Property Management Automation: Choosing the Best Software
Property management automation transforms the way you run your STR business. Find out which aspects you can automate with a comprehensive software solution.
Managing short-term rentals involves numerous daily tasks that can feel overwhelming, leaving property managers struggling to find time for long-term goals. Relying on manual systems and processes is not sustainable, as they create inefficiencies that waste time and limit profitability.
However, adopting automation for property management processes offers a practical way to streamline your operations and focus on the bigger picture. Whether you’re managing a couple of vacation rental properties or an extensive portfolio, property management automation isn’t just an option; it is the cornerstone of efficient operations and financial success.
What Is Property Management Automation?
Property management automation uses technology and software tools to automate routine, time-consuming tasks without direct human intervention. It doesn’t mean completely replacing staff with technology, but rather optimizing your management techniques to make it easier for you and your team to handle the most time-consuming tasks.
This approach transforms how short-term rental properties are managed, saving you and your team many hours a week so you can focus on providing an exceptional guest experience and growing your portfolio. Automation transforms everything from guest communication to task management to financial reporting into streamlined, efficient processes.
The right property management software can automate your daily operations and streamline your workflows, freeing up time to focus on what matters. Advanced property management systems like Hospitable offer a comprehensive set of features and AI-powered automation tools, enabling you to grow your STR management business without increasing your workload or hiring more staff.
Property Management Automation Software: What to Look For
Generally, property management automation software is a system that streamlines and centralizes the key aspects of managing short-term rental properties listed across multiple platforms. Such software integrates various functionalities, from automated guest messaging and calendar sync to the implementation of rental agreements and scheduling cleanings, allowing you to significantly reduce time spent on administrative tasks and focus on strategic growth.
When selecting automation software for your business, it’s essential to prioritize solutions that offer a core set of features that can help you automate key property management tasks and effectively manage your short-term rentals:
Automated guest messaging to ensure consistent, professional communication
Review automation to help you get more 5-star reviews
Task management to automate assigning cleaning and other operational tasks to your team
Automated rental agreements to protect you in case of disputes and damages
Security deposit management to protect your properties from financial risks
Dynamic pricing to automatically adjust nightly rates to maximize revenue and occupancy
Smart lock and smart thermostat automations to ensure seamless self-check-ins and save on energy costs
Automated upsells to add value to guests’ stays and increase your income
Choosing the right automation software for your short-term rental property management business depends on your needs. It is a strategic decision that can significantly impact your efficiency and profitability, so it’s important to consider several factors beyond features when comparing different options.
Look for software with advanced automation features that is easy to use, so you and your team won’t need extensive training to benefit from it. It’s also important to look for systems that seamlessly integrate with major OTA platforms.
For example, Hospitable is a strong automation-focused platform that integrates with Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Agoda, and Google Vacation Rentals. Our STR super app also features an intuitive user interface that’s easy to navigate, even for beginners. No wonder that Hospitable has consistently earned the G2 Best Usability badge.
Best Automation Tool for Property Management
When looking for a property management automation software for your STR business, you’ll want to choose a platform that offers as much value as possible to reduce manual work, ensure efficient operations, and support your growth objectives.
So take a look at this chart comparing Hospitable and other popular property management automation tools across key features designed to address common challenges and streamline operations.
| Hospitable | Hostaway | Guesty | Lodgify | Hostfully |
Team management and reminders | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Self-check-in with smart locks | Included from the Professional plan | Paid add-on | Paid add-on | Paid add-on | Paid add-on |
Smart thermostat management synced with bookings | Included from the Professional plan | No | No | No | No |
Dynamic pricing | Included in all plans | Paid add-on | Paid add-on | Paid add-on | Integrations only |
As you see from the comparison chart above, Hospitable is the only software that offers a comprehensive set of features essential for automating key property management tasks as a part of its subscription plans. With Hospitable, you get scalable all-in-one software to automate workflows and don’t have to pay for additional features or third-party tools.
Let’s dive into some essential features that make Hospitable the best automation tool for property management and the right choice for STR hosts and property managers, enabling them to run their business more efficiently and scale faster.
Automated guest communication and AI
Timely communication with guests is essential to making them feel cared for and welcome, but it’s the most time-consuming aspect of operating STR properties. To address this challenge and help you save time, Hospitable offers automation features, such as scheduled messages, pre-programmed answers to common questions, and AI-powered responses to any guest questions, letting you put guest messaging on autopilot.
But Hospitable’s Inbox AI tools take these automations further, helping you stay responsive 24/7:
You can use Suggest with AI to quickly generate detailed context-aware responses to tricky guest questions, which you can review and edit before sending them to guests.
You can use Improve with AI to fix grammar and awkward phrasing when you message guests manually and polish your messages for clarity and tone.
You can upload your guidebooks to the Knowledge Hub to educate the AI about your properties and policies, and the AI will use these details when generating relevant replies to specific guest questions.
You can turn on the Auto Reply feature and set the timing when the AI can automatically reply to guest messages without your review, so you can relax or focus on other tasks.
Hospitable uses AI to automatically scan all guest messages to identify potential issues or concerns in guest conversations that may be resulting in a bad guest experience, and will alert you and your team when help is needed.
Our AI can help you fill vacant nights in your calendar by automatically offering guests extended stays.
Review management
With Hospitable, you can automate the entire review process and manage reviews from multiple platforms, including Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Agoda, and your direct booking site, in one dashboard.
You can create multiple 5-star review templates for Airbnb guests, customizing them with short-codes and custom codes. Then, our system will automatically randomize these templates and publish them on your behalf.
