Hostaway vs Hostfully
This article examines Hostaway vs Hostfully by concentrating on the main features that a hospitality management software should offer. The data has been collected from Hostaways’s and Hostfully’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, 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, Hostfully has a rating of 4.3, with the highest score for Customer Service.
Trustpilot introduces Hostfully as an Excellent tool with a 4.3 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.
Hostfully can completely automate your booking process, no matter if the booking is coming from OTAs or direct through your website.
Through the Hostfully dashboard, you can see all received bookings and from there, you can manually or automatically assign the reservation to an agent that will be responsible for it.
Once assigned, the booking moves over Hostfully’s Pipeline management, which gives you a general overview of all bookings. This includes the booking’s origin, the guest’s current stage within the process, and their payment status. Through the Pipeline, you can also take actions on these bookings, such as send a quote, place a hold, mark as booked, show alternative options, change payment status, send messages, close the lead, and more.
Guest Information
A pre-arrival form can be automatically sent to collect information about all your guests, including their names, real email, phone numbers, information about their trip, and government IDs. You can also customise this form to request any additional information you might need.
Agreement
Rental agreements can be automated and digitally signed with Hostfully proprietary digital signature features, no matter if the booking is coming from an OTA or directly.
Upsells and Payments
Hostfully direct booking system also allows you to automatically offer upsell services such as early check-ins, or late check-outs, mid-stay cleanings, and any other services you’d like to offer.
Payment can also be automated through Stripe, Paypal or VacationRentPayment, and Hostfully allows you to set a rate multiplier on a channel-basis, so you can offset OTA commissions and make sure you’re getting paid what you want.
If the guest pays in an alternative form, i.e. wire transfer, venmo, cheque or cash), the host can manually mark the reservation as paid and keep total control of payments.
It is also quite clear whether the guests have paid or not in the software. The Pipeline will colour code each reservation based on payment status. If you need to collect additional payment from the guest, the PMS will trigger an automated message to the guest with a secure payment form, allowing the guest to complete the remainder payment. You can also manually click to trigger “Payment Balance Request” reminders to the guest.
Security Deposit
Security deposits can be fully automated, and refunds can also be provided directly from the Hostfully platform.
Hostfully has tools in place within the Pipeline to show whether the guest has completed the pre-arrival form, as well as provided an electronic signature on the hosts rental agreement.
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.
Hostfully has built its channel manager allowing hosts to connect with many OTAs directly without the use of third-party channel managers. Among Hostfully’s direct API integrations are Airbnb, Vrbo (Preferred Partner), Booking.com (Premier Partner), TripAdvisor, HomeToGo, Tripvillas, Yonder, GoLightly, and more.
Hostfully also integrates with channel managers such as Rentals United and NextPax.
By using Hostfully, you can:
- Import all your listings from Airbnb and avoid manual work.
- List your properties on the Hostfully channel to increase direct bookings.
- Use the rate multiplier feature to offset commissions.
- Sync pictures, description, amenities, prices, and real-time availability.
- Automatically create listings on OTAs.
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 photos and leave comments.
By using Hostfully, you can choose between their own cleaning/task portal or use the cleaning/management integrated partners:
- Breezeway
- Properly
- VRscheduler
- EZcare
- TurnoverBNB
Hostfully cleaning/task portal can help you:
- Automate the creation of tasks, such as greeting or check-out cleanings for every booking.
- Automate emails or text messages to all your cleaners and maintenance staff.
- Provide access to a service provider portal with a calendar, tasks, and notes per property.
- Get to know when a task is completed directly on the Hostfully main calendar.
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.
Hostfully is fully integrated with home automation software, such as PointCentral, RemoteLock, Lynx, and Operto.
By using these integrations, door codes can be automatically generated for all bookings and automatically sent to guests upon different parameters set in the trigger’s section.
If you’d like to share the door codes in a more elegant way, the Hostfully Digital Guidebooks are fully integrated with Hostfully PMS, allowing you to generate a secured link guidebook for each of your reservations, including guest’s first and last name, check-in and check-out dates, and of course, the door code they will need to use to get into the property.
- 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.
- Hostfully offers free direct booking websites to all PMS clients.
- Hostfully direct booking website provides a search bar, so guests can find their perfect property.
- Property pages are completely synced with the Hostfully platform and will auto-populate your property information with pictures, descriptions, amenities, pricing, availability, and reviews.
- You can add customisable header, footer, and Meta using HTML and CSS.
- Hostfully enables you to white-label the website with your logo, domain, and headlines.
- You can track your performance on Google Analytics.
- Their website offers an upselling feature.
