Uplisting vs Kigo
This article examines Uplisting vs Kigo by concentrating on the main features that a hospitality management software should offer. The data has been collected from Uplisting’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, Uplisting has a ranking of 4.9, with the highest rating for Value for Money.
Trustpilot introduces Uplisting as an Excellent tool with a 4.7 TrustScore.
In Capterra, Kigo has a ranking of 3.7, with the highest rating for Features.
Trustpilot introduces Kigo as an Average tool with a 2.9 TrustScore.
Uplisting automatically collects the payment using Stripe 3D Secure Links. It automatically pre-authorises and releases the security deposit amount that you have set for your Booking.com and HomeAway guests.
Even if it is a channel collect, the guests will receive a link on the OTAs’ chatbox where they give you their payment information, and the amount will be pre-authorised and released based on the timeline you have set for each property.
Uplisting decides whether to hold or collect the security deposit amount based on the length of the guests’ stay.
In the end, the guests will go through the verification process. They are asked to upload a photo of their passports, driving licenses, or identity cards. They can easily use their phone cameras to take a photo if needed.
Guests can also allow you to use their contact information for further marketing, and the consent will be GDPR-compliant.
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.
Once you create your Uplisting account and connect to Airbnb, you can have all your listings imported to Uplisting, including prices, availability, bookings, and listing content.
You can set different OTAs rates that you are linked to and check the prices published on each in your calendar.
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.
Uplisting helps you automate your cleaning management.
- Uplisting gives access to your housekeepers with a limited level of access.
- For each of your bookings, a corresponding changeover band is created which shows the property name, property address existing guest name, check-out time and date, and the number of guests (if available).
- Your housekeepers will get updated about any changes in the information above, booking modifications, and cancellations via email.
- The housekeeper can decide whether to accept the changeover or not, and the host will get notified about it upon refreshing the platform or via email.
- Different housekeepers can be assigned to one or more properties of yours, which means they can only check the information about the chosen properties.
- You can leave notes for your cleaners about each booking.
- You can keep track of the time each housekeeper starts and ends their task.
- Your housekeepers have a cleaning schedule automatically created based on the bookings.
You can also have cleaning teams defined in the system.
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.
You can automatically send your check-in instructions to your guests, using automated messages based on the trigger rules you choose in Uplisting.
Regarding guest details and payment, the process is automated for direct bookings, and for channel bookings, the guests’ information will get updated.
Uplisting also generates a security deposit link for all your bookings. Still, as they believe some of the guests may not expect to pay a security deposit, you can easily copy-paste or email the link to the ones you wish to.
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- Uplisting direct booking website contains all of your listings’ information, including photos, availability, and prices.
- The website is hosted securely, so you do not need to hire developers or buy a domain name.
- Direct bookings automatically block your dates on Airbnb, Booking.com, and other platforms.
- Uplisting gives you the chance to have a domain name without having to pay for that.
- Uplisting direct booking website automatically represents all your properties as they are shown on Airbnb with a click of a button.
- The website is mobile responsive.
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).
Uplisting does not have the option for defining and pushing weekly and/or monthly rates.
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Automated Guest Messages are designed to keep your guest informed from booking to check-out. You can make a unique tone of voice for the message templates. You can enable automated messages as below:
- New Booking
Sent when a booking is confirmed (sent within 10 minutes of booking).
- One week before check-in (based on check-in time)
This message is sent out if the guest books less than 7 days before check-in, but not if they book on the day of check-in. - Reminder of upcoming stay
Sent 72 hours (3 days) before check-in (based on check-in time). - Check-in instructions
Sent 24 hours (1 day) before check-in (based on check-in time). - Day of check-in
Sent 1 hour before check-in (based on check-in time). - First morning of stay
Sent at 10 am on the day after check-in (first morning of guest stay). - Before check out
Sent 16 hours before check-out (based on check-out time). - After check out
Sent 24 hours (1 day) after check-out (based on check-out time).
Unified Inbox centralises guest communications.
Automated Review enables you to leave reviews for guests and increases the number of guests who will leave a review for you.
Enquiry auto-responder can respond instantly. You can also delay the response to up to 60 minutes to respond manually.
Saved replies can speed up guest messaging.
Uplisting manages your booking process as explained below:
- The guest reserves your property on Booking.com, Vrbo or on your website, and the booking is synced to Uplisting.
- [5 mins later] The guest receives a ‘New Booking’ message (if enabled).
- [At the same time] The guest’s credit card details are validated on Uplisting. If the credit card is invalid, the booking is marked as invalid on Booking.com.
- [24 hours before check-in] The security deposit is collected using the payment details provided.
- If the booking is less than six days in length, a pre-authorisation is taken on the card (no funds are transferred). If greater than six days, the security deposit amount is charged and will be transferred to your bank account via Stripe.
- The check-in instructions email will be automatically triggered based on your trigger rules.
- On successful check-out, a pre-authorisation is automatically lifted within seven days. If the booking was longer than six nights, you would need to issue a refund via Stripe manually.
