Zeevou vs Smoobu
This article examines Zeevou vs Smoobu by concentrating on the main features that a hospitality management software should offer. The data has been collected from Zeevou’s and Smoobu’s websites and help articles. We also checked their reviews at Capterra to find the aspects that the actual users are emphasising.
User Review
In Capterra, Zeevou has a rating of 4.9, with the highest score for Customer Service.
Trustpilot introduces Zeevou as a Great tool with a 4.2 TrustScore.
In Capterra, Smoobu has a rating of 4.5, with the highest score for Customer Service, Value for Money, and Ease of Use.
Trustpilot introduces Smoobu as a Great tool with a 4.2 TrustScore.
Zeevou processes bookings as efficiently as your Airbnb experience, besides enabling you to vet your guests. Zeevou ensures it will never send check-in instructions before completing the steps below.
When you receive a booking in Zeevou, the system sends out an email to the guest, stating the steps waiting to be taken. You can customise the steps.
- General Information
- Guests can specify if they are booking for themselves or on behalf of someone else.
- Zeevou hides any forwarding email addresses from channels to capture the guests’ real email addresses and GDPR-compliant marketing consent.
- Business and leisure bookers are identified.
- Early check-ins and late check-outs can be upsold.
- Information like booking purposes and other custom questions can be asked.
- Guest Information
- This optional step enables you to collect further information on all the guests staying to enrich your contact database.
- You can even ask the guest to upload files like a scanned version of their passport/ID or a photo of their card.
- Agreement
- Zeevou’s E-signature feature allows you to get your terms and conditions digitally signed by guests.
- Zeevou shows if the guest has signed your terms and conditions. You can review all the information and verify the guest in the system.
- Once a guest has been marked as verified, a copy of the agreement envelope will be available for download.
- Upsells & Payment
- A pop-up appears, allowing guests to buy specific services and add-ons.
- A 3-D Secure Link is sent to the guests to complete their payment, ignoring card details sent across by channels. 3-D Secure payment links reduce the risk of unauthorised usage of cards.
- Guests can download a draft invoice for their stay at the point of payment.
- Security Deposit
- The system will automatically attempt to block and release the funds off the card according to the specified timeline.
- It is possible to use a different payment gateway for security deposits to be used for payments. Guests can enter two separate cards for the payment and security deposit.
Zeevou’s Check-In Ready feature provides a visual tracking system that shows the status of each guest’s check-in process. Hosts can tailor the check-in process for each property by selecting specific steps that guests need to complete during the Online Check-in Process.
Zeevou’s check-out management feature shows who has left the property on time and who has not checked out yet.
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.
Zeevou offers 2-way API integrations with more than 200 channels from OTAs to property listing sites.
By using Zeevou,
- You can advertise your properties on Zeevou Direct, a commission-free OTA.
- You can add a fixed amount as a mark-up to compensate for the channel’s commission.
- You do not need to pay any extra fees or commissions for bookings that flow through Zeevou’s channel manager.
- You can ensure that all key information (rates and availability, images, descriptions, and amenities) is synced.
Smoobu’s channel manager synchronises all the bookings, calendar blocks, cancellations, and rates.
Smoobu has integration with more than 100 channels; it has an API integration with 15 channels.
Price synchronisation is available for Airbnb, Booking, Expedia, Agoda and Vacation-apartments. 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.
If your property can be booked as a whole or in separate units, Smoobu blocks unit bookings when the whole property is reserved and blocks the entire property when a unit is booked.
Zeevou allows you to automate your cleaning management.
- Check-out & mid-stay housekeeping tasks are automatically generated according to your specified frequency of cleaning.
- You can keep track of housekeepers’ availability, and they can request leaves through the mobile app.
- Zeevou’s advanced allocation algorithm optimises task allocations to housekeepers based on the check-out and check-in times of guests, cleaners’ availability, and the average time needed to clean each unit type, taking into account travel time between properties.
- Housekeepers’ mobile app includes the status, the timing, and any notes you may have left for them. The system captures their time and location at the start and end of every task.
