Lodgify vs Kigo
This article examines Lodgify vs Kigo by concentrating on the main features that a hospitality management software should offer. The data has been collected from Lodgify’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, Lodgify has a rating of 4.5, with the highest score for Value for Money.
Trustpilot introduces Lodgify as an Excellent tool with a 4.4 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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- 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.
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).
Lodgify allows you to set prices per night, week, month, weekdays, and season.
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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.
- 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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
- You can create properties in different locations.
- Rentals are also imported from Airbnb.
- You cannot move the reservations from one apartment to another one.
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- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You can filter specific months and days of the year, as well as a specific property on your report.
KigoPay is in charge of reporting by integrating KigoPay with Kigo’s new channel management technology.
Lodgify integrates with PriceLabs and Outswitch.
Kigo Revenue Management:
- Studies your occupancy rates and sets the prices.
- Updates the prices across your properties.
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.
- 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 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.
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.
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.
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Pricing
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.
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.
Kigo also offers optional add-ons with separate set-up fees and monthly subscriptions:
- Kigo Platinum Support: monthly subscription of £400 ($500)
- Kigo Check-Out: set-up fee of £242 ($299) plus a monthly subscription of £43 ($49)
- Premium Website: set-up fee of £404 ($499) plus a monthly subscription of £50 ($59)
In addition, a minimum monthly fee of £161($199) is charged if the monthly fees are less.
If you want to have a more accurate estimation of how much your costs would be, you may schedule a call with the Kigo sales team.
Lodgify vs Kigo: Which Property Management System to Choose?
Lodgify would be the right choice if you run a small rental business, and you 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.
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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