The Best Dynamic Pricing Tools For Airbnb: Top Picks from Superhosts

We think maximizing occupancy rates and revenue is always at the top of your mind as an Airbnb host. And, one of the most effective ways to optimize your listing's performance is by implementing a dynamic pricing strategy. With all of these swift changes in market trends, it’s almost impossible to manually keep your pricing strategy in check. This is the main reason why a handful of powerful dynamic pricing solutions have penetrated the Airbnb revenue management space.

These Airbnb pricing tools leverage vast amounts of market and competitor data to provide automated, data-driven pricing recommendations, saving hosts valuable time and effort. But, which of these tools should you use?

So, today, we’re exploring some of the most popular Airbnb dynamic pricing tools available in 2024. We'll cover everything from their key features, pricing structures, and the types of hosts they're best suited for, helping you make an informed decision for your vacation rental business.

What is Dynamic Pricing?

First off, let’s start with a quick intro to dynamic pricing. Dynamic pricing is a strategy that adjusts rental rates in real-time based on market demand, seasonality, local events, and other factors. It works by constantly analyzing market trends and competitor prices, helping hosts optimize their rates to maximize occupancy and revenue.

The main advantage of dynamic pricing is that it takes the guesswork out of setting rates. Instead of manually collecting and analyzing market data and competitor prices, hosts can rely on highly sophisticated algorithms to do the heavy lifting for them. This not only saves time but also ensures that rates are always optimized based on the latest market conditions, which is crucial in a constantly evolving industry like the short-term rental market.

Dynamic pricing tools typically allow hosts to set pricing rules and customize their strategy. For example, hosts can set minimum and maximum prices, adjust prices for specific days of the week, or create length-of-stay discounts. Some tools also provide actionable market insights that hosts and property managers can use to learn more about the current market and influence their pricing strategies. This flexibility allows hosts to maintain control over their pricing while still benefiting from automated recommendations and ensuring that prices aren’t too low (or too high) for their liking.

1. PriceLabs

PriceLabs is a powerful and highly customizable dynamic pricing tool trusted by thousands of Airbnb hosts worldwide. Its color-coded demand calendar highlights peak dates, making it easy to identify opportunities to adjust prices. The tool allows hosts to set granular pricing rules based on factors like occupancy, booking window, and length of stay, enabling them to create a tailored pricing strategy. PriceLabs' market dashboards provide valuable insights into supply and demand patterns, helping hosts make informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition.

The tool gathers data from various sources, including Airbnb, Vrbo, and local tourism boards, to generate highly accurate and reliable pricing suggestions. By considering factors like local events, day of the week, and historical booking patterns, PriceLabs ensures that its recommendations are based on a comprehensive analysis of the most relevant and up-to-date market data.

PriceLabs offers direct integrations with popular vacation rental platforms and property management systems, allowing hosts to seamlessly sync their pricing across all listings, saving time and ensuring consistency. The tool's wide range of customization options gives hosts complete control over their strategy, although some users may find the number of options overwhelming at first. However, PriceLabs provides excellent documentation and support to help hosts get the most out of the tool.

PriceLabs Pricing

Their pricing varies depending on the services you’re trying to avail of.

• Portfolio Analytics: Free once you add listings
• Dynamic Pricing: Starts at $19.99 per month for a fixed rate or 1% of booking revenue for users who prefer a percentage-based rate. They also offer discounts for customers with multiple listings, providing great scalable prices.
• Market Dashboard: Costs $9.99 per month for market analytics for up to 1,000 listings, $19.99 per month for up to 5,000 listings, and $39.99 per month for a city-sized coverage of 10,000 listings.
• Revenue Estimator Pro: Plans start at $10/ month for up to 2 estimates, $45/month for 15 estimates, and $125/month for up to 50 estimates.

It’s also worth mentioning that they charge an additional $1 per listing/month for connecting PriceLabs to external systems via API and an extra $1 for additional daily syncs to booking channels.