- Housekeepers can be required to take photos and videos for each task they complete so that you can check on the quality of the cleaning.
- Photos are timestamped to help combat unfounded guest complaints.
- Housekeepers can also report maintenance issues through the mobile app.
Smoobu offers integration with cleaning software such as Doinn, Properly, TurnoverBnB, and Operto Teams.
Zeevou offers a fully remote automated booking processing system that allows you to collect guest details, take payments, sort out security deposits, and verify your guests from your home or office remotely.
Whether you use key safes, door locks with codes, KeyNest, or any other solution, you are assured that guests will not be sent any check-in instructions unless the booker has met all the conditions that you choose to set.
RemoteLock integration with Zeevou allows property managers to use various smart locks. Self-expiring PIN codes can be created to track the guests’ arrivals and departures. It also provides a convenient check-in and check-out experience for the guests.
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 integrates with online check-in services like Check-in Scan and smart lock solutions such as igloohome.
- Zeevou offers free direct booking websites which automatically transfer the information of your properties, unit types, and units from the PMS to the website.
- Zeevou’s website reflects all reservations made through your website in your central calendar.
- Zeevou generates a page for every country, city, and property similar to the system’s hierarchy.
- There are no booking-related charges for direct bookings.
- Zeevou’s booking engine pulls live rates and availability and supports multi-currency setups.
- You can collect payments through digital payment gateways and make safe payments with 3-D Secure Links.
- Zeevou’s website is mobile-friendly and compatible with all devices.
- The website is SEO-friendly and customisable, allowing you to create custom pages.
- It has a blog section to help you rank higher on search engines.
- The website has Open Tag Graphs for Facebook and Twitter content sharing;
- Zeevou integrates with the Google Search Console through the automatically generated sitemap, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, enabling you to track website performance.
- It integrates with WordPress through a plugin and other sites such as Wix using iFrame.
- You can create vouchers and promotions.
- You can set up add-ons to sell additional services as part of rate plans.
- Zeevou enables you to track and capture abandoned bookings at your direct booking website directly through Google Tag Manager.
- Zeevou allows you to add interactive features with custom scripts, such as live chat services.
- The website is GDPR-compliant.
- The Review section of the website allows you to collect your guest’s feedback.
- By connecting to your Airbnb account, your Airbnb reviews will show up automatically on your direct booking website.
- Zeevou’s integration with Google Vacation Rentals simplifies the sharing of up-to-date rates, availability, photos, and descriptions for your vacation rentals on Google.
Instant Website Builder
You can instantly convert your Airbnb listings into a free direct booking website with Zeevou. New users only need to copy and paste their Airbnb listing URL into the corresponding field on the website builder page, and the process of creating their website will begin automatically. Zeevou will read the Airbnb page and automatically populate the listing section of your website with relevant information. You only need to review the imported data – to make changes where necessary – and add specific details, including rates and min/max stay.
- 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.”
- 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.
Zeevou:
- allows hosts to set weekly and monthly rates;
- ensures that monthly invoices for extended stays do not vary from month to month;
- allows for the setting of multiple rate plans running in parallel so that a different rate can be adopted for a nightly stay to that of a monthly stay for the same listing.
You can define long-stay discounts with “dynamic minimum length” for your website. For example, after 20 nights, your guests get a discount.
- After completing the automated booking process, the guest will be informed that their booking has been confirmed.
- Airbnb Messaging Autoresponder automatically responds to your guests when you are not available, thus boosting your Airbnb ranking.
- The notifications of Airbnb are shown in Zeevou because Airbnb supports API messaging. You can reply to the notification within Zeevou, and your replies will be displayed on Airbnb to guests.
- The notifications of Booking.com are also shown in Zeevou thanks to Booking.com messaging API.
- You can automate the sharing of a house manual with information on the property or details of local businesses and attractions.
- Closer to arrival, you can automate the sending of check-in instructions, including the ability to attach a check-in guide for each property.
- Customisable trigger rules and variable-based templates help you improve the guest experience.
- The VIP Guest Flagging feature of Zeevou enables you to keep track of your VIP guests, offering personalised services to them and enhancing their loyalty. You can flag your existing and new guest profiles with Gold, Silver, or Bronze badges.
