Smoobu vs Hostfully
This article examines Smoobu vs Hostfully by concentrating on the main features that a hospitality management software should offer. The data has been collected from Smoobu’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, Smoobu has a rating of 4.5, with the highest score for Customer Service.
Trustpilot introduces Smoobu as an Average tool with a 3.5 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.
Smoobu offers a “native online check-in tool,” through which you can collect guest information for compliance with local laws or for your own safety.
You can customise all the standard fields, including name, gender, nationality, document number, etc. Additionally, you have the option to add custom fields, require e-signature, and allow guests to attach files.
Smoobu’s integration with ChargeAutomation enables you to automate payment collection for reservations, security deposits, refunds, and fees.
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.
Smoobu’s channel manager synchronises all the bookings, calendar blocks, cancellations, and rates. For Vrbo/HomeAway, there is iCal synchronisation.
Smoobu has integration with more than 100 channels; it has an API integration with 15 channels.
Price synchronisation is available for Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda. You can add a mark-up in percentage to the base rate. It applies to the minimum stay and the price according to the days of the week.
Prices can be exported/imported from one channel into another.
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.
Smoobu offers integration with cleaning software such as Properly, TurnoverBnB, and VRScheduler.
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.
Smoobu’s “native online check-in tool” helps you to collect information that you need for the local laws or the information you need for your safety as a host.
Smoobu’s integration partners for online check-ins are Checkin, Wishbox, Mymaison, Vikey, Avs, and Check-in Scan.
Smoobu’s integration partners for smart locks are KeyNest, NUKI, igloohome, Keysoft Claud, SCLAK, TheKeys, and Operto.
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.
- Smoobu provides you with a direct booking website, which is commission-free. You can add photos, location, description, logo, Google Maps, and policies, and collect payment through Stripe/PayPal.
- You can use it with your domain. Smoobu’s booking engine iFrame can be integrated with your current website.
- You can translate the website into over 25 languages.
- The website covers 50 currencies.
- “You can add custom Javascript.”
- For the website, you can specify rates per person, per night, per booking, and define minimum stays. The availability calendar can be embedded on the website, and the guests can see it.
- The website is responsive on all devices.
- For the website, you can set “min days between booking and arrival, arrival and departure days, long stay discount, and discount code.”
- The website can be integrated with content management systems such as WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Strato, Typ03, Drupal, Joomla, GoogleSite, Jimdo, and Squarespace.
- Smoobu integrates with Google Analytics.
- You can make restrictions regarding check-in and check-out days for your website.
- You can embed Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Youtube, and LinkedIn on your website.
The web pages are NOT generated for different locations.
- 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.
You can define long-stay discounts with “dynamic minimum length” for your website. For example, after 20 nights, your guests get a discount.
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.
Smoobu automates your communication with:
- the guests by creating message templates like “thank you messages” and setting trigger events. The templates are customisable according to the guest name, check-in, and check-out times.
- Smoobu’s “Dynamic Guest Guide,” generated uniquely for each booking, provides your guests with all the necessary information in 40 languages until they check out.
Smoobu has full integration with Booking.com & Airbnb messaging APIs.
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.
Smoobu’s CRM tool collects all guest contacts from all the connected portals on one page.
You can edit the data and export the list and send SMS and emails through third parties.
You can download the mobile app to be in touch with your guests.
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.
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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.
Smoobu’s mobile app includes a unified inbox.
There is a mobile app for the guests by which they can check Wi-Fi credentials, maps, tours, weather, etc. It is integrated with Smoobu’s tools, and you can cross-sell extra services during their stays.
Smoobu’s app also helps you collect reviews.
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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.
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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.
Smoobu’s “central operations cockpit” shows you the key performance indicators such as occupancy and distribution rates, current bookings, and a list of upcoming guests.
You can add a booking on this page.
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.
You can share your Smoobu’s account with your partners and cleaning teams, allowing them access to general account settings, guest data, properties, messages, and prices.
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.
Smoobu creates custom invoice templates. Cross-selling items from the bookings will be shown in the invoice. You can insert PayPal links automatically to the invoice.
Smoobu integrates with Stripe, PayPal, Sumup, and Swikly. The payment integration is just for the booking engine.
Smoobu charges card details.
You can choose how you want to receive payment on your website (Bank transfer, Stripe, Patpay, Payment on Arrival, and iDEAL for Dutch users).
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).
Smoobu’s “Statistics” enables you to break down the reports by “revenue, bookings, cancellations, occupancy rate, dates, properties, and nights.”
You can download the list of reservations in Excel, PDF or CSV formats.
On the “Cockpit Page,” you can check the occupancy rate and channel.
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.
Smoobu’s dynamic pricing integration partners are Beyond and PriceLabs.
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.
The link of help articles and instructions are uploaded on the platform, and you can check them while you set your system up.
You can schedule a call to ask your questions.
Upon logging into the system, you can be in touch with a representative through email.
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.
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Hostfully has a direct integration with Quickbooks.
Besides that, Hostfully also integrates with Zapier and allows you to connect with many other accounting software.
The messages from various booking platforms will be allocated to the bookings, and you can chat and see the conversation history online or via the mobile app.
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
Smoobu offers three packages. One is free and covers limited features. The Professional and Team packages have three plans: monthly, yearly, and two years. As the number of units goes up, around £7 will be added to the price for each unit. Smoobu offers a custom price for more than 20 properties.
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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.
Smoobu vs Hostfully: Which Property Management System to Choose?
Smoobu is the right choice if you want an affordable, easy-to-use system with a PMS, channel manager, and website builder. With Smoobu’s guest app, you can provide your guests with a happy and pleasant experience. Furthermore, by accessing a contact list, you can directly connect with your guests or use the list for your email marketing. Since Smoobu does not offer cleaning, maintenance, and operations management, you should be mindful of other expenses you might have to pay for buying other software or hiring staff members. As your business grows, or if you decide to manage properties for other owners, Smoobu may not be able meet your expectations because of the lack of functionalities in reporting, accounting, expense allocation, and profit splitting.
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.
