Guesty vs Lodgify
This article examines Guesty vs Lodgify by concentrating on the main features that a hospitality management software should offer. The data has been collected from Guesty’s and Lodgify’s websites and help articles. We also checked their reviews at Capterra to find the aspects that the actual users are emphasising.
Guest Review
In Capterra, Guesty has a rating of 4.5, with the highest score for Ease of Use.
Trustpilot introduces Guesty as an Excellent tool with a 4.4 TrustScore.
In Capterra, Lodgify has a rating of 4.4, with the highest score for Value for Money.
Trustpilot introduces Lodgify as an Excellent tool with a 4.4 TrustScore.
Guesty automates collecting guest information and verifying reservation details, Check-in Forms, rental agreements that explain your terms and conditions, and collecting guests’ e-signatures.
Guesty’s integration with CheKin allows the automatic collection of necessary documentation from guests, directs relevant information to the authorities, and allows guests to check in online ahead of time.
In Lodgify:
- You can send a quote for guests’ reservations through the website showing the price, payment schedule, and cancellation and deposit policies.
- You can send a confirmation link via email to the guests, including reservation and payment information.
- You can set a quote expiry policy.
- You can choose how you would like to accept bookings (enquiry only, booking request, instant booking). For enquiry bookings, the system blocks the availability on other channels, and you may lose the chance of selling your nights.
- You can automate guest vetting using CheKin, a software solution for guests’ registration.
Guesty provides integrations with 60 different marketing platforms or channels. Almost every single channel uses a 2-way API connection instead of 1-way or an iCal connection.
Guesty has direct integrations with six online booking platforms, including Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda, TripAdvisor, HomeAway and Misterb&b.
By using Guesty:
- You will access an auto-pricing tool which automatically adjusts prices across all booking platforms according to your specifications.
- You can use the official, step-by-step, Guesty-guided connection process for integrating with various OTAs.
- For Airbnb Integration, if you already have an Airbnb account, the integration takes about 5 minutes, and within 24 hours, all of your data from your Airbnb account or multiple accounts are pulled into Guesty.
Lodgify’s channel manager allows bookings, calendars, and rates to be synchronised via API across top listing channels, such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and Vrbo.
It supports iCal integration for other channels, including TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Lastminute.com, Trivago, Hotelbeds, eDreams, etc.
- Lodgify synchronises images, descriptions, and listings with some of the top channels.
- On the Professional and Ultimate plans, you need to pay a commission for the bookings through the channels.
- There is a 1.9% fee for all bookings on the Starter plan, whether from the website or the channels.
Guesty does not offer built-in cleaning features and suggests outsourcing cleaning services.
Lodgify’s task management software allows you to:
- Create and assign tasks to different members.
- Give users access and distribute responsibilities.
- Invite your team members to the platform and link them to the rentals; then, you need to create job templates and specific tasks that the team members should fulfil to complete the job. According to their role and relations to the job and rentals, team members will be notified on their mobile app when the job is created.
- Manually assign jobs to specific people.
With Lodgify task management,
- Staff can claim a job.
- You can set an inspector for the jobs (they can reject and approve the job).
- You can activate/deactivate a job according to your needs.
- Tasks are shown on the calendar.
- The task management feature is offered under the Ultimate subscription.
- There is a mobile application for the managers.
Guesty’s auto messaging enables you to send check-in instructions only if the Check-in Form has been completed. You can also use the filters to send your guests reminders to fill out the Check-in Form.
Lodgify uses triggers to automate guest communication.
- A “pre-check-in form” will be sent asking the guests’ arrival information, details, and IDs.
- The guest app provides them with information about the rental, access, address, Wi-Fi details, and recommendations about what to do in the area. (You can withhold sensitive info like access code until the payment has been completed.)
- Once the guests check out, they will no longer be able to access the app.
- Automatic and manual SMS reminders can be sent.
- If you want to link into software for automatic self check-in, you should use Zapier.
- Guesty offers its website builder to its users free of charge. However, Guesty charges a 3% commission of the income as its subscription fee.
- Guesty’s website reflects all reservations made through your website in your central calendar.
- Guesty allows you to sync your existing website with Guesty’s booking platform through Guesty’s Open API.
- Enables you to create customisable coupons to offer discounts to your customers. The user can set the minimum number of nights required, valid reservation dates, expiration of the coupon, and the number of times the coupon can be used.
- Allows customisation in a sense that features the listing of your choice on the homepage.
