Hostaway

Pros

The endless possibilities of setting in the website.

Cons

Quite a difficult setup procedure. Minimal website design for customer interface

Pros

The technology and functionality is brilliant but without the customer support, I would have struggled and [sensitive content hidden] has been amazing.

Cons

Living in a seasonal area, it’s necessary to snooze properties over the winter but you have to delete them or pay which is a problem as lose all the data

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

A website that provides basic management information in one place. It ties various short term rental applications into one dashboard such as posting on multiple sites, reservation calendar management, revenue tracking. For add on cost will provide variable pricing.

Cons

Each of the functions this app provides is available on other web sites. Hostaway simply ties them together in an easier format to use.

Property managers can do this as well. Not much of a benefit for the cost. The PM has to still register with any site they want to post their property with. Any customer contact is only through the PM. Hostaway does not assist with anything.

In order to set up the application the user has to have a Arbnb account that is active. The user then duplicates that account to other sites through hostaway. User updates the accounts manually.

The individual apps for multiple posting, reservation management, revenue tracking, insurance etc are easy to find and set up.

No weekend support. A ticket is created to be addressed the following week.

There is no benefit to using this application

Pros

Our onboarding specialist, [sensitive content hidden] was Awesome!

Cons

The Formulas never seem to line up how I would like, but not a huge deal

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

I really like how easy and intuitive the platform is to use, despite its complexity. Melania helped me with all my questions and she was also quickly available for questions in addition to the onboarding video calls.
Hostaway is the right platform for people who want to rent out several holiday flats and just want to do it a little more professionally. After creating the advert, you can let everything run more or less fully automatically - but it doesn't have to. The programme and the team behind it are great and I would recommend it to anyone. So far, I haven't found a single point that I don't find good.

Cons

There is no German support yet - but this is not really a con, because the English of all employees is more than understandable. A big compliment to Melania from the onboarding team and Léah from the sales team. Both made the introduction to the programme much easier for us.

Pros

Flexibility of software is great, fairly straight-forward once a user understands the workflow

Cons

Can be complicated to understand. It has taken several service calls to straighten out financial reporting

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

very professional and if i ever need anything they answer right away

Cons

the only thing that they have no control over is the transfer of info to different platforms, some info goes and some you have to do manually. but that is controlled by the other platforms.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

Helpful when there is an issue and quite proactive.
Easy to use

Cons

Needs further development for some user sections. Quite frustrating I cant give my Property Manager task bars on the calendar to assign cleans to the cleaners without giving her full Admin access.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

The pros for me are the support team and response times to questions and issues and the simplicity of the tool and how easy it is to find things. I have used other software that was so complex that I would get lost easily but that isn't the case with Hostaway.

Cons

The only negative I can think of at the moment is that the dynamic pricing tool doesn't have as many features as third party solutions at this time. But it is new to Hostaway so I'm hopeful it will be improving soon.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

I have been thoroughly impressed with the ease and functionality of Hostaway. The platform is intuitive, well-designed, and incredibly user-friendly. What has truly stood out to me, however, is the exceptional onboarding experience with [sensitive content hidden]. [sensitive content hidden] has been patient, kind, and incredibly knowledgeable, making the transition seamless and enjoyable. I am deeply grateful for [sensitive content hidden] support and for the outstanding service provided by Hostaway. Thank you!

Cons

so far there is nothing that I would change!

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

It has all the features I need, and more.

Cons

Takes awhile to get set up. I signed up and had to wait a week to start the onboarding process (trust me, it's needed).

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

The ease of use of the software and its integration capabilities along with automated messaging.

Cons

I'm a small-time Property Manager and Hostaway has so many features it's hard for me to keep up with all I need to be trained to do.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

Amount of Features
Owner Statements
Guest Portal
Booking Engine

Cons

Data Synchronisation
Payment Processing
Customer Support
Task Management
Analytics
Financial Reporting

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

Continuous improvements. Quick and thorough support when needed. Confident that it will continue to offer features I may need.

Cons

A little pricey with exchange rates in Australia, however worth it.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

It has a lot of features, it is easy to navigate through different channels, easy to monitor your financials, your reservation creations and more. I find holidayfuture.com extremely useful as well. Also, inbox is really useful especially when using templates.

