“Information is power” holds true in the vacation rental industry. An accurate and deep analysis of markets and competitors can provide a competitive advantage to hosts and property managers. This analysis can help make pricing decisions, find attractive new markets, target segments of the market, benchmark performance, and more. This review of AIRDNA will provide a review and insights into the suite of revenue management and analytic tools available within AIRDNA’s paid services.

The Key Sections of this Review are:

1. Pricing
2. Data Reliability
3. Research & Analytic Tools
4. Revenue Management
5. Investment Tools
6. Conclusion

AIRDNA | Pricing

You can’t have a review of AIRDNA, or anything for that matter, without answering the obvious question “what is the the price” so lets start there first. AIRDNA sells data and research on a city by city basis but provides discounts on multi-region bundles in their enterprise level. Lifty Life, as an example, has enterprise access to all cities within both British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.

Basic: $15 USD / month

Pro: $25 USD / month

Enterprise Account: Custom Pricing with Discounts

AIRDNA | Data Reliability

You may be wondering where is the data coming from and more importantly is it a reliable resource? These are great questions and speak to the real value of AIRDNA. Analytic companies such as AIRDNA have a never-ending hunger for data, since this is their core business, as such they implement a number of strategies to collect as much data as possible. The AIRDNA source of data comes from one of three places: scrappers, data sharing, and internal data.

1. Scrapping Airbnb & VRBO

You may think the data is coming straight from the sales channels of Airbnb and VRBO but you’d be incorrect. While Airbnb and VRBO have a strong relationship with AIRDNA they don’t share data. Instead AIRDNA uses scrappers to collect data of Airbnb and VRBO listings.

2. Data Sharing from Partners

Among the most reliable and valuable data to AIRDNA comes from channel managers and property management systems. These partners share (aka sell) reservation and financial data to AIRDNA.

3. Internal Data from Market Minder

The final piece of data comes from users of AIRDNA. Users have the opportunity to use AIRDNA as a revenue management system by adding icals and other data into their system. This data helps to enrich the AIRDNA data pool but as of now represents the smallest portion of data.

Can AIRDNA Data be Trusted?

The AIRDNA data and the subsequent analytic tools are the best in industry. Lifty Life uses AIRDNA to analysis markets, provide advice to prospective hosts, and make pricing decisions. While the data is not 100% accurate it is the best resource available. Property manager, hosts, and investors alike will benefit from valuable insights into the industry, their local market, and neighbouring competitors.

AIRDNA | Research & Analytic Tools

AIRDNA is full of valuable graphs analyzing a wide range of vacation rental metrics. The graphs and data within AIRDNA are extremely well laid out and user-friendly, providing excellent dashboards to analyze a market in a glace. The data is primarily historical but within the suite of tools AIRDNA provides some forecasting tools. Among the metrics that can be analyzed within AIRDNA are:

AIRDNA | Revenue Management

Among the tools of AIRDNA is “Smart Rates” the dynamic pricing system that allows hosts to automate pricing decisions. While the pricing choices that AIRDNA provides are insightful in selecting the ideal price it falters for one key reason, it is not integrated with channel managers. That being said it offers incredible insights and critical graphs such as pacing and allows you to develop your competitive set.
Because of the lack of integrations with channel managers, such as Hostaway, Lifty Life has chosen to compliment AIRDNA with Beyond Pricing to automate our dynamic pricing.

AIRDNA | Investment Tools

Using the data available within AIRDNA to find market opportunities is perhaps it’s most valuable use case. Lifty Life uses the research to conduct Airbnb market reports and provide investment advice to clients and ourselves. The most valuable tool for investing is Rentalizer. Rentalizer quickly creates a 12 month forecast of revenue, average nightly rates, and occupancy. In addition you can provide input expenses to get an estimate on your capitalization rate. Whenever I am looking to buy a property one of the first things I do is run it through AIRDNA.
Check out the below blogs that use AIRDNA data to analyze opportunities throughout BC and Alberta, Canada.

Conclusion

Truthfully I can’t live without AIRNDA. I was introduced to it in my revenue management career at Leavetown Vacations. After leaving Leavetown, I shortly lost access to AIRNDA but almost immediately I knew I needed it as part of my tech stack at Lifty Life. AIRDNA is a critical software used by Lifty Life. The insights support the strategic direction of our organization and are frankly addicting!

AIRNDA is best for professional managers, investors, and for research purposes. Hosts with only one or two properties will likely not need the data available within AIRDNA.

My review of AIRDNA is simply that it has the best data and reporting in the industry. Plus their blog is also among the best vacation rental resource (bonus it’s free)!

Checkout AIRDNA here and learn what makes it such a standout software in the vacation rental industry. While you are at it check my review of Hostaway.com.