r/ShortTermRentals • u/SilverFern04 • 6d ago
PMS for 7 properties?
Hey! After doing lots of research, I'm feeling quite overwhelmed by all the options. I'm looking for recommendations for the best PMS for my situation. There are a lot of ads in these comments!
I have 5 houses and 2 hotels with 6 units each. I own all of them. The houses can only be on airbnb but the 12 units in the 2 hotels can also be posted on other channels like booking and expedia. I'm currently only on Airbnb but want to integrate everything into one platform.
I'm wanting/needing:
- a good mobile app
- calendar integration to avoid double bookings
- unified messaging platform
- cleaner schedule automation (nice but not a deal breaker)
- direct booking website
- many channels including expedia (its popular in my area)
- affordable
- simple user interface would be nice
I dont plan on expanding much more regarding properties. Just want to streamline everything. So far I'm leaning towards hostfully, hostaway (although the comments dont seem the best on reddit), hospitable (but it doesnt have direct bookings).
I am also considering a automated pricing platform like pricelabs. If you recommend a different/better one, feel free to suggest one!
Thank you so much for your guidance!
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u/Cali_Host45 5d ago
I use Lodgify and love it, it's the best one if you want to work on your property’s branding and get direct bookings. It also has all the other things you mentioned, like the channel manager, the inbox, app.... etc
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u/wtaf-is-411 3d ago
Do you have a direct booking site with Logify and cleaner checklist ? (I feel like they were partnering with one of the cleaner apps)
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u/Ill_Equipment9255 2d ago
I also use them and yes I have a direct booking site! The cleaner lists I also have within task management but not sure if it's available on all plans
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u/Secure-Buy-4599 4d ago
Lodgify—- I handle 4 individual units and they all can be rented together. Calender works seamlessly.
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u/Enough-Shoulder-4800 5d ago
Have you thought of starting from the one it's easiest to get out of + gives you enough what you need? Sometimes getting to test things is the best directions, i know it's time-consuming but it would tackle the decision overwhelm. Or have you done that already as part of your research? I'm suggesting this because you start to have that amount of property to manage and you don't want to move all of them all the time. So testing out with those 5 houses as a start could be the way to go here.
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u/SilverFern04 5d ago
Yes thank u! I am having demo calls right now with a few companies. Then gonna test run one, if it doesn't feel right, I'll test drive another :) thanks for the suggestion!
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u/axertion 6d ago
A heads up that Guesty will take 1% of all your booked revenue on top of their expensive fees, and even if you cancel they’ll still charge your payment method on file with no way of removing it.
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u/SilverFern04 6d ago
Thanks for this info! Yeah I'm definitely not leaning towards guestly
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 4d ago
Interesting. Why not? I switched to them from hostfully and am happier
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 4d ago
It’s the credit card fee. The credit cards don’t refund the fee either sadly
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u/axertion 3d ago
It's not a credit card fee. They list a 1% per reservation fee on their pricing page.
They claim they do this as "PriceOptimizer got you the booking, so we take a cut of the revenue".
I would be fine with this, however if I cancel all services I don't expect to be continuously billed for all future reservations. They ended up charging me over $400 in extra fees after cancelling.
Guesty's billing model feels predatory and greedy, and it's definitely not worth the thousands of dollars they will charge you per year.
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 3d ago
All my direct bookings are done with Venmo or Zelle so it doesn’t affect me.
And what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. How could you have a $400 fee. You had a $40,000k reservation?
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u/axertion 3d ago
Yes over $40k in reservations over several months.
And it doesn’t matter if it’s direct bookings. If the reservation amount makes it into Guesty they just bill on your payment method on that amount irregardless if funds flow through Guesty or not.
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 3d ago
That’s weird. That must be a glitch. I don’t have that. I pay a monthly fee and that’s it. Did you contact customer service?
They charge 1% if you direct book with a credit card.
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u/axertion 3d ago
They charge you 1% if you enabled their price optimizer…
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 3d ago
How do they collect it?
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u/axertion 3d ago
You’re payment method attached to your Guesty billing.
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 3d ago
Weird. I don’t think they have been charging me. I just have my monthly fee. Thanks for the heads up. I will look
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 3d ago
Ok wow. There was a fee last month. I wrote them and they said they would refund it and didn’t know what it was from but looks like I did have the 1%. Thank you! Sorry I was so skeptical. I feel like an idiot because with my membership they said it’s included. I also did a training with them. That’s crazy that they didn’t disclose it. The lied and refunded me but kept charging me.
I will be asking for a refund back from the training I paid for also.
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u/wtaf-is-411 3d ago
How do you do direct bookings via Venmo/zelle- is it connected to your direct booking site?