Who We Recommend PriceLabs For

We recommend PriceLabs for Airbnb hosts who want the highest level of control and customization over their pricing strategy. The tool's advanced features and granular settings make it an excellent choice for experienced hosts and property managers who are comfortable sticking their heads into data and analytics. We here at BNBCalc, personally use PriceLabs for our listings and we can’t recommend it more.

If you’re interested in learning more about their dynamic pricing technology, check out our full PriceLabs review.

2. Wheelhouse

Wheelhouse is a user-friendly dynamic pricing tool that has helped users increase their profitability. The tool constantly analyzes market and competitor data, updating nightly rates to ensure hosts remain competitive. Wheelhouse's customizable pricing strategies allow hosts to choose between Recommended, Aggressive, or Conservative approaches, making it a breeze to use the dynamic pricing platform. However, more experienced hosts can also enter manual rate overrides for specific dates, tailoring their pricing decisions to their unique goals and preferences. Additionally, the tool offers competitive benchmarking and market trend reporting, helping hosts understand their performance relative to similar listings and competitor pricing.

Wheelhouse generates its pricing recommendations by analyzing data from various sources, considering factors like seasonality, day of the week, local events, and competitor pricing. The tool provides daily updates, ensuring that hosts are always working with the most current market information, and providing reliable and accurate pricing suggestions.

Integrating directly with Airbnb, Tripadvisor, and property management systems like Guesty and BookingSync (Smily), Wheelhouse allows hosts to seamlessly sync their pricing across multiple channels, saving time and reducing the risk of errors. The tool offers a variety of settings to fine-tune your pricing strategy, such as setting minimum and maximum prices, creating custom rates for specific dates, and leaving notes and reminders for your team. The intuitive user interface and 24/7 email and chat support make Wheelhouse easy to use and navigate.

Wheelhouse Pricing

Wheelhouse offers two primary dynamic pricing plans: Pro Flex and Pro Flat.

• Pro Flex: Costs 1% of booking revenue per month with a minimum monthly fee of $2.99.
• Pro Flat: Offers a flat rate of $19.99 per listing/month. Customers with 10-49 listings can enjoy a discounted rate of $16.99 per listing/month.

They also offer discounts for hosts/ managers with more than 50 listings, so make sure to reach out to their team if you have a large portfolio.

They also have a single Dynamic Sets plan that costs $12.99 per set/month, which unlocks the ability to create an ideal set for different scenarios that can influence your dynamic pricing strategy.

Who We Recommend Wheelhouse For

Wheelhouse is an excellent choice for Airbnb hosts who want a balance of automation and control. While it definitely lacks the customization options that other dynamic pricing software offers, the tool's built-in customizable strategies and user-friendly interface make it suitable for both new and experienced hosts. It also features solid direct integrations, providing convenience and streamlining workflow for hosts with multiple channels.

Feel free to visit our full Wheelhouse review for a close look at the platform.

3. Beyond (Formerly Beyond Pricing)

Beyond, previously known as Beyond Pricing, is a widely used Airbnb pricing tool that powers over 340,000 listings across 7,500 cities worldwide. The software analyzes rates from similar listings in your market, considering factors like seasonality, day of the week, and special events, to generate pricing recommendations that help you achieve optimal profitability. Beyond's comprehensive market analysis ensures that your prices remain competitive and attractive to potential guests.

One of Beyond's standout features is its ability to push updated rates directly to your property management system (PMS) or your Airbnb and Vrbo listings, saving hosts valuable time and effort. The user-friendly dashboard requires minimal training to navigate, making it an accessible option for hosts of all experience levels.

Beyond's algorithm is designed to optimize your profitability, ensuring that your rates remain competitive while maximizing your earnings potential. With direct integrations to Airbnb, Vrbo, and popular property management systems, hosts can seamlessly sync their rates across all their listings. The software allows hosts to set minimum and maximum rates and apply restrictions like minimum length of stay, providing a level of control while still benefiting from automated recommendations.