Cons

It can easily get disorienting with all these different features, while also custumer supports is not a 24/7 option which would be really needed.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

The integration with VRBO and AirBnB is seamless, the automated messaging is very flexible and customizable, easy to integrate with payment systems. The new integrated smart lock feature works very well and once setup, the time needed for me to be on hostaway to maintain is minimal. Also integration with pricelabs is seamless.

Cons

SMS messaging feature limits to 140 characters; the guest contact section does not have notes feature to capture notes about the guest;

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

I most liked the person that was given the task of the onboarding sessions with me, [sensitive content hidden]. He was SO knowledgeable about every single thing and had an answer for every single question i had

Cons

I would have like to do more than one session a week. After so many sessions they only allow for you to do one onboard session per week.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

Has many functional features that help with operations.

Cons

Hostaway is more focused on adding additional services to sell versus improving the product they already have.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

I had been with a major competitor for five years. We had constant issues with our marketing being messed up and the cost was four times what Hostaway is charging us. Hostaway price was surprising low, the customer service and support was better than I expected, and so far I have had no major marketing issues using it.

Cons

I was able to figure out the system because I had been on a similar one for five years and had the help of great customer service and an amazing onboarding specialist. It took me many, many hours to set everything up correctly and I had several bumps along the road to figure out. The truth is there are a lot of options and settings with a platform such as this and it take many hours to set up if you have a lot of properties. The truth it is a bit more clunky to navigate and find everything. However, in the end there has been nothing that Hostaway can't do that competition does and we are paying literally a quarter of the price! I would highly recomend Hostaway at this point. I have been very impressed!

Pros

Hostaway is extremely robust and offers more of the features I was looking for than any of its competitors. The design is clean and the user experience is fantastic on both desktop and in the app. Whenever I have a question, I am connected quickly with a team member and continue to be impressed with how knowledgeable and professional the support team is. With the help of Hostaway, my business is growing and scaling in a way that wasn't possible with our old channel manager. I am grateful to have made the switch every single day!

Cons

That I didn't switch sooner! No product or company is perfect, but Hostaway is always willing to listen when I have a feature request and offer support when an issue is encountered.

Pros

Hostaway has an excellent channel manager and support. I was having issues with the financials and I got excellent support from [sensitive content hidden] who is just amazing in solving all my problems in this module. I can't thank her enough!

Cons

The website needs to be more robust. It's pretty basic so we would like to see some improvements. For example, we can create drop down menus, no option for blogging, and we can't re-arrange the homes without deleting the entire set of homes

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

Technical support is very knowledgable and helpful

Cons

The primary drawback of technical support is the wait time between the initial call and securing an available time for assistance. Some issues, particularly those related to finances, require a quicker resolution to avoid unnecessary delays.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

There are many features that we have truly come to rely on, making property management across multiple cities and teams much easier. The financial reporting functionality for tenants and the integration with cleaning services are especially useful. [sensitive content hidden] has done an amazing job in answering all of our questions clearly and thoroughly, making sure we felt well-supported every step of the way. He’s been an outstanding first impression of the software, and Hostaway is lucky to have him on the team. We really appreciate his professional guidance and the opportunity for continued follow-up.

Cons

I find some parts of the user interface to look a bit outdated, as if the software is a few years old. This is purely an appearance-based critique, but I think the interface could use a visual update.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

Very helpful first contact (Dominic Battaglia) and superb on-boarding specialist (Ces Capon). Generally easy to learn website and software, especially compared to the other websites I looked at and had to deal with. Their system is quite polished so that newbies in vacation rental ownership and management can get going relatively quickly,

Cons

The downside of Hostaway's worldwide reach is that some of the offices you deal with are a few or several time zones out of synch.

Pros

[sensitive content hidden] was over the top helpful in helping me navigate hostaway. He listened and understood my concerns and issues I was having and helped set up ways to make sure I set up and take advantage of all that hostaway has to offer to protect myself and my company.

Cons

What my initial concerns were have been completely taken care of and I know if something arises again I can just call and ask for help!

Pros

After having nightmares with Guesty and the very expensive Eviivo (Lodigfy doesn't even deserve my attention--sorry:(

Cons

So far nothing---I like it a lot.
Easy to work with, friendly, and PHONE SUPPORT that actually helpful.
Guesty's phone support (if you're to get it), is useless. Their agents are not trained well. They will simply create a ticket which you could have done from the email---It was very annoying.