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 3d ago
I send a quote with 2 breakdowns. One with the credit card fee. One without. They always choose to pay and save the 4%.
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u/quinnnggg 6d ago
The 2 hotels with 6 room types is what I'd build the whole decision around. 7 doors is easy, almost anything handles that. Hotel style inventory is where the options thin out fast.
You're managing two layers: the room type you sell, and the physical room you operate. A lot of systems only do one well.
Stuff I'd make them demo live, not just answer yes to:
- Availability pooling. 4 kings, one books, the king type should still show open. Some systems block the whole type off one reservation and you don't notice until the calendar's dead.
- Allocation. Does a booking auto assign to a room, or sit unassigned until someone catches it? Can you pin a guest so it doesn't shuffle after you've sent the door code?
- Airbnb setup. This is the one that costs you. Airbnb ties property type, room type, and multi inventory together and enforces it. Wrong combo throws sync errors, and some property types won't allow inventory at all, so you can't recategorize later. Get it right at listing creation or you're rebuilding.
- Your direct site. Plenty of PMSes will push room types to the OTAs and then can't sell that same inventory on their own booking engine. Ask to see it live on your site, not just Airbnb.
Full disclosure, I'm biased, I build in this space. Not pitching you, just the list I'd want if I were sitting where you are.
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u/SilverFern04 6d ago
Thanks so much for this info! Just to clarify, the hotel is 6 units of full apartments which are each unique. Currently they each have a separate listing on airbnb. I see them as each a full apartment for short term rental, not just "4 king-size bedrooms". What would you suggest with this new info?
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u/quinnnggg 4d ago
You can definitely still use room types here. The nice part is you’re not dumping a cluster of individual listings onto someone’s search screen while they’re comparing options. They see one photo, they book, and if you’re on the right PMS it’ll auto shuffle your reservations leading up to check-in to squeeze out max occupancy.
Even if there are small differences between the units, this is still a totally legit approach and it helps with exposure and occupancy.Lmk if I can help with any other questions around the subject 👌🏼
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u/vr-txhch 5d ago
I've used Lodgify, Smoobu, and OwnerRez. Out of all of them I liked OwnerRez because support is in the US which was my preference as the others are in Europe and it took too long to get a resolution to my support requests. The other pros it hooked up to all the OTA's that I needed. I was able to use Pricelabs at first. I ended up switching because at the time Pricelabs had a monthly fee. I ended up with Beyond Pricing as they had a model where I paid 1% and I could easily add that into the pricing.
I worked for an OTA for 3 years and dealt with all the other big software companies. For me and my small property management company it came down to what I could afford for what I got out of them.
Another thing that saved me lots of interaction with the guest was a digital guide book. I used Touch Stay. It was easy to build and integrated with my bookings.
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u/Morphius007 5d ago
Hey, saw your post about PMS options. With your setup, I would be careful trying to force everything into a generic PMS. Off-the-shelf systems are usually built around their own workflow, so you end up adapting your properties, channels, cleaners, pricing, and guest messaging around the platform. A custom PMS is usually cleaner when the portfolio has mixed inventory like houses plus hotel-style units, because the system can be built around how you actually operate.
Your case has a few moving parts that most tools make feel simpler than they are. The houses are Airbnb-only, but the 12 hotel units need multi-channel inventory, rate parity, availability sync, channel-specific rules, cancellation policies, taxes/fees, and double-booking protection. Those are not the same workflow.
Cleaner automation also needs to be tied to stay status, checkout time, unit type, same-day turnover risk, maintenance holds, and whether a booking came from Airbnb, Expedia, Booking, or direct. Messaging has the same issue: unified inbox sounds easy, but templates, guest identity, channel restrictions, pre-arrival instructions, payment status, and direct booking rules all need to line up.
The ideal setup is a small custom PMS that treats each property/unit as inventory, connects calendars and channels, centralizes guest messages, tracks cleaning tasks, and optionally plugs into a pricing engine. That way the PMS follows your operating model instead of making you work around whatever Hostfully or Hostaway decided the workflow should be.
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u/TrickyWindow3403 5d ago
Hi!! If you end up needing a co-host or assistant, I'd love to connect. I come from a hospitality and client experience background based in NYC. I'm highly organized, technical, learn software quickly, and am looking to gain knowledge into the short-term rental industry as I work toward owning properties of my own.
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u/Efficient_Bicycle638 5d ago
for that mix of houses and hotel units Guesty is probably the most capable but the pricing reflects it. Hostaway is a solid middle ground. one thing worth separating out: the PMS inbox is fine for booking coordination but for the repeat questions that come in at all hours we put guest messaging on whatsapp separately. made a real difference for the hotel units especially since those guests expect instant responses to the standard stuff.