Beyond Pricing Plans

Beyond only has percentage-based plans available. This can be divided into three categories:

• Growth: Costs 1% of booking revenue per month and offers dynamic pricing and market insights.
• Pro: Costs 1.25% of booking revenue per month with added search-powered pricing and visualizations.
• Guidance: Costs 1.50% of booking revenue per month providing access to a full suite of revenue management tools, along with a dedicated team member to support and help you with your pricing strategy.

Who We Recommend Beyond For

We recommend Beyond for hosts who want a straightforward, dynamic pricing engine that delivers results. The software's wide coverage area and direct integrations make it suitable for hosts of all experience levels, whether you're managing one listing or a large portfolio. It’s fairly user-friendly but they do offer an extensive library of guides and resources to help you figure things out.

If Beyond has gotten you hooked, learn more about the tool through our in-depth Beyond review.

4. Airbnb Smart Pricing

Airbnb Smart Pricing is a built-in dynamic pricing tool available to all Airbnb hosts with at least one active listing. The tool analyzes various factors related to your listing and local market to automatically adjust your nightly rates based on demand. To use Smart Pricing, simply navigate to the "Pricing and Availability" tab in your Airbnb dashboard and turn on the feature. While Smart Pricing aims to maximize occupancy, you can still set minimum and maximum price limits and make manual price adjustments at any time, allowing you to maintain some control over your pricing strategy.

Airbnb Smart Pricing analyzes a vast array of data points, including seasonality, local events, day of the week, and demand patterns in your area. However, some hosts have expressed concerns about the reliability and effectiveness of the tool's pricing suggestions, citing instances of overpricing for distant dates and significant price drops for last-minute unbooked dates.

As a built-in feature, Smart Pricing seamlessly integrates with your Airbnb listing, automatically reflecting any price adjustments in your calendar. However, it does not offer direct integrations with other vacation rental platforms or property management systems, requiring manual price updates on those platforms to maintain consistency. While the tool allows for some customization, such as setting price limits and making manual adjustments, it lacks the advanced options offered by third-party dynamic pricing software.

Airbnb Smart Pricing Cost

Airbnb Smart Pricing is a popular tool for two main reasons; It’s directly built into Airbnb and it’s totally free. There’s no catch, no extra subscriptions, or fees. All you need is to have an active listing on Airbnb and you’ll have access to the Smart Pricing tool right away.

Who We Recommend Airbnb Smart Pricing For

We recommend Airbnb Smart Pricing for hosts who are new to dynamic pricing and primarily focused on maximizing occupancy as opposed to finding the best rates. If you exclusively list your property on Airbnb and prefer a hands-off approach to pricing, this tool can be a convenient starting point, especially since it won’t hurt your wallet at all.

However, most experienced hosts, us included, don’t really use Smart Pricing. It’s pretty much as basic as a pricing tool can get. It oftentimes doesn’t align with our revenue goals, despite setting clear rules, and usually won’t help with making informed decisions regarding prices.

We want to be completely clear that we don’t think Airbnb Smart Pricing is a good option if you’re taking your dynamic pricing strategies seriously. It’s a basic tool and lacks all of the customization, integrations, and data that all of the other paid options have. It serves as a good introduction to dynamic pricing, nothing more, nothing less. So, if you’re ready to commit to better strategies, we highly recommend choosing a different dynamic pricing platform.

Is Airbnb Smart Pricing good? Discover our full thoughts about Airbnb Smart Pricing in our review.

Final Thoughts

That’s all we have for you today in our list of the best dynamic pricing tools for your Airbnb business. All the platforms we’ve listed above are great in their own right and have certain features and offerings that can help you optimize your pricing. The best tool for you will most likely boil down to your personal STR needs, business goals, and preferred interface. If you have no experience with any of these options, we advise that you take advantage of the free trials they offer and find one that gets you the best results and one that you feel the most comfortable using.

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.