Pros

I had multiple sessions with an onboarding specialist, [sensitive content hidden]. These sessions included setting up all of our listings across relevant channels and exploring all the features Hostaway offers. This included calendar sync, reservation management, smart locks, inbox integration with all channels, automated tasks like cleaning, Stripe setup for receiving payments, and creating our own website (which was very straightforward).

Without the onboarding and walkthroughs with [sensitive content hidden], setting everything up would have been a daunting task.

So far, everything syncs up well and on time!

Cons

The integration with Booking.com could be smoother, but this appears to be an issue on Booking.com's side, not with Hostaway.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

The sharing of screen and learning some new things on how best to run my business

Cons

There was nothing that I didn’t like on this occasion. [sensitive content hidden] was very helpful and easy to understand.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

We already ran a successful AirBnB biz, and once we hit five listings, it became clear we needed to not only add multiple booking channels, but also to solve some basic operations issues. We looked into several options, with our biggest concern being that we would screw up our existing biz with a deficient or cumbersome product that would create headaches instead of solving problems. Hostaway offered what we needed to take the leap: an expert teacher/onboarder (in my case [sensitive content hidden]) to hold my hand through the entire setup and learning process, the features we felt would solve our existing problems and expand our business, plus a solid price to try it out. SOLD! And we 100% made the right choice. If you try this service, I hope you, too, get an onboarder like [sensitive content hidden]. He was ESSENTIAL to my satisfaction with this whole process. Our initial onboarder left the company after the first session, and that now feels like a gift! [sensitive content hidden] swooped in and was patient, a great listener, super-knowledgable, great sense of humor, followed through on every question, brought in outside help when we got stuck, and always had the best demeanor. I feel like I made a friend, and I also got exactly what I needed to feel good about making a big change to our existing operation.

Cons

In my perfect world, Hostaway would include a feature that would allow the housekeeping fee to go directly to our housekeeper, which would eliminate another rountine task for me. That is not currently possible. A couple of the available channels were much more time intensive and clunky to implement, but I think that is more about those specific channels than Hostaway -- looking at you, Booking.com.

Pros

The software works well so far. Although I am pretty techy, it does require some patience and playing around to understand. The kick-off course gives good insight but it's still some work. The best thing about Hostaway is [sensitive content hidden]. I have been about to throw in the towel a couple of times and he's a game changer.

Cons

A bit complex for the basic user. For example, I was struggling to add a new formula to an owner's report and it wasn't showing up. It was a simple "refresh" that had to be clicked. The "refresh" is hidden in the "more" button. I don't see a reason why a refresh would be required - the system should automatically refresh itself once you add a new formula. This is just an example of how I think Hostaway is very good but could be better.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

What I have truly enjoyed about Hostaway is its ease of use! And a lot of the different features and options that it has to make additional monies.

We had a competitor prior to Hostaway, and the channels really didn’t speak well to the Integration service that we had. And it came to a point where I had to handle everything manually, and I had bookings overlap, which made our guest very unhappy when I had to cancel. Keep everything neat and tidy.

Working with my sales consultant has been wonderful as well! Answering every question I’ve ever had. And working with the on boarding. Team has been wonderful as well. I absolutely love this product.

Cons

One thing I think that Hostaway could work on is the website feature that it offers. If you’re going to offer a website, it should not be as rudimentary and basic as it is. There are limited amount of pictures that you can add, and the fonts are very boring and the color schemes are also very basic. It’s OK for what it is but it does not suffice if you really want to promote your product. my suggestion would be that if it is too expensive to have a nicer website for Hostaway, then maybe offer a tiered program. And let the customer choose what they want to pay.
I have not been 100% happy with Customer Service. A lot of times my questions had to be asked to higher-ups as well as the lack of response to them. The issues I’ve had have worked themselves out by themselves. But I would like help as soon as I make that phone call , and, of course, having English as a first language speakers would help also. The good thing is I haven’t really had to call Customer Service as the system is pretty simple to use.

Pros

The things I love about Hostaway:
- Easy to use
- Enables us to connect to more platforms than we could before
- Enables us to have a professional booking engine on our website
- All messages, from any platform, can be answered in Hostaway
- Excellent reporting, including the ability to customise our reports ourselves
- Easy to see what channels we're connected to, and to manage the connections
- Intuitive to use
- So many features that are not available on other sites
- Onboarding was very comprehensive and extremely well done. [sensitive content hidden] was an excellent tutor and made it so easy.

