Wheelhouse vs PriceLabs
In this article, we offer a detailed comparison of two revenue management tools in the market, Wheelhouse and PriceLabs. The data has been collected from Wheelhouse’s and PriceLabs’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, Wheelhouse has a rating of 4.9, with the highest score for Customer Service.
Trustpilot introduces Wheelhouse as an Excellent tool with a 4.8 TrustScore.
In Capterra, PriceLabs has a rating of 5.0, with the highest score for Customer Service.
Trustpilot introduces PriceLabs as an Average tool with a 3.7 TrustScore.
Price Recommendation
Wheelhouse analyses your rental and its local market to provide data-driven recommendations for you. The price-setting of Wheelhouse starts with determining a base price to show how much your listing is worth depending on unique attributes and historical performance.
Then, the software adjusts this base price throughout the year by reacting to changing market conditions such as local events, seasonality, day of the week, and most importantly, real-time booking trends.
The Base Price Model
You do not need to come up with a Base Price. Instead, Wheelhouse sets it on your behalf. It looks at items like the number of bedrooms, the type of room, the listing location, cleaning fees, extra guests’ fees, etc. Wheelhouse also looks at prices that the listing achieves in the market on average. It considers their average nightly rate and utilises various factors to create a model. The aim is to predict the base price as accurately as possible. In this model, Wheelhouse also takes into account the history of the rate of a listing.
Different factors, including the location, are considered for determining the base price.
The Predictive Model
The predictive model looks at the other prices in the short-term rental market and motel prices. It monitors the fluctuations in the prices and utilises that pricing signal as a form of intelligent forecasting of actual demand. With this early indicator, hosts and vacation rental managers can set the prices pretty early. Wheelhouse filters the entire available data of the local surrounding listings of the market to predict the impact of local events and the seasonality. By mixing them, they come up with one predictive model.
As you get closer to an event, the supply amount might make a difference, or as we have witnessed from the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19-related restrictions might cancel events.
And that is where the reactive model becomes relevant to discuss.
The Reactive Model
As the real-time, transactional booking data becomes available in your market, Wheelhouse blends these insights into your pricing recommendations via the reactive model to best position your listings around what prices are booking in your market at any given time. For example, many events have been cancelled by getting closer to the date. Wheelhouse automatically monitors these changes in demand for every single listing every day.
Blending Demand Models
Wheelhouse blends the Predictive and Reactive models to create a pricing recommendation. The Reactive Model is weighed more heavily as a stay date approaches when the most booking data is available. Wheelhouse’s Insights tab shows exactly how the models are being weighed for each listing daily.
PriceLabs estimates a base price for listings according to their attributes and current performance. Reducing or increasing the base price will reduce or increase the price recommendations.
Its Dynamic Pricing solution can help to get price recommendations based on historical and current booking data, market supply and demand, seasonal and day-of-week trends, predictions of events and holidays, and days left to book.
This tool considers last-minute discounts, orphan day discounts, and far-out premiums in the price recommendation. A minimum and maximum price can also be set for the price recommendation.
If you need to override an automatic price recommendation by PriceLabs, you can use date-specific overrides and other customisation options.
Demand is estimated based on the occupancy of the nearby Airbnb listings. Whenever nearby listings start to increase in occupancy, PriceLabs raises the price in response since this indicates an event has triggered an increase in demand.
PriceLabs does not calculate the price by comparing it to a competitive set. This should be done by the user manually.
With PriceLabs, you can calculate the occupancy rate for both a single unit and multiple units. It also has a Portfolio Occupancy Adjustment tool which can be applied to a group of listings.
Market Intelligence
Wheelhouse launched Market Reports in December 2020. Market Reports include both historical and future-looking data. This helps operators understand information like the top properties in your market or data on a particular inventory type in your market.
In January 2021, Wheelhouse launched Benchmarking & Comparative Sets. Comp Set selects the individual listings that you want to understand how they are performing to learn from them. You can build up different Comp Sets per property: Aspirational Comp Set, High Season Comp Set, Low Season Comp Set, Mid Week Comp Set. You can add up to 50 listings per Comp Set.
Equipped with these tools, you can check RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Night) and Lead Time of your nearby listings, as well as their nightly rate and occupancy.
For the market reports, Wheelhouse monitors Airbnb and TripAdvisor but not Vrbo (January 2021). It also has direct integration with Track, iGMS, and Smoobu.
PriceLabs market intelligence can be found under its “Base Price Help.” Data can be categorised based on the property type: Studio, 1BR, 2BR and 3+ BR.
PriceLabs Portfolio Analytics and Market Dashboard provide you with real-time reporting by comparing your properties with others in the neighbourhood.
The tool can also show price and occupancy trends on specific dates. It provides the Future Prices graph, showing how property managers are pricing their listings for future dates.
Your synchronised PMS/Airbnb/Vrbo listings are automatically updated overnight by PriceLabs. Instead of the default overnight sync, you can schedule a price sync at a time of your choice as part of the Dynamic Pricing subscription. Alternatively, you may schedule more than one daily sync at the cost of $1/listing/month for each extra sync.