- 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.
Uplisting provides you with a certain set of data about your guests. Using Uplisting, you can have records of
- guest lists
- guest name
- phone number and email address
- number of guests
- booking site confirmation code
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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.
Uplisting has a mobile app for IOS and Android. Using the mobile app, you
- get notifications for every new guest message from Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo (HomeAway), and direct bookings.
- have all guest messages in one place.
- can use pre-filled response templates to save time. You can easily select a template from your phone when responding to a guest.
- can pull the guest’s booking data into the message with personalised snippets.
You can help the guests in real-time by answering back to them, changing the arrival time, sending them your pre-set templates, or stopping the automated email messaging for that particular guest.
You can also call the guests.
If you do not have time to answer the guest, you can also change the reservation’s status, booking type, and booking site.
Uplisting’s direct booking website is mobile-friendly, meaning that people will not face any problems going through the booking process using their smartphones.
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.
Uplisting helps you manage different Airbnb and Booking.com accounts from one central system, meaning that the properties may also be in different locations.
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Uplisting Action Screen, which is like a to-do list, will show you the list of your check-ins and check-outs weekly.
- Uplisting Action Screen is very mobile-friendly and is also printable.
- You can use Actions to track guests.
- You can mark guests as checked-in or checked-out for guest management, which is visible on the main Action view. It is helpful in arranging cleaning and other tasks.
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.
Uplisting gives access to your invited owners.
Its owner portal gives owners access to action and calendar screens with certain limitations. For instance, the owners can see the bookings and unavailability; they can also create blocked dates. However, they cannot see guest contact details or messages.
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.
Uplisting collects all the payments using 3D Secure Links, thanks to its integration with Stripe. If you do not wish to use a Stripe account for all your properties, you can decide which ones you want to connect to your account, enabling guests to pay while booking from your website.
Uplisting verifies whether the guest’s credit card is valid or not. If it is not, Uplisting will automatically mark the card as invalid on Booking.com, and the same thing happens for your website direct bookings.
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.
Uplisting provides you with some reports which can be filtered by date range and/or listing.
You can use Uplisting reports for
- Client invoicing: you can quickly calculate client invoices by filtering the invoice list to an individual property on a monthly basis.
- Task scheduling and operations: it gives you a list of cleanings, maintenance tasks, and welcomes.
- Accounting reports: these include a price breakdown for all bookings, and you can work out your earnings and tax deductibles (cleaning, booking site commission).
- Performance analysis: you can find more about your average daily rate and nightly occupancy, the average length of stay, and nights sold.
You can also export all your reports in CSV.
Uplisting offers integration with Key Data, a trusted data & analytics provider of real-time vacation rental market data for the short-term rental industry.
KigoPay is in charge of reporting by integrating KigoPay with Kigo’s new channel management technology.
Uplisting offers integration with Wheelhouse, PriceLabs, Beyond, and Airbnb Smart Pricing for dynamic pricing.
Uplisting pushes your rates to all the channels you are linked to in real-time. You can set different markup percentages for any OTAs and see the final price published to each channel separately under your default rate, which is applied to your website and used by the admin.
You can also check promotions and last-minute discounts from your Uplisting account.
Kigo Revenue Management:
- studies your occupancy rates and sets the prices.
- updates the prices across your properties.
Training
- In-Person
- Live Online
- Webinars
- Documentation
Support
- 24/7 (Live Rep)
- Business Hours
- Online
- 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).
Uplisting does not have any dashboards for analytics like occupancy or rates yet.
However, as you may be managing other people’s properties, Uplisting provides you with a management fee report per booking.
The management fee is included in each booking price breakdown, reports, and the Zapier app’s webhooks.
As Uplisting offers integration with Zapier, you can have your account connected to Xero, ZohoBooks, etc. for your accounting.
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.
Uplisting’s unified inbox displays all your guest messages in a single feed. You can quickly view and reply to messages from your Airbnb and Booking.com accounts, even if you are using multiple accounts.
Uplisting’s unified inbox for other booking sites such as HomeAway/Vrbo via email is coming soon.
In Uplisting unified inbox, you can:
- close & star guest messages.
- filter guest messages.
- change message ordering.
- save replies as templates.
- reply to your multiple accounts’ messages using your mobile phone.
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Pricing
Uplisting pricing starts at 14.45 GBP ($20.00) per month, and there is 0% commission. Minimum subscription fee is 72.23 GBP/m ($100/m) for 5 listings. If you have 1-5 properties, you need to pay 72.23 GBP ($100) no matter if you have 1 or 5. Uplisting does not have a free version, but it offers a free trial.
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.
Uplisting vs Kigo: Which Property Management System to Choose?
Uplisting is a well-known Vacation Rental Management Software. The system sets automated messages and helps you get connected to multiple booking channels. Uplisting automatically pulls your listings from Airbnb and pushes your data to Booking.com, HomeAway, and Vrbo. Thus, it can be one of your choices if you manage your properties using these channels only.
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 that is made on any channels the moment you start using Kigo.
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.