Cons

It's not a criticism, but there's so many features it's hard to remember them all!

Pros

Supports a few diffrent softwares API's, but most of the other channel managers now do too..

Cons

The company policies are terrible, and there is a significant amount of bugs. The support team often blames the user, but in my case, it was always the system's fault. I had to spend an enormous amount of time providing step-by-step instructions on how things happened, and even then, I was assumed to be at fault. They overcharged for the service by almost 2x. Luckily, I noticed it after a couple of months. However, the worst part was that I almost had to beg them and prove multiple times there was an overcharge just for them to realize they had charged double the service price multiple times. The same happened multiple times with their finance service. I undercharged my customers multiple times, losing a ton of money. The worst part was that the same issue occurred twice, and both times they did not even bother to look into their system. I had to spend about 5 hours on emails and video calls just for them to fix it. They also do not follow through on what they promise. After the first finance issue, I asked their support to agree to compensation if it was not my mistake; they would compensate for the error. In response, after the issue was finally addressed and proven to indeed be a system error, they sent a nonsensical ChatGPT answer back. I am extremely disappointed and very unhappy with the service. It was my most stressful 8 months out of all other services I have used in my 5 years of hosting using different channel managers.

Pros

I like the clean visuals Hostaway has to begin with, I have found the onboarding process to be super supportive. I'm so happy with everything that I know I made the right decision for my new business. Hostaway allows for so much automation, making managing properties much easier and less time-consuming.

Cons

I've only been using Hostaway for under 6 months, however, there is nothing that I do not like.

Pros

[sensitive content hidden]!!! I LOVE [sensitive content hidden] O!! He has been the most amazing guide! Incredibly helpful, funny, nice, intuitive, and friendly mentor in this setup process I could’ve ever asked for!! I didn’t even dream that a person like this existed in my industry.

I dreamed of having STRs & unfortunately, I have been struggling to streamline the backend processes of this business with Guesty for Hosts. I have felt solo the entire time learning on my own by desperately surfing the Internet and researching resolutions. Guesty offered me ZERO assistance setting up, and long waits to speak with uneducated employees who could not easily answer my questions. [sensitive content hidden] took away ALL of those issues! He eradicated all of those concerns and easily handled any questions that arose, I just am soooooo thankful to have found this company, the intuitiveness of the software, and the people that you have hired are simply amazing. [sensitive content hidden] was amazing, everyone I’ve encountered has been amazing, punctual, friendly, & professional. If I could give 20 stars, I would! I feel as though I have partners now, and I am no longer alone, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

Cons

Haven't found anything yet. Maybe HTML abilities in the message templates & automation? Would be nice to have a preview of them before sending them out? But I am sure you all are working on this already!

Pros

I have very few issues! Usually if I have an issue, it is fixed quickly!

Cons

When I have an issue it can be very difficult to find someone who knows how to fix it! [sensitive content hidden] has saved me with several issues recently and in the past. He is exceptional as far as customer service and knowledge go!

Pros

It has make my job lot easier and organized

Cons

Pricing, Booking engine it’s not easy for someone not used on coding or those skills… should have a price and some specialist to assist on designing the booking engines, and that there are still some things that may need to add in order to be perfect hehe

Pros

Top level functionality, great customer service, intuitive controls/menus/interface.

Cons

It's slightly expensive, but far cheaper than the past channel manager I've used; it also includes most/all of the add-on features from the 'other' channel manager but they are included in the service rather than additional services.

Pros

We did an exhaustive search of similar companies to manage our 22 nightly rental cabins in Alaska. Switched from Checkfront and Resnexus. Spent three months getting set up, countless hours learning and adapting, all while paying $600/month for the software. Finally got it all working right and thought we were set. BUT SEE CONS!

Cons

Without warning, Hostaway starting charging our guests a 2% "guest service fee," nearly tripling the cost of their service. It went from $600/month to $600/month + 2% of $600,000 gross. Assuming this was a mistake we called tech support, and got a million excuses. "Costs have gone up," "Other software systems also charge a fee," "the customer pays it," etc. We asked if we had agreed to it, and they claimed the license agreement says "prices may change without notice." I guess it does, but tripling the price without notice seems beyond excessive. We're now looking to start the whole process over again.

Pros

It is a complex system, but once you finish onboarding, it's a simple process. Gabriel was our onboarding specialist and he did an outstanding job.

