Best of 2022 | Airbnb Vacation Rental Software
The professionalization of the vacation rental industry is making it ever-increasingly important for Airbnb hosts and property managers to adopt software solutions that help them manage, scale, and automate their businesses. Airbnb hosts or managers not making use of the best vacation rental software are at a major competitive disadvantage. If you’re a vacation rental manager looking to develop your tech stack, look no further. Lifty Life has complied a list of the best property management, channel management, revenue management, and market research software. These systems are the best in industry solutions for short term rental management companies looking to scale and automate.
Best Vacation Rental Software
- Property Management & Channel Management Software
- Revenue Management & Market Research Software
Top Vacation Rental Software
Property Management & Channel Management
The backbone of a short term property management business is your property management system (PMS) in conjunction with your channel management software (CMS). These two systems work in tandem to distribute your listings to major online travel agencies (OTAs), communicate with guests, manage cleaners, and gain a holistic dashboard view of your vacation rental business.
What is the Best Airbnb Property Management & Channel Management Software?
What is Vacation Rental Property Management Software (PMS)?
A vacation rental property management system is the tools that allow property managers to manage guest experience, schedule cleaning tasks, adjust rates, and more. It’s a central platform used by multi-listing hosts to operate and manage their entire vacation rental business.
What is Vacation Rental Channel Management Software (CMS)?
Unlike in the hotel industry, vacation rental software has become both a PMS and CMS by developing both management tools and API connections to major OTAs. Channel managers focusing on the vacation rental industry typically connect to Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking at minimum. Channel managers enable 2-way integration to major OTAs (ideally).
Hostaway Property & Channel Management Software
Hostaway is among the most robust and complete systems in the vacation rental software industry. Hostaway has preferred, premier, and partner status with Airbnb, VRBO, Booking, Expedia, and TripAdvisor. Along with stellar support, superior features Hostaway is the top choice of Lifty Life. Hostaway is ideal for large scale or scaling STR property managers. The list of ever-expanding integrations, plus their Zapier connection, open API, and custom fields makes it one of the most flexible and customizable property management systems.
IGMS Property & Channel Management Software
IGMS is a fantastic, low-cost, property management solution for small scale managers and hosts. The user experience and interface (UI) within IGMS is slick and easy to navigate. Onboarding and set up is simple and can be completed without any technical skills or onboarding team. Lifty Life made use of IGMS in our transition from managing our own rentals to property managing for others. Among the challenges of IGMS is it’s limited integrations and lack of a book direct website builder. IGMS is a truly great system, team, and company that really supports and understands its users.
Lodgify Property & Channel Management Software
Similar to IGMS the Lodgify property management system is a great solution for small to medium size Airbnb managers or hosts. Lodgify has a great book direct website builder with fantastic templates and customizations that create amazing looking quick websites. In addition it can be a plugin on major website builders such as WordPress, SquareSpace, and Wix. Lodgifys customer support and account management is lacking compared to some competitors which can cause issues. Regardless Lodgify is a strong light-weight PMS and CMS.
Top Vacation Rental Software
Revenue Management & Market Research
Once you’ve made a choice on your property management software you’ll need to consider your revenue management and market research tools. Revenue management and market research separates the hobbyists and those developing robust high-preforming vacation rental businesses. These tools allow you to get the optimal nightly rates, improve occupancy, and the overall performance of your business. Consider systems with official API integrations to your property management system.
What is the Best Airbnb Revenue Management & Market Research Software?
What is Vacation Rental Revenue Management Software?
Revenue management is the choices you make regarding the pricing, minimum nights, discounts, and fees. Vacation rental revenue management has become increasingly sophisticated by having unique, constantly changing rates aka dynamic pricing. Revenue management systems use market data, rules based calculations, and AI to dictate rates.
What is Vacation Rental Market Research Software?
Information is power; this holds true in the short term rental industry. Market research software allows users to gain market insights, benchmark against competitors, find new opportunities, and make informed business decisions. These software tools make data accessible through dashboards and prioritizing data visualization.
Beyond Revenue Management & Market Research
Beyond Pricing (now just Beyond) provides some of the best in class revenue management services in the industry. Rates are adjusted daily based on market dynamics, and competitive research all done completely automatically. The system is incredibly user friendly and intuitive. Most importantly Beyond Pricing creates results! Expect your revenue to increase well past the 1% cost of the service making it well worth the cost. Beyond covers the largest number of markets among its competitors which is perfect for Lifty Life since we manage in many small remote BC and Alberta communities.
Airdna Revenue Management & Market Research
Airdna has the best market data in the industry and the best data visualization. Among the unmatched tools that Airdna offers paid users is the Rentalizer Airbnb Financial Calculator. Airdna is the preferred tool of Lifty Life for market research and homeowner reports. Airdna’s weakness in its revenue management software which is less built out than competitors and lacks PMS integrations. However what it lacks in revenue management capabilities it makes up for it in solid market data, dashboards, and reporting tools. Lifty Life uses Airdna in conjunction with an integrated revenue manager.
PriceLabs Revenue Management & Market Research
PriceLabs is unique in the vacation rental revenue management while most systems price with a commission structure PriceLabs instead offers a fixed subscription model. This is a great option for managers or hosts concerned with margin shrinkage. Rather than holding another variable expense you can convert that cost to a fixed monthly expense. PriceLabs has a robust revenue management platform that adjusts rates at a frequency higher than most competitors. PriceLabs also has some great and new portfolio and market analytics tools. that are great for making decisions on your base and minimum rates.
Have a Top Vacation Rental Software Solution?
Are you a software solution that services the vacation rental, short term rental, Airbnb industry? If your service offers vacation rental managers superior quality, service, and results reach out to us. In addition to developing our own property management business we are also dedicated to supporting other hosts and managers within the industry by recommending great tools and strategies.
