Hostaway vs Guesty
This article examines Hostaway vs Guesty by concentrating on the main features that a hospitality management software should offer. The data has been collected from Guesty’s and Hostaway’s websites and help articles. We also checked their reviews at Capterra to find the aspects that the actual users are emphasising.
If you are looking to an alternative to Guesty or Hostfully, you may wish to check out what we’re developing at zeevou.com. Check out our OwnerRez vs Guesty vs Zeevou post.
Guest Review
In Capterra, Hostaway has a rating of 4.7, with the highest score for Customer Service.
Trustpilot introduces Hostaway as an Excellent tool with a 4.7 TrustScore.
In Capterra, Guesty has a rating of 4.4, with the highest score for Ease of Use.
Trustpilot introduces Guesty as an Excellent tool with a 4.6 TrustScore.
Hostaway sends out automated messages called “Native Messages” to the guests based on the reservation event. These auto-messages will be sent to channels like Airbnb, and the guests receive them on Airbnb.
You can set messages in Hostaway and send them out for Expedia, HomeAway, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com.
Regarding payments, if the channels do not process them, they will pass you the card details, and you can charge the cards to proceed with the payment through your Stripe account.
Guesty automates collecting guest information and verifying reservation details, Check-in Forms, rental agreements that explain your terms and conditions, and collecting the 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.
Hostaway offers integration with top channels such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, HomeAway/Vrbo, 9flats.com, and Innclusive (which provides a commission-free listing for the owners).
Hostaway also offers iCal integration with other channels such as OwnersDirect, Tripping.com, Widmu, Perfect Places, and OneFineStay.
Hostaway:
- pushes rates and availability in real time and makes sure that those are up to date across all channels.
- enables you to export your listings (calendar and content) from Hostaway into HomeAway/Vrbo if you have five or more active listings, and they are listed on HomeAway/Vrbo.
- offers a manual iCal synchronisation when you have less than five listings for TripAdvisor and Flipkey. If you have five or more listings, Hostaway offers a 1-way API integration.
- lets you export your listings to Booking.com if you have more than five listings. However, you can only export one listing per address.
- sets channel mark-ups.
- sets a “booking window” at channel level.
- notifies you if there is a “modified reservation” by using the “Airbnb Pro” connection. You can also manage “Special Offers” in your Hostaway account.
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.
Hostaway gets help from cleaning services through integrations with Properly and Doinn. You can export your listings into these platforms.
- In Hostaway, you can set up cleaning tasks before arrival and after check-out.
- The housekeepers have access to the tasks on both the dashboard and their mobile app, where they can attach pictures and leave comments.
Guesty cleaning management enables you to:
- Create and assign cleaning tasks.
- Schedule tasks for specific dates and times, or even set them up as recurring tasks.
- Track the progress of each task, monitor completion status, and see who is responsible for each task.
Guesty’s “Auto Tasks” feature helps automate scheduling tasks for specific events, such as automatically creating cleaning tasks after every guest checkout.
Hostaway integrates with Operto. Operto sends the access codes to the guests after you set a message in Hostaway to allow it to send those codes.
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.
Guesty Locks Manager provides a contactless check-in experience. It allows you to access the automatic generation of unique codes and comprehensive real-time updates on lock statuses.
- Hostaway allows you to choose the subdomain’s name for your direct booking website, select the listings you would like to be published on the website, and add titles, content, background images, and social media contact information.
- Your Stripe account will be connected to your website.
- You can use the WordPress plugin to connect your website to Hostaway’s website.
- Hostaway’s Open API option enables you to integrate your Hostaway software with any other website.
- 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.
The website created by Guesty:
- 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.
- Hostaway allows you to set weekly and monthly rates and push them to the channels.
- You can set rates for all the connected channels by editing them on the calendar.
- You also have the option to import rates from your Airbnb account into Hostaway and send them to other channels.
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.
- communication.
- 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.
- Hostaway facilitates guest experience through integration with YourWelcome and Wishbox.
- Through Hostaway, you can send messages automatically, thanking the guests for reservations, welcome messages, and post-check-out messages and trigger them according to the channel, listing, or event type.
- You can choose templates from the system and set this automation for all channels or all listings, one listing, or one specific channel.
- You can set triggers and send the message based on the reservation status, arrival/departure, enquiry, and pending reservation. You can pause, cancel, or edit these “scheduled messages” and send them manually.
- The “Native Messaging” feature enables you to send the message to Airbnb and Booking.com, and these channels will send the email to the guest.
- The “Guest Reviews” feature of Hostaway allows you to receive reviews from the guest from the top channels, and you would be able to reply to the reviews that come from Airbnb and Booking.com.
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.
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Guesty offers a built-in feature called Guesty CRM that enables you to consolidate all guest and lead data in one place.
Hostaway:
- connects to Properly and Doinn, so if you have an account on these platforms, you can outsource your maintenance operations.
- allows assigning tasks to the user, supervisor, and teams which can be managed from both the system and the mobile app.
- lets the cleaners attach pictures or leave comments so that you will be informed about an issue.
Guesty’s task management can be used to set up recurring tasks for regular maintenance activities.
The Hostaway app is useful for hosts and staff members.
- The team members can see the tasks that they have been assigned to. They can also check all the tasks related to their team and “accept” the task to complete it.
- Using the filter options, the staff member can search the tasks in their application and choose the one that applies to their role.
- The cleaners can upload pictures as attachments on their mobile app.
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.
