Airbnb Management Software: Boosting Your Business

Airbnb management software is being used by thousands of property managers worldwide to scale up their operations on Airbnb.

But is it reserved just for property managers?

Or is it something that every short-term rental host can use, too?

At first glance, it may seem excessive to use full-scale management software for a single Airbnb listing operation. However, you'll be pleasantly surprised once you understand how simple, powerful, and effective it can be!

So, if you've got a spare 5 minutes and are interested in learning more, keep reading.

Airbnb Property Management Best Practices

Being a host on Airbnb is not as simple as creating a listing and handing off the keys. It's a business that requires time and effort to succeed.

The key to business success on Airbnb lies in an effective Airbnb property management strategy. Every host needs to understand the basics of Airbnb management to compete with the top hosts on the platform.

Here are the building blocks of good Airbnb property management you should pay attention to:

• Manage your guest experience—respond to all initial guest inquiries within one hour, communicate with guests after they book your property, coordinate late check-in/out requests, and monitor all guest reviews.
• Create a competitive pricing strategy and adjust prices to seasonal demand and other variables;
• Coordinate cleaning and maintenance to keep your rental property guest-ready;
• Optimize your Airbnb listing for high Airbnb search placement;
• Be current with the laws and regulations in your area;
• Take care of marketing and more.

As you can see, there is a lot on your plate, and all these responsibilities require many hours of work each day. Still, there are ways to make your life as a host easier.

Outsourcing an Airbnb Management Service

If you're new to Airbnb and manage multiple properties, the process can be extremely time-consuming and stressful. To address this, you may consider outsourcing your responsibilities to an Airbnb management company that acts on your behalf or hiring a professional property manager who will handle everything (or almost everything) for you.

Outsourcing to an Airbnb property management service enables you to run your Airbnb from any place quickly, ensure that your account will stay functional, and get consistently good reviews.

However, the problem is that this can be pricey, and finding a reliable third party with a good track record and experience in your area to help you run your Airbnb business is not easy and takes time.

A property manager will charge you a percentage of your monthly earnings and ensure that you get passive income. But is that your goal?

To become a successful host and maximize your earnings, treat your Airbnb as a business.

The good news is that you can manage your STR property yourself without investing a lot of time and keep more of your rental revenue.

Your Airbnb business under your control

A smarter alternative is to use Airbnb management software to help automate most of the routine tasks. Tools like Hospitable can save you a significant amount of time for a fraction of the cost of hiring a property manager, without compromising the guest experience. You can save on property managers' fees and run a lean and efficient Airbnb business.

What Is Airbnb Management Software?

Airbnb management software is a tool that hosts and property managers use to streamline the day-to-day operations of running a business on Airbnb.

This management software helps automate many of the time-consuming, mundane, repetitive tasks that hosts face daily, as well as offers additional tools and services to make hosting easier and more profitable.

It can lead to considerable time savings and reduced overhead costs if used effectively.

Since you're now in the efficiency mood, download our guide on STR performance boost hacks. Happy reading!

How Does Airbnb Property Management Software Work?

Airbnb property management software creates a direct connection between your listing and the software itself.

Once this connection has been made, actions can be performed, and information can be shared seamlessly between the Airbnb platform and the property management software.

Now, why is this good?

Well, it means you can automate many of the mundane day-to-day tasks associated with Airbnb hosting, freeing up your time and reducing labor costs.

We are talking about things like:

• Guest messaging
• Cleaner reminders
• Team management
• Reviews automation
• Calendar synchronization
• Revenue management
• And a whole lot more

On top of that, it also creates a centralized dashboard to manage all your listings (no matter how many you have) in one place, making things much easier.

Best Airbnb Management Software: Essential Features to Look Out For

When you're shopping around for the best Airbnb management software that's going to suit your style (and budget), there are some essential features that you'll want to look out for to keep everything organized and efficient:

1. Automated guest messaging

Without a doubt, the most significant time-saving advantage of using a property management tool comes when you harness the power of automated guest messaging.

It can seem a little daunting at first—the prospect of a computer sending messages to your guests; however, once you delve beneath the surface and see how advanced this guest communication can be, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

In fact, with the use of short-codes (little snippets of code like this %guest_name%), it's possible to add dynamic content to each and every message you send, making each message super personal and bespoke to each guest moving through their guest journey.

Here's an example of how personal a message using short-codes can be:

Hello %guest_first_name%, and thanks for your interest in %listing_name%!

I wanted to confirm right away that I have received your request to book my %listing_type% from %check_in%, with %guests% for %nights%. The total price would be %total%.

