Hostaway

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Hostaway is one of the leading vacation rental software for property managers and owners. It strives to help STR hosts and property managers increase profitability and occupancy through integrating with industry-leading dynamic pricing products and building your own direct booking site. Designed to automate and optimize all aspects of your operations, Hostaway centralizes your business in one place for effortless end-to-end property management with 150+ integrations available. It also allows users to easily connect and manage their listings across all major travel platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Google, etc. 

Hostaway
Hostaway

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Pricing

Exact pricing is available with a demo.

  • Flat fee based on the number of active properties. 
  • Custom packages and developments available for enterprise clients
Hostaway

Features

Unified Inbox From All Connected OTAs – Yes, the messages from all connected channels pull into the Hostaway unified inbox.  Messages can be sorted and filtered a variety of ways. 

Unified Calendar From All Connected OTAs – Yes. The calendar can be viewed for multiple properties simultaneously in ribbon form, or in a month view for each property individually. 

Unified Quote Management For All Connected OTAs  – Yes, inquires show up in the inbox.

Rate Management For All Connected OTAs – Yes. Users can set markup rates for each connected channel individually. They can also create custom discounts and select which OTAs or channels the discount is applied to. 

Channel Management for the Following OTAs – 

  • Airbnb
  • Vrbo
  • Booking.com
  • Expedia
  • Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy
  • Google Vacation Rentals (GVR) *Users must use the Hostaway booking engine to have their properties listed on GVR. 
  • Tripadvisor
  • Find Rentals
  • VacayMyWay
  • HouseStay
  • Whimstay
  • Dtravel
  • Lodgea
  • Hopper
  • FloridaRentals.com
  • Bnbfinder
  • Got2go
  • TravelTrunk
  • HolidayKeepers
  • TravelStaytion
  • GoLightly

For a full list of other 150+ integration partners, please see the latest here.

Setup Service – Hostaway has a one-on-one onboarding process to ensure new users are confident and fluid using the software. It charges a one-time setup fee for this service.

Payment Processors – Integrates with the following payment processors:

Accounting – Yes, standard accounting reports are available and information about expenses can be manually added to Hostaway if you want that information to show up on owner reports. 

Integration with the following accounting solutions can pull financial information from Hostaway regarding your reservations:

Trust Accounting – Trust accounting features are available via integration with the following partners:

Cleaning and Maintenance – Yes, Hostaway users can create cleaning, quality control, and maintenance tasks that can be automatically created according to the criteria selected. 

Checklists can be created for tasks. 

Team members can receive automated notifications of new tasks via email or through mobile app notifications.  SMS notification of new or modified tasks is not currently available.

Team members can utilize the Hostaway app to mark the start and completion of tasks and upload photos. 

Integrations are also available with:

Reports – Yes, numerous prebuilt reports are available, and users can easily customize reports to suit their needs. 

Channel-Specific Promotions – No, but users can create channel-specific markups to offset channel hosting fees.

External Website integration –  Yes, via a Hostaway booking engine widget.

Internal Website  Builder – Yes, a single website template is available that can be easily customized to suit your brand.

Users can use their own domain or one provided by Hostaway. 

The template comes with a handful of prebuilt pages, but additional pages can be easily added. 

The website feature is included in the cost of the Hostaway subscription and there is no extra charge for creating multiple websites.

Basic SEO features such as customizing metatags are available.  

Email Service Provider Integration – MailChimp via Zapier integration.

Review Aggregation from OTAs – Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com

Guest Messaging –  Yes, guest messaging is handled via the unified inbox.

Users can create message automations that will send messages to guests automatically according to the criteria users set up.

Reservation and property-specific field codes can be used to personalize messages for each guest and reservation. Custom field codes can also be created.

Messages for Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com guests will be received directly through the Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com app. 

Two-way SMS messaging is also available for US, Canadian, and UK phone numbers for no additional fee. SMS messages are limited to 140 characters.

The following Hostaway integration partners also offer guest messaging services:

Guest Screening – A guest check-in feature can be activated that allows guests to provide their contact information (and those of other guests), a selfie, and a copy of their ID, but this information is not verified or run through any databases for screening purposes. 

