Hostaway Review: Best Vacation Rental Channel Manager – Features, Guide, Comparison, Pricing, Test & Alternatives
Are you a property management company, real estate agency, or multi-property owner with ambitions to manage 30, 50, or even 100+ properties with an all-in-one solution? Hostaway is the most comprehensive tool on the channel manager market.
Presentation and Use of HOSTAWAY
Hostaway is an all-in-one solution for vacation rental managers. It will support you in marketing your properties, automation of your tasks, and even the accounting of your business.
It’s the same type of software as Lodgify – you’ll find the same features useful for vacation rental managers.
💪 Hostaway’s Greatest Strength
The tool is modular and customizable according to your business needs. Indeed, Hostaway can connect to over 100 external software applications and numerous booking platforms, making it the most powerful on the market.
Why Hostaway is the Best Software for Large Property Managers
Hostaway, the most complete all-in-one solution on the market.
Centralized Management
Manage all your properties on a single interface
Unified Communication
Communicate with clients and teams easily
Website
Create your own professional website
Advanced Analytics
Analyze your performance in detail
What are Hostaway’s Features? Review and Descriptions
HOSTAWAY: The Channel Manager Loved by Platforms
It’s the solution favored by the most popular booking platforms. It is the preferred partner of the biggest: Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo.
HOSTAWAY: Property Management System (PMS)
More than a channel manager, Hostaway is a true booking manager. Whether on your PC or smartphone, you can manage guest requests.
Thus, you can optimize your revenue thanks to the tool’s features. It allows you to:
- Create special offers for your clients
- Easily create and sell additional services
- Extend stays upon simple request
- Create discount coupons and promo codes for returning guests
HOSTAWAY: Dynamic Pricing
Dynamic Pricing Included:
Hostaway’s goal is to offer you an all-in-one solution, so dynamic price management is included in the software features. It will be based on multiple criteria of your market and property.
📈 Hostaway estimates a 20% increase in your revenue, all automated!
Integration of External Dynamic Pricing Tools:
Of course, if you’re a property manager who’s used to a particular external software, Hostaway offers connection with your favorite tool!
- Pricelabs
- Beyond
- Wheelhouse and others…
HOSTAWAY: Unified Inbox
With API connection, the software allows you to manage all your guest messages from your main channels:
- 📧 Emails
- 📱 SMS
All managed in a unified inbox.
Of course, you can set up automated message sequences with “shortcodes” to maximize personalization of your communication with travelers.
Customized Analysis and Reports with HOSTAWAY
The software offers reporting to enable the most efficient and reliable market analysis.
Analysis and decision-support tools based on best practices in short-term rentals, hospitality, and vacation rentals.
Occupancy Reports and Rates:
Occupancy rate tables will be provided, but you can customize your reports to get an overview of all your properties according to your preferences:
- Properties
- Region
- Period
HOSTAWAY: Assistance with Owner Statements
Are you a property management company, real estate agency, or property manager? Hostaway is perfect if you want to automate your administrative tasks with clients.
✅ Automate and send reports to owners with one click!
Financial Reports:
Want to offer premium service to your clients or simply stand out from competitors?
Hostaway allows you to create and customize precise reports with parameters you’ve chosen with your property owner clients.
Expense Tracking for Each Property:
To ensure maximum profitability for each property, tracking has been created to monitor maintenance, cleaning, and expenses for each.
HOSTAWAY: Software That Automates Your Tasks
Guest Messages:
Like most channel managers, a message sequence is programmable, allowing you to automate your communication as much as possible.
Automated Guest Reviews:
A Hostaway advantage is the automation of host evaluations. You can manage through the tool:
- Review collection
- Your responses
- And even guest evaluation!
Simplified Cleaning Management:
Automatically create tasks for your cleaning staff based on your bookings. The tool’s advantage: it modifies them if stay dates change!
Hostaway: Configure Your Notifications:
Configure when and how you want to be notified – email, notifications.
HOSTAWAY MOBILE APP
The most complete on the market currently. It allows you to manage:
Bookings & Offers
Manage all bookings on the go
Communications
Communicate with travelers anywhere
Cleaning Staff
Staff and maintenance management
Revenue
Real-time performance tracking
HOSTAWAY: Revenue Management Assistant
Configure promotions and discounts based on:
- Stay durations
- Arrival/departure dates
- Adjust prices by number of travelers
Increase or decrease your prices with a few clicks across all platforms and properties – nothing simpler with Hostaway. Save considerable time while optimizing your revenue!
Market and Sell with Hostaway
Website Included:
Hostaway offers you 2 solutions:
- Integrate a booking engine into your personal website
Hostaway’s PMS integrates easily with your website – calendar and price updates happen instantly and payments are secure! - Use Hostaway’s booking site
You can customize it according to your preferences, prospects, and highlight your properties as you wish!
Advertising Campaign Management:
Hostaway allows you to create discount coupons, launch social media campaigns, do email marketing, and send SMS to your clients.
Open API:
For advanced managers, this feature allows connecting your own internal tools and building a custom solution!