- Hostaway offers a tagging system that allows you to add tags to the listing to make filtering easier.
- In each listing, you can create a “Custom Field” and configure detailed information about the units.
- For manually creating a listing, you can add rooms and beds. The bed-type export feature is available for HomeAway and Booking.com.
- Some settings (content) in Hostaway can be exported to Airbnb such as discounts, minimum and maximum stay restrictions, check-in & check-out time, cleaning fee, extra guest fee, etc.
- The system allows you to cross-list the properties, and you would be able to set bookable properties as separate units and together as a whole.
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.
Hostaway allows you to create general tasks and reservation-based tasks and assign them to the team members. The assignee will get notified via email. As the manager, you will be provided with an overview of all tasks in some categories such as “to do,” “accepted,” “in progress,” and “done,” and you can see them on the calendar (tasks that are linked to reservations).
- The system allows you to put the staff into groups and assign a supervisor. The tasks can be allocated to the listing, channels, or both.
- The tasks are based on the listings and events, and you can create them both manually and automatically. The manual task option is handy for not recurring tasks, and you can use the available options in the software to set them. The assignee can start and end the task from both the platform and mobile app. The system also allows you to set recurring tasks.
- There is a Time Report option that tells you how much time was spent on the task.
- You can add these options to your tasks:
- a checklist
- costs
- resolution notes (giving and leaving feedback)
- attachments (cleaners can upload images before and after cleaning)
- You can give permissions to the users to “view, modify, delete, and edit” the tasks. If the modification is done through the mobile app, any reservation changes would not be applied to the task.
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.
In Hostaway, you can give owners access to the system by setting an email address and password and defining the properties they are allowed to see. The system enables you to let the owner see the listings, reservations, calendar, or all of them. You can allow them to modify, create, or delete listings and reservations, as well.
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.
Hostaway’s payment partners are Stripe and Braintree (Braintree does not pre-authorise the deposit).
- You can specify whether you process the payment by credit card or send an invoice to the guests with the payment instructions manually.
- When the invoice is created, you can charge your guests directly from the invoice; their credit card will be charged, and the amount will be managed on your Stripe account.
- You can set automatic invoices for new reservations and decide whether they will be created for all channels or only for a specific one. You can also link the invoices to some or all listings. You can set up auto-charge and split charge by scheduling the triggers (based on reservation, check-in, and check-out). You have the ability to pause or edit a charge at any time.
- Pre-authorisation only works for auto-charge and auto-invoices.
- You should mark the invoice as full or partial paid manually.
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 has mentioned the deficiency of this feature and Guesty’s inability to split payment at Capterra.
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.
Hostaway provides you with reports that you can view based on listing level and channel level.
Through these graphics, you can see:
- rental revenue per channel
- booking nights per channel
- rental revenue per reservation per channel
- daily reservation received per channel
- reservation per channel
- You can use the sample formula included in the system or create your calculations by selecting some values related to taxes like city tax, sales tax, and other values related to reservation like Damage Deposit and Additional Cleaning Cancelation Fee. After creating this, you will be able to check the Financial Report.
- The Occupancy Report gives you information about days available, days booked, total check-in, revenue, revenue/days booked, revenue/days available, cancellations, etc.
- 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 add filters for more customised views and mark your most frequently used reports as favourites in a dedicated folder.
- You can export data as a CSV or create a dynamic link for live data updates.
- You can schedule when a report should be sent and to whom.
Hostaway has integration with Pricelabs, Beyond, and Wheelhouse.
Guesty’s Yield Management feature sets custom rate strategies to adjust rates and minimum night stay rules and offers rate plans.
Hostaway facilitates being in touch with a person and receiving assistance for most of the updates and configurations. They hold webinars when there is an update, and guides for setting up the system are available.
There is a fixed charge for the setup.
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 cost.
In Hostaway, if you want to integrate with your accounting system, you can use an Open API.
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.
Hosaway’s unified inbox offers two views, which are the inbox and the guest conversation.
The inbox can be filtered by all listings, all channels, recent activity, and reservation status.
In the conversation page, you can find information such as the guest name, channel name (Airbnb only), check-in and check-out, name of the property, and the number of the guests. Some options link you to the calendar, booking page, and guest portal.
The guest portal contains the reservation details, photos, and Google Maps, and you can share its URL link with your guests. The guests can also access the invoice, and they can leave a note for you.
Guesty’s unified inbox lets you receive emails and enquiries through booking channels and SMSes.
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
Pricing
Hostaway pricing offers different options. To get an accurate quote, you should contact them for your customised pricing plan. Hostaway charges 367.80 GBP ($500) as the setup fee. Typically, the price starts at 25.75 GBP ($35) per listing, but it drops down as the number of units increases.
There are two options for paying Hostaway subscriptions:
- commission-based (2% of monthly revenue)
- Flat rate
Based on a rough calculation for a business operating around 200 units, Hostaway pricing would be about 14.71 GBP ($20) per listing. Another query for four units with a different combination of features would be 11.03 GBP ($15) each and 183.90 GBP ($250) of setup fee.
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.
Hostaway vs Guesty: Which Property Management System to Choose?
Hostaway enables the user to advertise and list their properties on top channels easily. The company is looking to improve by adding new features. Hostaway communicates with its clients and develops what the users need or suggest. If you aim to concentrate on some channels, especially Airbnb, Hostaway provides you with a smooth synchronisation. However, Hostaway does not offer many tools to improve your direct bookings.
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.
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