- Hostfully provides search widgets, booking widgets, and calendar widgets which can be integrated with any platform, including WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and others.
- Hostfully also provides a discount code feature, which allows you to create codes to offer discounts, track marketing campaigns, or even create special promotions.
- 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.
Hostfully is designed for short-term rentals and can accommodate long stays including two payments from the guest, as well as discounts for longer stays. Hostfully does not support automatic recurring monthly payments or lease management.
- 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.
Hostfully is widely known for its digital guidebooks, providing one of the leading guidebooks in the industry.
Completely integrated with the Hostfully PMS, Hostfully guidebooks allow you to pull name, check-in and check-out dates and door codes automatically, providing a seamless experience to the guest.
In Hostfully Guidebooks, you can add pictures of the property, welcome messages, check-in essentials, access information, directions, parking information, house manuals, amenities, and local attractions/ recommendations.
Setting up a guidebook is a 30-minute process, and the hosts can build the guidebooks up incrementally over time.
Besides the Guidebooks, Hostfully PMS has a lot of ready-to-use email templates, SMS templates, and trigger rules. The link to the property guidebook can also be automatically included in the templates. To see example guidebooks, click here.
You craft automated guest messages triggered by preset dates/times/events, such as check-in, during stay, and check-out.
All Hostfully communications are GDPR-compliant.
N/A
Hostfully’s Property Management Platform also has a built-in CRM, separated in two different sections:
- Pipeline: The Pipeline was designed to allow you to manage all your leads, enquiries, current bookings and past bookings. Through the Pipeline, you can visually see payment status, source, check-in and check-out dates, guest name, price, and number of people in each reservation. Besides that, the Pipeline can tell you where the guest is in the booking process. Stages are: Quote, Hold, Booked, and Staying. From the Pipeline, you can also open a reservation and easily manage it. Lastly, the Pipeline allows you to filter reservations by Status, Channels, Properties, Agents, and also sort them by the most recent or arrival date. A search option is also provided, making it easy to find any specific details on any reservations.
- Customers: The customer section was designed to allow the property manager to find all past, current, and future guests, and all reservations related to them.
In addition, Hostfully has an integration with MailChimp to export all guest details for re-marketing purposes.
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 photos or leave comments so that you will be informed about an issue.
Most of the clients on Hostfully are using one of the integrated partners to manage cleaning/maintenance. Hostfully PMS also provides you with a maintenance portal.
Each service provider will receive access to their own service portal, where they can see all jobs assigned to them and either decline or accept those jobs within their portal, which is then communicated to the platform.
They can also access a maintenance calendar and notes.
Through the templates and triggers section, property managers can send automated emails and text messages to all service providers.
Hostaway’s 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 app and choose the one that applies to their role.
- The cleaners can upload photos as attachments on their mobile app.
Hostfully has provided a mobile app for hosts.
With this mobile app, you can:
- View all your reservations at a glance on a single screen.
- Access detailed information on pricing, occupancy specifics, payment confirmations, and more by simply clicking on any reservation.
- Gain a comprehensive overview of upcoming check-ins and check-outs, and efficiently handle incoming leads.
- Track requested properties, stay durations, and revenue earned.
- Read and respond to guest messages using either the system’s predefined templates or your personalised quotes.
- Stay updated with timely notifications, whether it’s task updates or messages from your guests.
- 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.
Using Hostfully, you can manage properties in different countries and currencies.
You can also group properties by tags, making it easy for you to filter or retrieve these properties using the Hostfully open API.
- 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 the following options to your tasks: a checklist, costs, resolution notes (giving and leaving feedback), and 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.
Hostfully defines user “roles” to provide access control to particular parts of the system for the people managing a specific area of your business.
Hostfully also empowers you to send all your check-in information through their template and triggers section, based on the status of a reservation, or payment status.
Once a booking is created, Hostfully can automate the creation of cleanings, maintenance, or any other order you’d like to set up.
You also can create a profile for each of the service providers and give them access to the Hostfully service providers portal. That way, they will have access to all pending and completed orders and real-time calendar view of all properties they’re assigned to.
Hostfully integrates with Zapier, an online automation tool that connects Hostfully to 400+ software such as Gmail, Trello, Slack, Mailchimp, Salesforce, Hubspot, Google Sheet, and many more.
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.
Hostfully provides vacation rental management companies (VRMCs) with a way to manage calendars collaboratively with the property owners they represent. It allows each property owner to access the “Owner Portal.” This is a part of Hostfully’s site where owners can co-manage the availability of their rental and get informed about the status of their calendars.