Cons

Nothing so far, it's been a great experience.

Pros

Constantly trying to improve the platform with new things and fixing old issues

Cons

1) Not able to set different cancellation policies with VRBO. VRBO allows you to have a cancellation policy for short term stays and a different one for long term stays. HostWay doesn’t have a connection currently to link correctly with them to do that.

2) Wish users would be able to create different minimum day stays and maximum day stays on different OTAs.
3) If you all had a CRM that would be awesome too

4) If a manual payment like a check is entered. Have it a way to delete it without clicking “refund”. Gives me anxiety thinking they’ll be refunded on a CC charge

Pros

The best thing they do is assist with the onboarding. All the other software tools don’t do much to help you get it setup. They stayed with me until I was fully setup. The support team is the bomb!

Cons

Probably just how not all channels integrate the same way but not sure anything can be done about that.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Hostaway

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

I like the idea. If only all the features worked, and they had better more knowledgeable, customer support. Customer support agents are reading from manuals for the most part, and not nearly as educated on the very difficult and expensive software as the on boarding staff are.

Cons

Hidden costs. Only once subscribed did I realize that by handing over management of VRBO properties to my Hostaway software, when I know I’ll be giving a piece of my revenue from those reservations to Hostaway. I pay $50 a month per property for the Hostaway software and I’m very unhappy that I find out that they’re now taking one percent of the revenue from Verbo properties that hostaway has absolutely nothing to do with.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

The control over rates and being able to manage across multiple platforms, we especially like the easy use direct website.

Cons

the speed of messages. airbnb message come through a lot quicker but booking.com i find easier to use on their website than Hostaway. We would like some features automated, like financial reporting and even a way to link to something like Pocksmith or Xero would be amazing.

Pros

The platform is user-friendly, integrates seamlessly with various channels, and offers excellent automation features, which save a lot of time. What stands out is the customer support. Billy, in particular, with his professionalism and deep knowledge made a significant difference in my experience.

Cons

Some features feel a bit outdated, and the mobile app could be more intuitive. Additionally, there were minor glitches during peak usage periods, but the whole team was quick to provide solutions.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Hostaway

Pros

I appreciated having six training sessions led by the same expert Hostaway representative. I quickly became comfortable asking questions, and the rep adapted to my learning pace. Every question I asked was answered and I was guided through new skills with hands-on experience.

Cons

I find Hostaway challenging to learn. It is more sophisticated than I probably need with only two properties. If I were starting over, I might choose management software with fewer functions and, therefore, a less overwhelming interface.

Pros

Hostaway is very efficient and has a lot of valuable tools, they are constantly fixing and updating and adding better features over the years which is great.

Cons

Sometimes they have their glitches and can take a little while waiting to get assigned someone to help fix the problem if it's a bug, but once we you get the right agent, like
[sensitive content hidden], the problem is usually fixed quickly and that same day.

Pros

What I appreciated the most was the help from the entire team and the automation of managing tasks. This gives me the confidence to attend to other matters, knowing that Hostaway is taking care of the rest.

Cons

The integration with Verbo. But it's not your fault!

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Hostaway offers more features and better functionality compared to other PMS programs we have used or looked at. Hostaway's onboarding program is far better than the competition. Features that were critical for us: mobile app, ease of use, reporting, listing management.

Cons

We haven't found anything that will create issues for us yet.

Pros

Versatile.
Like the calendar layout.
Very detailed.
Lots of fields.
Nice Google booking engine - easy.
Prices and fees are great.

Best in class customer service - awesome!!

Cons

GENERAL:
Missing Hide button (you have to block your calendar before going live).
Go live button.
Mass email function?
Does it feed inbox to Breezeway and vice-versa?
Automated Messages: SMS Message cannot be longer than 140 characters.
Missing guest book that has a UI and is an app.
No workflow notices to PMS manager if owner makes a rate change in their own calendar – no approval process.
Missing an automated message for modified reservations.
No way to import previous reviews with past dates.
Owner statements are not automated to owner emails.
Cant upload videos.

CALENDAR
Preset holidays names on the correct dates, or allow owner to enter rolling date events such as their birthdays, etc.
Variable date increases button (All Listings) so I can increase all clients rates on certain dates.
Owner increases the rates, but we approve.

TASKS:
No pictures, videos allowed.
No payment method for completed tasks.
No requiring photos when done.