I will review your request and provide an answer as soon as possible, so you can prepare for your trip accordingly.

If you require any further information, please don't hesitate to ask. It would be my pleasure to answer your questions!

Best regards,

%host_name%.

Guests typically have many questions about the property, amenities, the surrounding area, and local attractions, and it's your responsibility to answer them as quickly as possible. So, wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to respond to those repetitive questions you get as a host? You know, when you get those same old messages about parking, WiFi, early check-in, etc.

With advanced management software like Hospitable, it's not only possible, but actually quite easy. Our system utilizes AI to quickly send automated replies to FAQs on over 20 topics, using your pre-written answers. You just need to set question rules.

Essentially, this means your guests immediately receive the information they want, and you can simply sit back and relax.

Everyone loves a win-win!

With Hospitable, 90% of your guest communication runs on autopilot, but our AI features can take your automated messaging to the next level. You can use Suggest with AI in your Inbox to generate a draft response to any guest message not covered by automation. With just one click, AI will craft a personalized response tailored to the message context and booking details. You can edit the draft if necessary before sending it to your guest. You may also provide some bullet points as guidance and select 'Improve with AI' to rewrite your message, ensuring it’s both warm and professional.

You can help AI craft much more accurate and relevant messages. Create a digital guidebook with all the info your guests need for their stays and upload it to the Knowledge Hub to educate AI about your property. Once you add it, AI will use this info automatically when generating draft messages for you.

2. Automated cleaner/team reminders

If you have several properties, keeping your cleaners informed about check-in and check-out for each booking can be a headache. Still, if you find it challenging to remember to send reminders to your cleaner and team, Airbnb property management software can help you.

Tools like Hospitable allow you to automate messaging your cleaning team about upcoming jobs based on your booking calendar and add a list of tasks you want them to complete. You can create your own rules, and our system will assign tasks to your cleaners automatically, and it'll never (ever) forget to send out these reminders.

Once set, these reminders will be sent out ON TIME, EVERY TIME, even if it's a last-minute booking. Your cleaners don't have to create accounts—they will get SMS and email notifications.

3. Automated reviews

As you scale up your operations on Airbnb, your workload increases dramatically. And even something as menial as leaving a guest review can turn from a minor job into a full-blown headache!

Sure, if you're managing just one listing, this isn't a big deal, but it can surely add up if you're managing multiple listings.

Good management software can integrate with Airbnb's review system and automate this process for you.

First, you create a few different guest review templates (using those handy smart shortcodes, of course).

Here's a simple review template example:

What more can I say, %guest_first_name% left the house immaculate.

Super clean and tidy. Couldn't recommend highly enough.

Welcome back anytime.

Once your review templates are complete, specify how long after the booking you'd like them to be posted, and the system will randomize, customize, and send them on your behalf at the specified time.

4. Unified Inbox

The last thing you want as a host with multiple Airbnb listings is to log into multiple dashboards to access your Inbox. And that's where a unified inbox comes in.

By creating a centralized dashboard or unified inbox for all of your listings (regardless of the number you manage), it's easy to see where each guest is in their booking journey and what action needs to be taken.

A unified inbox keeps all your messages in one neat and convenient place, so you'll never miss a booking request or a question from your guests.

The best tools will even integrate with multiple platforms, such as Vrbo, Agoda, and Booking.com, and display all messages across all platforms in one neat, simple dashboard. That way, you never need to log in to any of these platforms; instead, you can manage the whole lot in one place.

If you reply to your guests from your Hospitable Inbox, they'll receive it on the platform they engaged with you on. Your guests will never know that the Hospitable software is helping you communicate with them in the background.

5. Consolidated calendar

Similar to the unified Inbox, a consolidated calendar allows you to view all bookings for all listings across all platforms in one simple visual calendar.

This single calendar view provides a real-time visual snapshot of your bookings for your entire portfolio of listings, all in one place—no need to switch between screens or platforms. Just one simple, consolidated calendar that provides a clear overview of all your bookings across all properties so you can easily manage them.

Switching between channels to manually check bookings and update your calendar and prices can be overwhelming.

But the right software will automatically update your availability in real-time on each channel, saving you time and effort. You'll also have peace of mind knowing that double bookings are now impossible.

6. Dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing is a strategy that involves adjusting the nightly rates of a property based on real-time market conditions, such as demand, competition, seasonality, and other factors. This method is essential for STR hosts because it enables them to maximize their revenue and stay competitive in today's market by setting a price that reflects the current demand for the property.