Hostaway users can also access guest screening services through partner integrations with:

Automated Rental Agreements –  Yes, users can create a custom rental agreement for each listing and then create an automated message to send the agreement link to guests. Property and reservation-specific field codes can be added to the agreement to automate customizing the agreement for each guest and each property. 

Digital Signatures for Agreements – Yes, this is a built-in feature with no integrations needed, but integration with HelloSign and SignRequest are also available via Zapier.

Internal dynamic pricing tool – No.

External dynamic pricing integration – Yes, integration with:

Security Deposits – Yes, automated security deposits are currently available and can be set as a charge or hold. 

Guest Damage Insurance – Integrates with:

Mobile App – Yes, but the mobile app does not have the full functionality of the Hostawy website.

Users can message guests, view the calendar, edit certain aspects of reservations, and view and edit tasks. 

Team members such as cleaners and maintenance can use the app to accept tasks, communicate the start and completion of tasks, and upload photos.  

Smart Home  –  Not built-in, but via integration with:

Bookings Direct from Facebook – No

Smart Lock Integration – Yes, Hostaway can automatically create door codes for a variety of smart lock brands and send them to your guests through your automated messaging.  This is one of the few features that Hostaway charges an additional fee for. 

Smart lock management is also available through the following integration partners:

  • Operto
  • Lynx
  • RemoteLock
  • Duve
  • Chekin
  • Ratna
  • Jervis Systems
  • Yale
  • Schlage
  • August
  • Nuki
  • Salto
  • TTLock
  • Kwikset
  • Igloohome
  • Lockly
  • Assa Abloy (via Chekin)
  • Akiles (via Chekin)
  • Omnitec (via Chekin)
  • Mondise *Via Chekin)
  • BeHome247
  • Hostkit

Upsells and Add-ons – Yes via integrations with:

Property Management Features

All the property management features are included in the price of your Hostaway subscription without additional fees.

  • Invoicing – Yes
  • Property Management Reports – Yes, reporting includes those commonly needed by property managers. 
  • Owner Login – Yes, owners can be set up as users and what they see (permissions) can be customized according to your preferences. 
  • Owner Statements – Yes, owner statements can be customized for your branding. 

Customer Service Via –

24/7 support:

  • Email
  • Chat
  • Scheduled calls
  • Extensive support library

Additionally, Hostaway has an online community for its users.

Additional Features – 

  • Hostaway is Integrated with direct booking tools, offering the short-term rental industry’s first price comparison tool seamlessly integrated into the customer’s booking website.
  • Cutting-edge features like ChatGPT-powered messaging tool and direct VRBO messaging.
  • Hostaway is integrated with popular CRM tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive to grow and retain your client base.
  • Automate all your tasks with Monday.com and Asana once reservations are created and extend your automations through creating Zapier Zaps. 

Hostaway

Pros

  • Hostaway offers a modern, easy-to-use interface.
  • Hostaway's API integration with leading OTAs allows changes made on Hostaway to listing rates, availability, guest data, descriptions, photos, amenities, titles, policies, fees, and more to be pushed automatically to the booking channels.
  • Hostaway has invested heavily in providing fast and responsive customer service support. 
  • Hostaway onboarding is one-on-one and customized to each user's needs to ensure you feel confident and fluid with the platform.
  • Offers one of the largest marketplaces with 150+ integration partners available.
  • Team members with the Hostaway app who have notifications enabled can receive notifications of new or modified tasks such as cleaning and quality control.
  • There is no additional fees for the property management features in Hostaway.
  • There is no additional fees for creating multiple websites.
  • There are no limits or additional fees for adding additional users.

Cons

  • There is a one-time onboarding fee.  *Note: The fee is not exorbitant and pays for boarding is one-on-one and very high quality. 
  • Hosts with only one or two properties should know that Hostaway has a minimum monthly subscription price.
  • Smart lock code generation is an additional fee per device.
  • The mobile app is helpful, stable, and updated frequently, but does not include all the functionality of the full Hostaway website.  The full Hostaway website is not mobile responsive and can make it difficult to accomplish certain tasks on the go.
  • SMS notification of team members of new or modified tasks is currently available.

Hostaway
STR HUB Staff

STR HUB Staff

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