VRMCs can also publish financial statements to owners, to keep owners informed about the monthly revenue, expenses, commissions, taxes, and more.
Some key features include the ability to:
- Notify owners of every new booking.
- Provide multiple email addresses for the above notifications.
- Allow/disallow the owner to block dates on their calendar.
- Decide whether the Agency or the Owner will collect and remit tax(es). This will affect the Due Agency and Due Owner amounts in the financial report accordingly.
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 manually mark the invoice as fully or partially paid.
Hostfully can completely streamline your payment process with different payment processors:
- Stripe
- PayPal
- VRP (VacationRentPayment)
These payment processors can be used for direct bookings and channels that allow you to be the merchant of record.
As part of the check-out process, Hostfully can offer:
- Split payments
- Upsells
- Digital rental agreement signing
- Payment collection
- Payments processing with custom security deposits
You can also take payments outside the system (back transfer, Venmo, Cash, Zelle, etc, and easily add a new payment record in the order).
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 reservations 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-ins, revenue, revenue/days booked, revenue/days available, cancellations, etc.
Hostfully reports can be created based on dates, properties, and owners.
You can create reports for:
- Bookings
- Payments
- Check-ins and check-outs
Hostfully has also launched the Extended Data Report, which allows you to export all the data you have related to all bookings, properties, channels, etc., to an Excel Spreadsheet. This way, you can have all your data in one single report.
All reports can be exported to PDF and Excel.
Hostaway has integration with Pricelabs, Beyond, and Wheelhouse.
Hostfully has integration with the top three dynamic pricing companies in the vacation rental industry:
- PriceLabs
- Wheelhouse
- Beyond
All dynamic prices can be synced with your direct booking website, as well as any other channels you’re integrated to.
You can also set pricing periods and apply them to specific seasons, holidays, conferences, or special events.
Hostaway facilitates being in touch with the support team 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.
If you already have properties created on Airbnb, Hostfully is able to import all your listings to the system, avoiding any manual work.
Every Hostfully client has access to an onboarding manager that will be able to schedule 1:1 meetings.
During your onboarding process, your designated onboarding manager will assist you with:
- Importing your properties from other channels to which Hostfully is connected
- Configuring pricing
- Setting up your payment processor
- Adding your calendar Reservations
- Automating messaging
- Setting up the booking channels
Additionally, Hostfully provides unlimited customer support 24/7.
Additional training and onboarding sessions are also available upon request and might be charged separately.
In Hostaway, if you want to integrate with your accounting system, you can use an Open API.
Hostfully has a direct integration with Quickbooks.
Besides that, Hostfully also integrates with Zapier and allows you to connect with many other accounting software.
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 with your guests. The guests can also access the invoice, and they can leave a note for you.
With Hostfully’s Unified Inbox, you can stay in touch with your guests without the need to log in and out of various OTAs. You can chat with them via SMS, WhatsApp, email, or messaging platforms. Additionally, you can create pre-written templates and set triggers to automatically send them to your guests.
You’ll be able to filter your messages by date, guest name, and other parameters.
Hostfully does not do any web scraping, but rather only builds its connection via their approved partner API.
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 estimation for four units with a different combination of features would be 11.03 GBP ($15) each and 183.90 GBP ($250) of setup fee.
Hostfully has three different pricing plans: Starter, Pro, and Premium. On monthly subscriptions, Hostfully charges a one-time implementation fee of 315 GBP, which is automatically waived on annual subscriptions. There is also a 10% discount for annual payments.
Team Access Roles, and Digital Signature features are not included in the Starter plan. The Starter plan supports up to four properties and costs 86 GBP on a monthly basis. The Pro plan supports up to 19 properties and costs 157 GBP on a monthly basis. The Premium plan starts from 205 GBP for 20 properties, and you pay additionally for additional properties. The 21st property costs 10 GBP and the price goes down as you increase the number of properties. Additional properties can cost as low as 5 GBP if you have more than 100, or even 2.5 GBP if you have more than 1000.
Hostaway vs Hostfully: 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.
Hostfully is currently recognised as one of the best PMSes in the industry. Their PMS product won the VRMB All-Around Vacation Rental Software, and their digital guidebook was also recognised by Software Advice (sister company to Gartner’s magic quadrant). Hostfully is known for its clear interface, pipeline management, reliable direct integration with OTAs, many integrations with best-in-class vacation rental systems, and also its affordability when compared to top PMSes.
We are committed to ensuring that all our comparison articles are factually entirely correct and accurate. If you have spotted anything that you feel is wrong or misleading in this article, we’d appreciate hearing from you.
