Hostaway vs Kigo
This article examines Hostaway vs Kigo by concentrating on the main features that a hospitality management software should offer. The data has been collected from Hostaway’s and Kigo’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, Kigo has a rating of 3.7, with the highest score for Features.
Trustpilot introduces Kigo as a Poor tool with a 2.6 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.
Kigo enables the automation of responding to enquiries to convert them to bookings as quickly as possible. You can build a template and automated response emails that confirm the availability of the property of interest or show other available properties.
In the Kigo Reservation Module, you can check:
- Booking source
- Occupancy dashboard
- Full portfolio
- Revenue breakdown
Kigo has an integrated payment processor which has a Single Settlement reporting capability. It helps in fraud prevention and checking transaction history. Kigo charges 5% per booking for using KigoPay.
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.
Two–way real-time connection with all of Kigo’s partner channels.
Kigo’s channel manager:
- Keeps rental rates competitive across portals.
- Fills the calendar gaps by automatically relaxing length-of-stay limits and adjusting pricing to optimise occupancy.
- Charges 3% per booking for all the payments outside Kigo, for example, for your Airbnb bookings.
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.
With Kigo Operation Manager, you can:
- Schedule cleans and tasks in the centralised management area.
- Give your cleaners and maintenance staff easily accessible clear sets of daily and weekly tasks to complete.
- Set your expectations by attaching photos and have a place to receive photos in real-time from cleaners.
- Automate all communications through the system by email and SMS.
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.
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- 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.
Kigo’s Website Starter Package makes an image-driven, mobile-friendly, secure WordPress website for all of your properties.
The website Kigo makes for you:
- Allows map search.
- Manages multiple properties easily by organising units from countries to buildings based on a geographic hierarchy.
- Groups properties together to increase the occupancy rate like homes by the beach, pet-friendly, cabins, etc.
- Tracks your website performance through analytics.
Kigo charges for Premium Websites a set-up fee of £404 ($499) plus a monthly subscription of £50 ($59).
- 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.
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- 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.
- Kigo has made a mobile-friendly link to communicate in real-time with guests, chase down reviews, and target repeat referrals and direct bookings for the future. You can test it by typing rebrand.ly/guestxp on your phone.
- Kigo’s bank-safe eSignature helps in sending, signing and securely storing documents.
- Kigo provides a ready-to-use template for your automated guest messaging system.
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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.
With Kigo Operation Manager, you can:
- Schedule cleans and tasks in the centralised management area.
- Give your cleaners and maintenance staff easily accessible clear sets of daily and weekly tasks to complete.
- Set your expectations by attaching photos and have a place to receive photos in real-time from cleaners.
- Automate all communications through the system by email and SMS.
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.
With Kigo, you will not force your guests to download and install an app. Kigo provides a URL or a web-based link that you send to the guests, and they can open it and access the information. This platform allows you to communicate with your guests pre-arrival, during the stay, and after check-out. You can automate sending the terms and conditions, and they can use the e-signature tool to sign.
You can also send local attractions, coupon codes, or FAQs to them.
- 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 will be able to set bookable properties as separate units and together as a whole.
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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 will not be applied to the task.
With Kigo Operation Manager, you can:
- Schedule cleans and tasks on the centralised management area.
- Give your cleaners and maintenance staff easily accessible clear sets of daily and weekly tasks to complete.
- Set your expectations by attaching photos and have a place to receive photos in real-time from cleaners.
- Automate all communications through the system by email and SMS.
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.
Kigo’s Owner Portal:
- Creates multiple owner statements in bulk.
- Provides automatic calculation of property management commissions and accounting adjustments like credit card fees, channels’ commissions and promotions.
- Customises the type of information to display.
Owners can:
- Check property availability calendars.
- Book an owner stay or guest-of-owner stay.
- Download their owner statement.
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.
KigoPay is a payment solution designed by Kigo.
- KigoPay processes multi-currency transactions from one centralised location.
- KigoPay automatically generates event triggers and notifications for reconciliation, fraud, chargeback disputes, etc.
- Kigo payment processing services are PCI DSS compliant with bank-level encryption.
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.
KigoPay is in charge of reporting by integrating KigoPay with Kigo’s new channel management technology.
Hostaway has integration with Pricelabs, Beyond, and Wheelhouse.
Kigo Revenue Management:
- Studies your occupancy rates and sets the prices.
- Updates the prices across your properties.
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.
- Kigo has a one-time set-up fee of £810 ($1000).
- Kigo Platinum Support provides direct access to an expert who speaks your language and offers product walkthroughs and tailored tutorials.
- Kigo Platinum Support costs a monthly subscription of £400 ($500).
In Hostaway, if you want to integrate with your accounting system, you can use an Open API.
KigoPay completely streamlines all reconciliation and financial data. Integrating KigoPay with Kigo’s new channel management technology simplifies complex calculations for tax and fee reporting from channel partner bookings.
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.
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Pricing
Hostaway offers different pricing 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.
Kigo charges around 3% for offline transactions and 5% for online transactions made through KigoPay. A 0.5% payment gateway fee is applied to all payments processed through non-KigoPay integrated payment gateways.
Hostaway vs Kigo: 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.
Kigo has a good reputation in support services and functionalities. This software also offers direct integration with Airbnb, Booking.com, and HomeAway/Vrbo and pushes not only rates and availability, but also photos and descriptions in real-time. However, the commission-based pricing strategy of Kigo, sometimes, becomes too costly as apart from the subscription fees you pay to this PMS provider, they get a commission for each booking made on any channels the moment you start using Kigo.
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