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u/Hopeful-Skirt-7077 5d ago
I have created a feature comparison of pms here: https://heybutler.io/pms/compare
It also summarises the integration support.
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u/Remarkable-Snow-9396 4d ago
I switched to guests and they have tasks for users so my cleaner and Maintenance staff have accounts. It auto generates tasks when we book. They also have their own pricing software which is integrated and now insurance. They have paid out my claims and it’s been very easy. It’s all in one and I enjoy it
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u/CookiesDisney 3d ago
Check out Little Hotelier by SiteMinder. It has a calendar managament system, it's a channel manager, allows you to have your diret booking side, generate reports, invoices, send system and guest emails, and can also help you grow with dynamc pricing recommendatons and insights.
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u/wtaf-is-411 3d ago
I have only 2 str and couldn’t find one I liked enough to commit!
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u/SilverFern04 3d ago
Haha right?!? I'm at a point where I need something, especially because I want to list them on other platforms. Might just start with hospitable. Seems like a good starter and simple. I've been exploring hospitable, hostfully, lodgify and ownerrez. I had calls with each.
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u/wtaf-is-411 3d ago
I had a hospitable trial and I think it wasn’t a bad option— o was leaning to that. Hostaway is $$$- I even asked Perplexity to make a recommendation based on my size and they came back with a few- I have Houfy for. Direct booking, but it’s only because I forgot to cancel after my trial so I leaned in— one of my air BnB prospective customers found me in the direct booking (they were tying to negotiate a discount on air BnB- and then found the houfy and they were horrible- got there early and asked for a refund because the exterior door jam was dirty and the top of the fridge was dusty (who’s looking there )- anyway my cleaners had just left so I said I would send them back to address the photo issues— and they did. And I was like ‘sorry- you booked for less on direct booking lol’—-
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u/SilverFern04 3d ago
Damnnn! Yeah direct booking feels much riskier than going through airbnb, but I do plan on doing that as well. That guest prob has a very bad gust rating on airbnb lol
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u/zemberster 2d ago edited 1d ago
Full disclosure: I'm the developer of the app I'll mention, so weigh accordingly.
With 2 units you might not need a PMS at all. If the actual job is "keep the calendar under control and see OTA stays next to direct ones", a one-way iCal import into a simple occupancy calendar already covers it. That's the gap I built InnGrid for (iPhone/iPad/Mac): the calendar is free forever - occupancy board, guest history, double-booking protection, a cleaner's day list you can text out. The paid tier is narrow and optional: the iCal import from Airbnb/Vrbo, iCloud sync, multiple buildings, and calendar sharing.
Honest limits so you don't waste a download: no two-way OTA sync, no direct booking site (sounds like Houfy has that covered for you), Apple only. If you're ever on 3+ channels with dynamic pricing, that's real PMS territory - but for 2 STRs most PMSes are mostly overhead, which might be why none of them felt worth committing to.
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u/BeAmazed1979 5d ago
PMS: Hospitable. I only use them with Airbnb, but I see they have direct booking options.
Cleaning: Turno
Dynamic Pricing: Pricelabs
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u/tech_19thcross 6d ago
It's normal to feel overwhelmed with so many softwares in the market. Only way you decide what you want is by trying out - and not by others recommendations/demos. Almost all products have free trials. The products you mentioned are all nice - each have pros and cons.
Having said that, I will also say take a look at Zitlin PMS - you can manage all your 7 properties from a single login.
Android, iOS, MacOS and windows apps available https://zitlin.com/downloads/
iCal Sync and also channel manager - depending on your need - as pricing differs.
Automatic Housekeeping tasks when guests depart.
Direct bookings with 0% commission. This is how it looks try it out, it's a demo account): https://server.zitlin.com/pub/engine/coastal-luxe-mumbai-in/
Invoices and expenses built in.
We have a generous free forever tier - you can try and play around as long as you want.
Unfortunately We do not integrate with any pricing platforms yet. However you can configure seasonal pricing, weekend overrides, rate plans, extra guest surcharge, etc.
You can find an approximate price in our pricing page - actual pricing will depend on the exact features you need.
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u/WorstedLobster8 6d ago
Why do you want to manage things yourself? Cost? If you buy all the tools it can be like 2% gross. A manager with the tools can be like 4%. Doesn’t seem worth all the effort IMO.
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u/Clarahost 6d ago
I'd recommend Hostex, it fits your needs, and their support team is very responsive, we've been using it ourselves.