KPI Reports
Wheelhouse has several KPIs for your listings’ performance. In your local market, there are three different demand curves: Seasonal Demand, Lead Time, and Length of Stay.
Wheelhouse provides several reports and analysis tools specific to your listings, given that it is in a market that Wheelhouse covers.
On the Bookings page, you can see your booking pace and revenue, which can be segmented by room type, market or by given nicknames, to allow you to better understand your booking velocity for any given night, week, or month.
In addition to the overview of the Market Report, you can also see how you compare to various tiers of competitors in your area (high vs low performers) and different tabs at the top for further insights on Trends, Historical data, and so on.
Comp Sets shows similar listings in your area (based on Proximity, Attributes, and Booking Patterns) and provides you with data such as their occupancy, RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Night), nightly rates, and even visibility on their listing performance and calendar.
PriceLabs gives details on six KPIs for the past seven or 30 days in the area compared to the comparable period in the past.
- Estimated Revenue for the past period is displayed in the currency you have selected.
- The Average Occupancy percentage for the past 30 days is displayed compared to the 30 days prior.
- Active Listings shows the number of active listings for the past 30 days compared to the 30 days prior.
- A comparison of the number of stays for listings in the area for the past 30 days compared to the 30 days prior is shown under Bookings.
- Median Booking Window shows how far in advance reservations have been placed for the past 30 days compared to the 30 days prior.
- The median Length of Stay for bookings made within the past 30 days is shown compared to the 30 days prior.
PriceLabs provides various reports in the form of charts and graphs for Supply and Demand, Market History, Price and Occupancy Trends, Common and Desired Amenities, and Weekly and Monthly Discounts.
Automation and Customisation
The Wheelhouse Pricing Engine analyses 10 billion data points every night. The software’s settings allow you to customise your pricing engine, too. You can either set your base price or choose one of the recommended base price strategies by Wheelhouse. The suggested prices will then appear on your calendar every day for up to 18 months in advance.
If you have an extensive Portfolio, Wheelhouse also has portfolio-level tools.
Wheelhouse includes dynamic minimum stays, customisable last-minute discounts, weekend rate adjustments, seasonality adjustments, etc.
You can also select “conservative,” “recommended,” or “aggressive” approaches as your pricing preference. Conservative mode puts higher priority on your listings occupancy. Recommended mode offers a balanced approach between occupancy and earning potential. And Aggressive mode puts the emphasis on the average daily rate.
With PriceLabs, you can specify weekday and weekend minimum stays. Moreover, the tool automatically updates the minimum stay for far-out bookings and super far-out bookings. You can adjust prices for the day of the week or apply minimum, maximum, or percentage changes on specific dates.
PriceLabs can automatically manage minimum stay for orphan days and last-minute discounts. Furthermore, this Airbnb pricing tool offers a minimum weekend pricing feature, as well as overrides that can be applied to an account, group or listing.
PriceLabs’s Custom Seasonal Profile lets you override the software’s seasonality calculations and gives you more control and customisation.
Another useful feature that PriceLabs have is that you can map listings. This way, PriceLabs maintains rate parity between similar listings automatically. So, similar listings can be mapped, and the prices and customisations of the parent listing will be automatically copied to the child listings.
This tool also offers occupancy-based adjustment and portfolio occupancy-based adjustment. Thus, you can save a lot of time since the prices can be changed automatically based on the occupancy of the listing or of a portfolio.
Pricing
Wheelhouse has set two pricing plans: either 1% of your revenue (which does not include taxes or fees) or a Flat Rate per listing per month, depending on portfolio size. You can sign up for free and use the Wheelhouse Platform without entering your credit card details. You can also enjoy using the Market Report tool as it is free!
PriceLabs offers separate pricing plans for Dynamic Pricing (starts at $19.99/month) and Market Dashboards (starts at $9.99/month). The amount decreases when the number of listings increases, and the pricing might differ based on the properties’ locations.
There is also a free version of this tool for Portfolio Analytics.
Where Do Wheelhouse and PriceLabs Get Their Data from?
Wheelhouse has recently announced its partnership with KeyData. This company has access to data on different marketplaces like Airbnb and TripAdvisor and native Vrbo data. According to Wheelhouse, KeyData also has a unique data set containing information on homes that are not sold in any of the mentioned OTAs. Wheelhouse offers comprehensive data on events in different parts of the world. Wheelhouse covers 700 markets worldwide and has limited coverage in Asia, Africa & South America.
Pricelabs gets the market data from Airbnb and Vrbo.
Wheelhouse vs PriceLabs: Which Revenue Management Tool to Choose?
Wheelhouse is a user-friendly tool that is known for its customisable pricing models. Moreover, this platform breaks down its recommendations, so you know why you’re being recommended a certain price.
PriceLabs is more competent at customisation, listing management, and automation, which is very important, especially when you have to manage numerous listings.
Keep in mind that, despite how smart these tools are, they still need to be monitored and customised regularly.
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.