- Zeevou’s integration with Guest Guru, a conversational AI platform, provides personalised responses and automates guest interactions.
- Smoobu automates your communication with 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.
Zeevou has a built-in guest CRM.
- All the bookings related to a guest are displayed under their Guest Profile, whether the booking is pulled in from an OTA or your direct booking website.
- Payments and all the bookings are recorded in these guest profiles.
- Through the guest CRM, you can send notes, emails, and text messages to your guests, as well as log tasks that relate to them.
- You can keep track of whether or not a guest has already been verified in Zeevou.
- Guest profiles can be created in Zeevou even if they do not have a booking yet.
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.
Zeevou enables you to:
- Record maintenance issues.
- Keep track of who reported them and how urgent they are.
- Add a description and upload attachments.
- Track the issues as they progress through various stages of completion.
- Avoid expensive call-out fees by checking whether a staff member has verified the issue reported yet or not.
- Get housekeepers to report maintenance issues at the point of cleaning by submitting them through Zeevou’s Mobile App.
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Zeevou has released a mobile app for use by members of your team, which is the mobile version of Zeevou’s Web App. The Host App doesn’t currently include all Zeevou features since it takes longer to develop them thoroughly on mobile. This application is under test now.
With Zeevou Host App:
- You can see upcoming arrivals and pending check-outs based on a specific timeline in the booking section.
- In the booking list, each reservation is specified by the lead guest’s name, the channel, and the arrival/departure dates. It also shows the booking statuses with various colours and illustrates if the booking has cleaning or maintenance problems.
- You can easily make a block date or create a booking via Zeevou’s Host App when receiving a call from your guests anytime and anywhere.
- You can take care of cleaning issues promptly.
- You have all your messages unified in one inbox.
- You can use the booking actions such as extending and splitting the booking or changing the booking status.
- You can apply filters based on dates, property, booking status, payment status, and security deposit status.
- You can verify guests through the app.
The mobile app for housekeepers is a native mobile app available for Android and iOS. Zeevou mobile app enables you to:
- Automate the creation and assignment of check-out and mid-stay housekeeping tasks.
- Create tasks manually and customise the task duration and priority.
- Communicate essential points to your housekeepers within Zeevou.
- Get a report of any issues that housekeepers have noticed directly through the Zeevou Mobile App.
- Track the time and location at which housekeepers start and finish the cleans.
The Maintenance Mobile App, Investor Mobile App, and Guest Mobile App will be developed next. Further developments will cost you no money after being launched.
With Smoobu’s mobile app you can:
- Handle bookings from platforms like Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda, and others in one convenient system.
- Streamline guest communication by managing messages from all channels in one place.
- Set up automated, personalized messages to elevate the guest experience effortlessly.
- View detailed property information, manage availability, and respond to requests anytime, anywhere.
- Add your team to the Smoobu App for seamless coordination and shared access.
The app caters to users in various languages, including for a global experience.
- With Zeevou, you can manage a chain of properties or properties across different countries in one unified place.
- You can set other currencies by property.
- The system architecture allows for global expansion as the structural hierarchy is based on multiple levels: countries, cities, areas, properties, buildings, floors, unit types, and units.
- Similar units are grouped under a unit type, allowing you to quickly shift bookings to maximise occupancy.
- At the property level, you can assign office staff, check-in staff, and housekeepers (a person, a team, or a company) who have limited access to the system. There are dedicated fields for check-in instructions, check-out instructions, and details on finding the property. These can all be pulled into the automated emails that you set up within Zeevou, avoiding the need to create a separate check-in template for each property.
- Zeevou enables you to operate multiple brands from one place while specifying a marketing distinction.
- You can enter your meta title and meta description for SEO purposes, in addition to specifying Open Graph Tags to optimise how your links are displayed across social media platforms.
- The hierarchy of the system is automatically reflected on Zeevou’s direct booking website and booking engine.
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Zeevou automates a large number of your day-to-day administrative tasks centrally.