Our Review of HOSTAWAY Advantages
✅ ADVANTAGES
- Website with booking engine
- Ultra-powerful channel manager
- 100+ external tool integrations
- Centralized messaging (Email, SMS, WhatsApp)
- Dynamic pricing included
- Most complete mobile app
- Excellent customer support
- Customizable reports
- Advanced automation
❌ DISADVANTAGES
- Too complex for casual hosts
- Oversized for under 10 properties
- Custom pricing (no fixed rate)
- Longer installation time
- Requires initial training
HOSTAWAY: WEBSITE WITH BOOKING ENGINE
With HOSTAWAY you can:
- Connect your own website by integrating their booking engine
- Use Hostaway’s templates and internal solution
CHANNEL MANAGER:
Like all vacation rental software, Hostaway offers a channel manager.
It’s a preferred partner of the biggest platforms – Airbnb, Booking – ensuring reliability and instant booking and calendar updates!
EXTERNAL TOOL INTEGRATION:
Hostaway allows integration of over 100 applications! Its goal is to guarantee the best service to clients. All domains are possible:
Examples:
- Dynamic pricing – Pricelabs
- Marketing tools
- Accounting software
- Automatic online check-in
Hostaway Software Disadvantages
We don’t see any major disadvantages in using a channel manager like Hostaway. The automation and delegation offered by this type of software make it essential for business success.
💡 Our Recommendation:
✅ If you’re a manager of several dozen properties, we recommend this tool.
❌ However, it will be too complex and oversized for casual hosts.
AIRBNB PROPERTY MANAGEMENT:
Solid, Reliable, and Robust:
When using management software like Hostaway, reliability, velocity, and speed are important criteria in your choice.
No doubt it excels in these criteria!
What is HOSTAWAY Pricing?
We’re dealing with a premium all-in-one solution – the price is higher than channel managers for casual hosts.
Depending on options chosen and number of properties linked to Hostaway, pricing varies per property. Of course, it’s degressive per property. This tool is designed for managers and owners of 10+ properties minimum!
📊 Custom Pricing:
We cannot provide fixed rates per property, as the solution will be tailored to you and subscription pricing as well!
To discover your personalized pricing, request a demonstration.
Hostaway Customer Reviews
“The interface is really easy to use. Customer support is excellent, always available and responsive. The many features are very useful (automations and integrations with major platforms). The platform is reliable and stable, with few bugs and good performance. I also like the regular updates that add new features. The channel manager is effective – I’ve observed increased exposure of my listings and bookings. Reports and analytics are clear and detailed. In summary, Hostaway is a complete solution and I’m very happy with it.”
“I really enjoy using this software and find the customer service superior to what I’ve experienced with this type of software. I should also note it’s complex software requiring installation time… however, the customer service team is really patient, easily available, and very friendly. I’ve never been turned away without my problem being solved – they’re really great!”
“Hostaway has an excellent channel manager and excellent support. I had problems with payments and received excellent assistance that was simply incredible in solving all my issues in this module. I can’t thank them enough!”
“Integration with VRBO and Airbnb is easy, automated messaging is very flexible and customizable, Hostaway is easy to integrate with payment systems. The new integrated smart lock feature works very well once installed. Integration with Pricelabs is also possible.”
“I had several sessions with an integration specialist. These sessions included setting up all our listings on relevant channels and exploring all features offered by Hostaway. This included calendar synchronization, booking management, smart locks, inbox integration with all channels, automated tasks like cleaning, Stripe configuration for payments, and creating our own website (which was very simple). So far, everything syncs well and on time!”
Final Rating
HOSTAWAY
The most powerful all-in-one solution for professional property managers
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.8/5 based on 438 customer reviews
Conclusion: Should You Subscribe to HOSTAWAY?
✅ YES! If you’re a short-term rental professional
Hostaway will be ideal if you are:
- A manager seeking an all-in-one solution (marketing, automation, accounting)
- A professional with 10+ rental properties
- A manager wanting to increase profitability using available tools (site, pricing, marketing)
- An ambitious manager looking to build a real long-term business in this lucrative tourism industry!
⚠️ However: If you’re not comfortable with English and seek a 100% localized channel manager, Superhote might be a better fit for you!
Comparison and Testing with HOSTAWAY
Hostaway VS Lodgify:
When researching channel managers, these two tools are often compared. In reality, they’re much more than simple channel managers – they’re true management software integrating their own websites. But are they really identical?
Read our article to discover their strengths, weaknesses, and differences.
Alternatives to HOSTAWAY
HOSTAWAY VS SUPERHOTE
When comparing the two software, one main difference is at the website level.
The first integrates the website in the offer, while Superhote connects it to its channel manager.
Discover our Superhote review on our site.
HOSTAWAY VS LODGIFY
When comparing the two software, a main difference is in management capacity. One is designed for large organizations, the other for small and medium-sized managers.
Discover our Lodgify review on our site.
HOSTAWAY VS SMOOBU
Smoobu is a budget channel manager.
Find a detailed review of the budget channel manager Smoobu.
HOSTAWAY VS BEDS 24
When comparing the two tools, both are vacation rental software.
However, Hostaway software offers a better user experience. Only Beds24’s low price might make you hesitate. Despite its attractive price, Hostaway remains our first choice.
Other Vacation Rental Tools
As mentioned previously, Hostaway can connect to numerous tools. You’ll find several other software to help develop and automate your business.
- AirDNA: The forecasting tool for nightly pricing, ideal for calculating future investment profitability – precious help for implementing dynamic pricing and increasing profitability.
- Connected lockbox: To automate traveler entry and link with Hostaway software to manage code transmission to travelers.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Independent review and comparison of the best channel managers for professional vacation rental management
