons - They also provide extra services like loans via Hostaway, pricing optimization using their dynamic pricing tool, and contactless check-in via Hostaway Smart Locks.

Hostaway Pricing: How Much Does Hostaway Cost?

It’s a bit hard to generalize Hostaway’s pricing since their model is primarily based on the number of properties you manage, along with the features you’ll be using. So, if you’re primarily using their revenue management tools for 3 properties your monthly expenses would be different from someone using the entire vacation rental software suite for a single property. Everybody’s price will vary, so we just highly suggest connecting with the platform itself.

Based on the publicly available information from other hosts and property managers, it seems that Hostaway’s pricing starts at around $50. On the other end, large enterprise clients are paying more than $5000 monthly payments. Do remember to take these numbers with a grain of salt, but it’ll at least give you a decent idea based on how large your vacation rental business is.

Unfortunately, Hostaway doesn’t offer free trials since creating and fully setting up an account can take anywhere from 2 to 8 hours in total. However, they do offer demos and provide quick evaluations of your business if you contact them directly. We highly recommend going through this process if you’re strongly considering Hostaway before committing to their service.

Hostaway Pricing vs Alternatives

Since the platform doesn’t have a fixed pricing model nor offer a free trial, it can be a bit tough to compare it with potential Hostaway alternatives. But, we’ll list down a handful to help you weigh your options.

• Guesty - Lite: starts at $16 per listing/month for up to 3 listings. Pro and Enterprise: For 4-199 listings and 200+ listings, they offer custom prices and you’ll need to contact them for pricing. Guesty also charges for some of their extra features.
• Hostfully - Starter: $119 per month for up to 4 listings. Pro & Pro Plus: $215 per month for up to 11 listings, and $269 per month for up to 19 listings, respectively. Premium: Custom plans for hosts and property managers with numerous listings. They also offer a 10% discount for annual plans.
• Hospitable - Host: $29 per month for 1 property plus $10 per additional active property. Professional: $59 per month for 2 properties and only charge an extra $15 per additional active property. Mogul: $99 per month for 3 properties and charge an extra $30 per additional active property.
• Lodgify - Starter: $20/ month + 1.9% of booking fee per listing. Professional: $50/ month per listing. Ultimate: $73/ month per listing. They also offer discounts per plan per additional listing you have, along with an up to 25% off on yearly and two-year plans.

Hostaway Reviews From Across the Web

Now that you’ve heard our thoughts, it’s time to see what the public says about the all-in-one vacation rental software. We’ve checked out sites like TrustPilot, Capterra, and G2 for verified reviews.

• Kevin T had this to say: “Compared Hostaway to a couple other PMS providers and theirs was the easiest to navigate and use. Pricing structure was simpler than the rest. Onboarding was a great experience. My onboarding specialist, Michael Herzfeld, did a fabulous job. He really took the time to make sure we went through all the important features and tools of the platform. Not to mention, he was a really nice guy and easy to talk to. Made the set easy and fun.”
• Jenna C left this review: “I have had a great experience with Hostaway. My onboarder [sensitive content hidden] was extremely knowledgeable and helpful, she walked me through the setup process for my account. The platform has been very helpful and I like being able to manage reservations in one platform.”
• Ghoms Design claims: “I highly recommend Hostaway. The onboarding alone is worth more than anything. In this day where most company are trying to be move away from customer service, Hostaway is not only opening access to thier phone lines but walk you through all the set up needed to use their platform. My onboarding guide Fatih was the best.”

Overall, Hostaway received an excellent 4.7 stars out of 5 on TrustPilot, 4.8 stars out of 5 on Capterra, and another 4.7 stars out of 5 on G2. This reflects the general satisfaction of users on the platform.

Final Thoughts

There’s no doubt that Hostaway is a powerful platform with insane customization options and excellent integration capabilities. It’s hands-down the best software for hosts and property managers looking for an all-in-one solution, eliminating the need to jump through multiple platforms for each of your STR needs.

However, it’s not a solution for everyone. Its steep learning curve can also be too overwhelming for newcomers to the world of vacation rentals. Hosts with smaller portfolios or ones with limited budgets might be better off using other Hostaway alternatives.

If you’re considering starting out your own Airbnb rental or just looking for a new addition to your portfolio, we suggest checking out our BNBCalc property analysis tool to give you an insight into properties on your radar. It can help you make data-driven decisions, based on what active rentals are already earning, allowing you to get an idea of not only revenue but also expenses, and paint a fuller picture of your potential investment.