- Can be integrated with Google Analytics to keep track of your marketing efforts.
- Allows you to set up a Facebook Pixel to capture abandoned bookings directly through Facebook Ads.
- Lodgify offers a website with an integrated booking engine.
- It is mobile-friendly, and users can create their domain.
- On the Starter plan, there is a 1.9% fee for direct bookings.
The SEO-friendly website created by Lodgify:
- Is customisable, allowing you to create custom pages.
- Allows you to add Google Analytics.
- Can be integrated with WordPress, Wix, Drupal, Joomla, Weebly, and Squarespace.
Guesty allows you to:
- Incorporate mid-term stays into your rental company’s business model.
- Apply custom rate strategies to your listings, and Guesty will automatically adjust your prices and minimum night rules accordingly.
- Add your longer-term listings to Airbnb’s Monthly Stay programme along with other leading mid-term booking channels.
- Filter reports by the length of stay to tag extended stays within the Guesty admin to automate customised communication.
Lodgify allows you to set prices per night, week, month, weekdays, and season.
Guesty’s 24/7 Guest Communication Services:
- Respond to your guests’ enquiries based on the urgency of incoming messages.
- Answer incoming enquiries during your team’s off-hours.
- Can adjust bookings at your multi-calendar based on availability, price and location.
- Prioritise your reviews, escalating the most urgent ones to your attention.
Through filled detailed questionnaires and brief onboarding phases, Guesty users hand over their guest communications to Guesty’s team of experts.
Lodgify allows you to:
- Set up a list of existing automated emails to communicate with your guests. You can check up on them during their stay.
- Prepare a digital form of house rules, instructions, and access codes.
- Send review-request email templates.
N/A
In Lodgify, you can communicate with your guests using the built-in guest CRM.
- The system does not collect the email addresses, and if you want to have a guest list, you should manually create it. You should create a booking and then fill in customer data.
- Using the list, through the free integration with MailChimp, you can send out marketing emails.
N/A
Lodgify allows managing the team on one single platform.
- You can specify what your team member can see and do.
- You can set a “picture request” and ask the housekeepers to upload photos.
Guesty has its native mobile app, which enables its users to manage their business on-the-go by offering:
- Unified Inbox
- Multi-Calendar
- Task Management Tools
Employees will be notified through the access they have to the Task Management feature of your native mobile app. The employee’s task management software is included in the main app with a limited portion of information accessible.
Lodgify’s mobile app has been developed for tracking operations.
- The mobile app has the functionality of the desktop version of the software.
- The guests can communicate with the host through Lodgify’s guest app.
Guesty’s Multi-Unit feature allows you to group similar listings together. In this way, you can group your multi-units and single units to create a hotel complex and connect with SiteMinder and Booking.com. It also streamlines tasks and increases occupancy.
- You can create properties in different locations.
- Rentals are also imported from Airbnb.
- You cannot move the reservations from one apartment to another one.
Guesty enables task management by:
- Creating tasks after specific triggering events such as check-ins, check-outs, planned arrivals or departures and reservation confirmations. Triggers might be related to property availability such as first availability in a row or end of rentals.
After completion of certain tasks, other actions are activated automatically similar to the domino effect.
- Creating manual tasks and notifying the assignee.
- Using the Task Management feature of the Guesty mobile app.
- You can have an outlined list of all the things that need to be done and check when the property has been cleaned.
- With the mobile app, you can oversee all the tasks and manage the team.
- You can assign specific people to supervise and review tasks once they have been completed.
Guesty’s Owner Portal brings transparency for the owners and is compatible with 15+ different languages.
It provides reports that detail each property’s yearly and monthly revenues, compare their performances to one another and highlight notable trends.
Guesty’s Owner Portal allows the owners to reserve a stay at their properties directly from the portal.
Lodgify provides homeowners access to keep them updated by creating different roles within the platform and assigning specific permissions to each owner.
The owners can add properties to the website and edit the details and availability themselves.
There is a mobile app for owners.
Guesty’s online payment processor accumulates guests’ charges under their reservation, facilitates payments, and sends receipts to guests.
The auto-payments feature allows Guesty to charge guests according to your specified policies.
The auto-payments feature allows collecting each payment at the stage of your choice. However, one person on Capterra has mentioned the deficiency of this feature and Guesty’s inability to split payment.
Guesty’s payment processing feature collects all payment-related information, adding them automatically to the data on your dashboard, which is useful for charging repeat guests.
Lodgify has integration with Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net, and Payyo as payment gateways.