- Check-ins: The automated booking processing ensures that all the required steps have been completed before self check-in instructions are sent out.
- Housekeeping: Zeevou automatically generates check-out and mid-stay housekeeping tasks and assigns these to staff.
- Maintenance: Zeevou allows you to record and track the progress of your maintenance issues.
Zeevou allows you to provide real-time and different levels of access to all your staff.
All users added to Zeevou can access the calendar and their tasks through the responsive web app to cut down on internal communications.
Zeevou allows you to create a profile for each company that you are outsourcing, like a cleaning provider, associating a manager profile with it and offers them a limited view of the booking calendar.
Zapier Integration connects your system to more than 3000 apps, including Google Calendar, Slack, Quickbooks, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Trello, Mailchimp, Benchmark, etc., for your vacation rental management.
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.
Smoobu offers a “Permissions” feature that lets hosts create individual accounts for team members. With read-only accounts, team members can view specific information without the ability to make changes. You can customise access levels based on your team’s needs.
Zeevou’s Owner Portal offers real-time access to owners and investors. Hosts can specify the access level of the owners, landlords, and investors.
Staff with access to financial details will see:
- Arrival and departure times.
- The number of guests staying.
- The finances relating to the booking.
- Add-ons.
- The Monthly Profit Report: they can see details of all income and expenses related to their property (Blaze and Dazzle hosts).
- Commissions held by booking agents.
- Management fees charged by hosts (Blaze and Dazzle hosts).
Hosts with access to guest data, in addition to the above, will see:
- The names and contact details of the guests staying.
- Investors can also create bookings and block dates directly within Zeevou.
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Zeevou streamlines the whole booking process and takes care of everything before a guest is given access. Zeevou:
- Sends a 3-D Secure Payment Link to collect payments for bookings and add-ons, reducing the chances of fraud and chargebacks.
- Allows you to integrate with payment gateways (PayPal, Stripe, Elavon, Worldpay, and First Data) to set different levels of security requirements based on the transaction amount.
- Enables you to log payments taken outside of the system in cash, by bank transfer, or through a card reader.
- Allows you to take payments over the phone and via Google Pay and Apple Pay.
- Has the option of turning on weekly or monthly invoicing.
- Has the Partial Payment Link feature to generate a payment link to collect payment for part of a booking to split the cost of a booking between guests.
- Provides a Payment Terms feature to customise payment plans for extended stays and set specific installment conditions.
- Enables automatic handling of late payments through its Overdue Balance Automation.
- Delivers a seamless payment processing experience with Zeevou Pay, an exclusive vacation rental payment gateway.
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 Smoobu booking engine.
You can choose how you want to receive payment on your website (Bank transfer, Stripe, Patpay, Payment on Arrival, and iDEAL for Dutch users).
- The reports can be filtered and sorted based on various fields. Specific searches can be saved to be reused in the future.
- Data can be exported and downloaded as CSV or Excel files.
- Zeevou offers Profit Analysis for both hosts and investors in real-time. In this report, information about channel commissions, card payment fees, and profit of selling add-ons can be provided.
- A number of operational reports can also be accessed by users, their staff, and outsourced companies.
- Zeevou’s Performance Report gives interactive details of relevant KPIs for operational decision-making. Each KPI has its own chart with different views based on the chosen time frame.
- Zeevou offers a clear summary of your financial achievement in a monthly profit report.
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.
Zeevou also offers a free Dynamic Pricing feature that enables you to receive dynamic rates from PriceLabs within a minimum and maximum rate boundary. You can specify the rate plans you want to apply rates to for 30 days rolling.
Alternatively, Zeevou enables you to adapt the rate plans automatically by Rate Rules. This feature allows you to define your own rules to have a more customised rate-setting.
Smoobu’s dynamic pricing integration partners are Beyond and PriceLabs.
Zeevou provides setup, onboarding, and training support for free for all the Dazzle, Glow and Blaze hosts. You get a Partner Success Manager who will accompany you throughout onboarding and support you should you have any queries or concerns.
Zeevou will automatically import all your future Airbnb and Booking.com bookings, and you can import the rest using the Bulk Booking Import functionality.