Implementing dynamic pricing manually is extremely time-consuming, as it requires thorough market research and ongoing monitoring. Therefore, most vacation rental hosts utilize automated tools to save time and increase efficiency. Various third-party dynamic pricing tools use advanced algorithms to calculate and adjust prices in real-time, based on market data, to help you optimize your rates.

Most property management systems, including Hospitable, integrate with third-party dynamic pricing tools that can help hosts automate their pricing strategy. However, keep in mind that using a third-party pricing tool that integrates with your PMS incurs an additional cost to your software stack. Some PMSs have built-in dynamic pricing tools, but hosts must always pay an additional fee for using them.

The good news is that Hospitable comes with built-in Dynamic Pricing, which is included in Host, Professional, and Mogul subscription plans at no additional cost. Our Dynamic Pricing is embedded into the calendar, so you can manage all your bookings in one place and ensure that you always charge the right price.

As soon as you enable this feature, our intelligent pricing engine will automatically adjust your rates based on real-time market conditions and your settings to maximize your revenue and optimize occupancy.

7. Analytics and reporting

You need data to make intelligent business decisions and stay competitive. That means you need Airbnb property management software that provides valuable insights into all your bookings, allowing you to track your performance over time and adjust your strategy accordingly.

For example, Hospitable enables you to evaluate the performance of your short-term rentals through an accessible yet powerful Metrics Dashboard. It has all the key performance indicators, so you can always know the health of your vacation rental business.

You can see critical data, such as

• Total revenue
• Number of reservations
• Revenue per reservation
• Average nightly rate
• Revenue per available night
• Occupancy for available nights
• Occupancy for all nights
• Number of booked nights
• Percentage of unavailable nights
• Average length of stay

You can also see the percentage of bookings and revenue by channel. If you want to delve deeper, you can filter your key data to gain insights based on properties, dates, guest names, teammates, and more. You can also save filtered dashboards as "views" to easily access them later or share them with other stakeholders who may not have a Hospitable account.

With Hospitable, you can also get instant insights by talking to our Copilot. It’s our newest AI assistant that can help you manage your short-term rental business more efficiently.

Copilot can analyze your financial performance, reservation metrics, team tasks, guest reviews, properties, and more. Just type your question, and Copilot will analyze your account to provide meaningful insights.  You can also ask follow-up questions to get more detailed information.

8. Direct booking website builder

Listing your rental on sites like Airbnb is a great way to reach broader audiences and gain new clients. But it's only the first step to success.

You can't rely only on OTAs. You need to build your brand and become independent. That means you need your website with booking capabilities.

Creating your direct booking website will allow you to build relationships with guests, encourage direct bookings, and save money on OTA fees.

And you don't need to hire a developer for that. You can easily build a fully functional direct booking website using Hospitable Direct.

We'll list your property on Google Vacation Rentals, allowing travelers to discover it when searching for accommodations using Google search. If travelers decide to book your rental, Google will redirect them to your Hospitable website, and you'll get direct bookings without paying high third-party fees.

9. Integrations

No matter how powerful Airbnb property management software is, creating a single tool covering every aspect of running a short-term rental business is impossible. That's why you should look for software with integrations with other tools that will help you save time managing your STR properties and improve customer service.

Hospitable offers seamless integrations with numerous platforms and tools that enhance its features and capabilities, helping you streamline your operations and improve the guest experience. Hospitable users can take advantage of our integrations with

• Top dynamic pricing tools that will allow you to automatically adjust your rates based on real-time market data and maximize your occupancy and revenue;
• Smart locks that will allow you to welcome your guests remotely and ensure a smooth self-check-in process;
• Noise monitoring systems that can help you protect your property from damage and avoid neighbor complaints;
• Cleaning management tools that can help you find professional cleaners and automatically schedule cleanings after each reservation;
• Guest portals to build an interactive tool for guests that pre-empts questions and allows them to manage your smart home devices.
• An e-commerce that allows you to upsell extra services without being pushy or intrusive.
• Accounting software to help you automate your bookkeeping, and many more.

Conclusion

By now, you should know what property management software for Airbnb is and how effective it can be at reducing labor costs, increasing efficiencies, and reducing stress load while at the same time helping you make more money and grow your business.

Download our guide on boosting your short-term rental business performance even further.

The minimal setup costs to get started usually pay for themselves within the first week or two.

So, whether you manage 1 or 100 properties, Airbnb management software is something every (serious) host should be taking advantage of.

Now, there are many different options available, but none of them are created equal. Hospitable offers a comprehensive solution for hosts and property managers, and it's a good value, too

You can give our short-term rental management software a test run—free for 14 days and decide whether it's a good fit for you (and don't worry, you don't even need to give us your credit card details or anything).