Agoda vs. Booking.com: What Do They Offer for Hosts?

agoda vs booking
By The Hospitable Team

Today’s vacation rental industry is highly competitive, so STR hosts and property managers constantly seek ways to maximize their reach and attract more bookings. Many online travel agencies help property owners market their homes and apartments to travelers, including such popular websites as Agoda and Booking.com.

Booking.com and Agoda are trusted and respected brands owned by the same parent company, Booking Holdings Inc., the world leader in online travel and related services. Wondering which of them is a better option to list your property? In this article, we’ll compare Agoda vs. Booking.com and discuss what each platform offers for vacation rental hosts.

You may also want to check out our article, which shares some Booking.com tips to help you make the most of your listing on this global OTA platform.

No matter whether you rent out a single property or manage multiple listings, a smarter approach is to automate your hosting routine using vacation rental software like Hospitable. This way, you can save many hours of your precious time, which can be used to market your STR business and provide a memorable guest experience.

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Automate communication, create a direct booking website, manage channels, sync calendars, push pricing updates, notify your team, and much more!
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How Are These Platforms Different?

Take a look at this comparison chart of Agoda vs. Booking.com to see how these online platforms differ and what each offers for short-term rental hosts. To help you decide which one might be the better option for you as a host, we compare these popular websites across such categories as number of listings, global reach, types of property you can list, target audience, service fees, customer support for guests, and benefits for hosts.

Agoda
Booking.com
Number of listings
Over 2 million
Over 28 million
Global presence
Operates in over 200 countries.
Operates in more than 220 countries.
Property types
Hotel bookings and vacation rentals range from budget options to five-star luxury stays, including treehouses, tents, bungalows, apartments, villas, and family homes.
A wide range of accommodations, including resorts, vacation homes, villas, apartments, cottages, cabins, glamping, guest houses, hostels, B&Bs, riads, ryokans, country houses, farm stays, luxury tents, boats, tiny houses.
Target audience
Offers a “Best Price Guarantee” to attract price-conscious travelers.
Attracts business and leisure travelers.
Service fees
Commission rates vary depending on the property location, typically between 15% and 25%.
Commission rates generally fall between 15% and 25% but vary per country and can vary depending on the type of property or its location.
Customer support for guests
Offers 24/7 customer support to guests in 38 languages via phone and email.
Offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat in 40 languages.
Benefits for hosts
Offers a strong brand within Asia; Provides support for hosts around the clock every day.
A huge customer base worldwide; Has a dedicated “Partner Help Centre” with a lot of articles and step-by-step guides; Promotes its listings on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Agoda vs. Booking.com: Property Types and Target Audience

Agoda was founded in 2005 and was acquired by Booking Holdings in 2007. The company is headquartered in Singapore and primarily focuses on the Asian market. But it also has offices in 35 markets and offers listings worldwide, with over 2 million properties available ranging from budget options to five-star luxury stays.

Agoda offers hotel bookings and options for vacation rentals, flights, buses, trains, car rentals, and airport transfers. The platform’s range of accommodation types is diverse—travelers can book everything from tents to treehouses to tropical villas, city apartments, and family homes. Agoda also offers a “Best Price Guarantee” to attract price-conscious travelers.

Booking.com is one of the largest OTAs globally—it boasts more than 28 million accommodation listings worldwide and has a strong presence in Europe and North America. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Amsterdam, Booking.com was initially focused on hotels. But now, the platform offers a wide range of accommodations, catering to various travel preferences, and allows travelers to book flights, car rentals, attractions, and airport taxis.

Travelers can book stays in resorts, vacation homes, villas, apartments, cottages, cabins, glamping, guest houses, hostels, B&Bs, riads, ryokans, country houses, farm stays, luxury tents, boats, and tiny houses. Booking.com attracts business and leisure travelers and has millions of daily visitors, so it can be one of the obvious choices to expand your reach. Check out our blog article to learn more about the pros and cons of using Booking.com for your vacation rental business.

Agoda vs. Booking.com: Service Fees

If you have an entire house, apartment, or other single-unit accommodation where the host doesn’t stay with guests, you can easily list your property for free under Agoda Homes. Agoda Homes functionality facilitates only a single booking at anytime and is managed through the platform’s Host Manage system.

Agoda charges hosts a commission for each successful booking. It’s automatically deducted from the rates the host inputs into the system. Commission rates vary depending on the property location, typically between 15% and 25%. Hosts can see the specific commission applicable to their property in the Bookings & Earnings section of their Listings page.

You don’t have to pay to create a listing for your vacation rental on Booking.com. The platform also works on a commission-based business model. Hosts pay a set percentage of each reservation they receive through the Booking.com website.

The commission rates generally fall between 15% and 25%. Keep in mind that the Booking.com host fees vary per country and can also vary depending on the type of property or its location. You can find information about the exact commission you pay at the “Agreement” stage of the registration process.

As you see, while listing your property on OTAs like Agoda and Booking.com allows you to reach a wider audience of potential guests, it also comes with high commission fees they charge for each booking. This can have a significant impact on your bottom line.

But you can save on commissions paid to third-party booking sites if you create your own website and accept direct bookings. It’s a great way to break free from the pain points associated with using OTAs and keep complete control of your bookings.

The good news is that you don’t need any technical skills to build your own vacation rental website with a robust booking engine if you opt for Hospitable. Using our dedicated service, Hospitable Direct, you can create a fully functional direct booking website optimized for desktop and mobile using our professional, easy-to-customize website templates.

Get a direct booking website within minutes!

Get listed on Google Vacation Rentals! Our system will ensure your calendars stay synced with OTAs, and your guests get the best experience.

If you build your direct booking website with Hospitable, your property will get listed with Google Vacation Rentals, which functions as a free meta-search engine. Then travelers can discover your listing and book it directly through Google Search, Google Maps, and when browsing the Vacation Rentals tab in Google Travel.

That means that with Hospitable Direct, you’ll get more direct bookings without paying high third-party fees. Additionally, our partners, Autohost and Superhog, will help you screen your guests in the booking flow and insure your STR property with up to $5M worth of damage protection.

Agoda vs. Booking.com: Benefits for Hosts

Agoda offers a strong brand within Asia and is also working to expand its global footprint through many strategic partnerships worldwide. If you list your property on Agoda, you can reach millions of travelers on its website and mobile app. The company also provides hosts with support around the clock every day and offers 24/7 customer support to guests in multiple languages.

Booking.com has a huge customer base and can help you reach a vast audience of potential guests worldwide. The platform offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat and has a dedicated “Partner Help Centre” with valuable articles and step-by-step guides. Booking.com promotes its listings on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo and gives hosts paid tools that can help you increase your revenue.

You may also want to check out our article, which compares two well-known brands in the hospitality industry, Sonder and Airbnb.

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In this e-book, we cover: Decisions to make and things to check before you start. How to prepare your property for short-term rental. Setting the ground to stand out from the crowd. Admin work. Assembling a team. Not putting all eggs in one basket. Your daily operations. Mastering communication with your guests. Getting the 5-Star review after all that hard work.
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