Zeevou’s onboarding support is provided for as long as you need, as the ultimate goal is to make sure that you feel confident in using the system and get all the support you require.
For any specific queries, bug reports, or to request new features, the built-in support system allows you to Raise a Hand directly to the developers easily.
Zeevou’s monthly Host Forums also allow you to provide your feedback on the recently released features and contribute to Zeevou’s roadmap.
Zeevou’s AI-powered website elevates customer service with its chatbot, Zee, offering instant assistance, process guidance, and personalised recommendations.
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.
Zeevou has integration with Xero. The Xero integration automates posting of invoices, incomes, and expenses and simplifies reconciliation. Whenever a guest checks out, Xero automatically sends the invoice to you. Zeevou also allows you to differentiate between income within the system.
Zeevou supports standard invoicing, as well as proxy invoicing for managed units and TOMS invoicing for EU-based operators.
Investor Deals in Zeevou allow you to configure the system to calculate income and expenses to mirror the deal you have set up in real life in a highly customisable manner.
The invoices generated by Zeevou take into account the investor deal to work out the account they should be applied to and the tax schema to be used.
Zeevou also allows hosts to keep track of expenses – whether they are recurring or one-off or payment-related expenses, such as transaction costs or currency conversion fees. Expenses can also be allocated in full or in part to investors. The information around the splits in income and expenses between you and your investors is then taken into account in the Monthly Profit Report.
Zeevou also allows you to specify for each Investor Deal whether you want the funds to flow to your payment gateway or to that of the investor.
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Zeevou’s Unified Inbox feature allows you to import all your emails, from emails from the OTAs to normal correspondence. In addition, you can access all messages from channel communications to text messages in the same place.
It shows Airbnb and Booking.com messages from the enquiry level, while for other channels, it displays messages after booking confirmation.
In the conversation view of Zeevou Unified Inbox, communications are visible in a timeline with details.
You can see the details of the related booking in each communication. Also, each booking contains a log of all communications (whether emails or SMSes) that relate to them.
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.
Pricing
Zeevou offers four sets of prices depending on the features included in each plan. These four pricing plans are Spark, Glow, Blaze, and Dazzle. The Spark plan, which is free, connects you to the community of hosts seeking to optimise their hospitality businesses. This plan includes a free direct booking website together with other basic but still very useful tools.
The Glow plan’s main purpose is to increase your turnover by maximising bookings. The price per self-catering apartment/unit on the Glow Plan is 24 GBP per month. The Blaze plan will give the users a handful of Zeevou features which brings ultimate automation to its users. Blaze costs 38 GBP per unit per month and includes all the features of Spark and Glow plus:
- Small Group Business Support
- Rate Rules
- Check-Out Management
- Cleaning App
- Real-Time Reporting
- Maintenance Management
- All Integrations
- Task Management
- Unlimited Seats
- Custom CSS
- Dynamic Pricing (30 days rolling)
According to Zeevou’s pricing strategy, rooms cost less than apartments, and you can save up to 80% if you go with Annual Commitment. The more units you commit to Zeevou, the less you have to pay per each, and the price drops exponentially. All sign-ups come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Zeevou’s Modular Pricing system also allows users to purchase individual features separately, without upgrading to a higher plan.
Smoobu offers three packages. The Professional Flex, Professional Prepaid, and Team packages have three plans: monthly, yearly (10% discount), and two years (20% discount).
Zeevou vs Smoobu: 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.
Zeevou allows both small and large businesses to make the most of the features and functionalities developed for utmost automation and direct booking promotion. Apart from aiming to maximise the amount of automation in different fields like messaging, guest experience, self-check-in, and direct booking, Zeevou offers financial solutions and operational tools such as cleaning, maintenance, staff, and contractor management. In other words, by signing up to Zeevou, you can access an all-in-one piece of software that manages all aspects of your business, and there are no hidden or extra charges. Bookkeeping and accounting for your vacation rental business will never be a hassle. You can specify how income, expenses, and add-ons sold should be split between different parties.
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.