You can accept a set of credit cards for your website: Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
- The payment is not through 3-D Secure Payment, and you can only charge card details.
- It accepts bank transfers, cheques, and cash.
- You can add payments manually and send payment requests and payment reminders.
- Pre-authorisation can only be granted for seven days.
- Lodgify charges you a 1% transaction fee.
- You can set 2-3 payments: a percentage at the time of the booking and the remainder some days before arrival, for example.
Guesty Reporting Tools create reports on specific aspects of your business from over 65 parameters, including check-in time, addresses, revenue and many more.
You can filter specific months and days of the year, as well as a specific property on your report.
Guesty’s Yield Management feature sets custom rate strategies to adjust rates and minimum night stay rules and offers rate plans.
Lodgify integrates with PriceLabs and Outswitch.
The main way to reach Guesty is through live chat, accessible on all pages of their website. They are committed to being available 24/7 and responding to messages in a timely manner. Moreover, you can contact the partnerships and press team by email in five different languages. There is also a 5-week onboarding process which comes at an additional cost and is separate from the month-to-month subscription fee.
Lodgify provides onboarding for you under the Professional and Ultimate plans if you manage three listings and more.
If you are an Ultimate subscriber, you will be trained on PM Modules, including accounting and task management.
The software shows the users the account progress and tells you what steps are left to thoroughly set up your system.
There are articles and instructions both on the website and in the software itself.
Guesty is integrated with Quickbooks and Xero for facilitating trust accounting.
Sage Intacct is another integration you need to have if your vacation rental business is considered an enterprise-size company.
Guesty does not include a built-in accounting module.
In Lodgify:
- You can keep track of your income and payments, pending and transferred payments of both employees and guests.
- You can generate invoices for employees.
- You can keep track of the expenses.
- The system allows you to create accounting statements. The statements will be updated automatically based on received and sent payments.
- The amounts on the payments are not automatically updated.
- There is no bank account for the owner; the split proportions of income on each booking are for reporting purposes.
Guesty’s unified inbox lets you receive emails and enquiries through booking channels.
Archiving and filtering capabilities, and also Saved Views are useful. The most effective Saved Views suggested by Guesty are:
- Potential guests
- Guests checking in that day
- Assignee
Lodgify does not offer a unified inbox, but to communicate with the guests, you have two ways:
- You can enter the reservation system and send a message directly from there (this feature synchronises with Airbnb and Vrbo chats). There are some “canned emails” that you can choose.
- You can reply to the guest via email. Each booking has a unique Email String. When you respond to this string, the conversation will be saved in the reservation.
Which automated emails are sent to your guest depends on the channel. For example, if the reservation is from Airbnb, “2 days before rental arrival” and “2 days after rental departure” emails will be sent automatically.
Pricing
Guesty’s pricing strategy is different from most of its competitors, and the pricing information is not publicly available. However, it is a commission-based pricing model, so you will be charged for bookings made through the software. If you want to have a more accurate estimation of how much your costs would be, you may schedule a conversation with the Guesty sales team.
Lodgify’s pricing starts at £146.65 ($199) per month and varies depending on the total number of rentals and features:
- Starter: £8.84 ($12)
- Professional: £23.58 ($32)
- Ultimate: £35.37 ($48)
Lodgify offers a 20% discount on annual subscriptions and a 25% discount on two-year plans when the users pay upfront. The users receive a free custom domain under annual subscriptions and two-year plans.
Guesty vs Lodgify: Which Property Management System to Choose?
Guesty is one of the most popular PMS providers in the vacation rental industry. It is an established brand with many branches all around the world. Guesty has a different pricing strategy compared to most of its competitors. The pricing model is commission-based, which means you will be charged on the bookings made through the software. This naturally increases the amount of commission you have to pay to Guesty while managing and scaling your short-term rental business. There are also other charges such as the initial set-up fee. Guesty lacks built-in trust accounting, cleaning management, and maintenance management. Guesty does not have any specific module to accumulate guest’s data in a guest CRM. However, Guesty is famous for having one of the most user-friendly platforms in the industry.
Lodgify would be the right choice if you run a small rental business and wish to have a user-friendly website. If your properties are listed only on Airbnb, Lodgify would be a good option because they have been chosen as a Preferred Software Partner by Airbnb. This means that Lodgify provides the requisite functionality and software connections that meet Airbnb’s technical benchmarks. However, because of the limited integration with the channels, you may not have the chance to widen your reach the way you might wish to.
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