For hosts who have not set any review rules for an Airbnb property, Hospitable will automatically prepare a personalized 5-star AI review suggestion. It will be published on Airbnb after you approve and schedule it.
You can click the Edit button to see other rating options and rate your guest from Terrible to Excellent. Then, our system will provide you with AI-generated review suggestions. You can edit them and then save and schedule for publication.
You can also use AI-crafted responses to quickly reply to guest reviews, no matter whether they are positive or negative. When Hospitable receives a new guest review from Airbnb or Booking.com, our AI will generate and suggest a clear, thoughtful reply based on the review's tone and other reservation-related context. You can see the review reply as a draft, which you can edit or send as it is.
Dynamic pricing
Implementing dynamic pricing is crucial for maximizing the profitability of short-term rental properties, so most property management software solutions, including Hospitable, integrate with third-party dynamic pricing tools that can help you automate your pricing strategy.
These tools use real-time market data to recommend optimal nightly rates for your properties based on your strategies, and Hospitable handles syncing and markup across all your connected channels. However, using a third-party pricing tool incurs an additional cost to your software stack. So Hospitable also has a built-in Dynamic Pricing solution included in the Host, Professional, and Mogul plans at no extra cost.
You can enable our built-in dynamic pricing engine for some or all of your properties, and it will automatically adjust your rates based on demand fluctuations, competition, and seasonality to maximize revenue and optimize occupancy. Your nightly rates will update automatically across Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Agoda, and your direct booking website.
Smart devices automation
Hospitable integrates with popular smart locks and smart thermostats to let you offer your guests seamless, automated self-check-ins and automate temperature control in your vacation rental properties. It’s important that the smart device automation feature is included in the price of the subscription plans. The Professional plan includes two smart devices per active property (smart lock and/or thermostat), and the Mogul plan contains four.
Currently, Hospitable supports many popular smart lock brands via direct integrations. If you connect the supported smart lock to your Hospitable account, our system will automatically create unique access codes for each reservation based on the guest’s phone number and share them with your guests in a messaging flow. Each unique access code is valid only during the guest’s stay and is automatically deactivated after checkout.
Hospitable also supports smart thermostats. You can connect the supported models to your Hospitable account and sync them with your properties’ booking schedules to save on energy costs without compromising your guests’ comfort. To optimize energy use, Hospitable will automatically adjust the temperature in your properties based on bookings, vacancies, and your custom timing, using presets. You can manage every thermostat from a centralized Devices Dashboard—adjust settings, track device health, and view current temperatures across all your properties in real time.
Security deposits
Hospitable has a built-in security deposit feature that helps hosts and property managers protect their properties by automating the collection, management, and release of security deposits for guests who come through their booking channels. Currently, Hospitable’s automated Security Deposit feature works for Direct Premium, Airbnb, and Booking.com reservations. It is available for all Host, Professional, and Mogul plan users, as well as users on Direct Premium.
You can add an automated security deposit to any of your Hospitable’s properties and set the amount you’d like to collect between $100-$500. Then, Hospitable will collect the deposit automatically 2 days before check-in and release it automatically 2 days after checkout (unless you submit a charge request).
Hospitable will handle the payment processing and all guest communication. Our system will inform your guests about the security deposit amount and collection dates at multiple points through their booking journey.
Rental agreements
Asking your guests to sign a formal short-term rental agreement is another smart move that can help you protect your properties and minimize the risks of dealing with guests who may not respect your house rules. The good news is that with Hospitable, creating a new contract for each booking doesn’t mean tedious, time-consuming paperwork.
You can create rental agreement templates or customize an existing one to suit your property's needs, and our system will automatically generate a rental agreement for each new reservation. Your guests will be able to sign the contract digitally, ensuring they agree to the terms before their stay. This functionality works for general rental agreements as well as for additional services that enhance guests’ stays, such as equipment rentals.
Hospitable will automatically populate the agreement template with guest and booking data for each reservation and add it to the Guest Portal as a registration task that guests need to complete to finalize their stay. Before signing the agreement, each guest must verify their identity by receiving a one-time code via SMS or email.
You may also require your guest to go through ID verification as part of signing the agreement. Then, your guests will be prompted to upload a photo ID and take a selfie.
Upsells
Upselling unique services and premium amenities is a great way to enhance guests’ stays and increase your monthly revenue. Hospitable automates the upselling process and makes it easy to offer paid upsells to your guests without sacrificing efficiency.
Create a catalog of your offerings, including early check-ins, late checkouts, and extra services such as equipment rentals and travel insurance.
Send your guests the link to their Guest Portal—our system creates a portal link for each booking automatically.
Your guests will find all the available offerings listed in their guest portal and will be able to purchase any of them. Then, Hospitable will handle payments and taxes.
You can also automate upsells by adding the Smart Upsell smart code to your messaging rules. Then, Hospitable's AI will offer upsells to your guests automatically where appropriate.
Copilot
To build a successful STR business, you need to understand your performance across key areas, including guest experience, operations, reviews, and revenue. Manually researching and analyzing this information takes time, so with Hospitable, you get Copilot, your personal AI assistant that helps you make data-driven decisions.
Just ask Copilot simple, conversational questions, and it will analyze your business data to provide you with instant, actionable insights, helping you manage your rental properties more efficiently. Copilot has access to your booking data, task info, calendar activity, guest reviews, property details, performance metrics, and more, and uses this context to generate answers that match your business.
You can ask Copilot to help you check revenue, occupancy rates, and booking trends, review availability and pricing rules, analyze guest feedback to find improvement opportunities, or get cancellation numbers and trends. Since Copilot remembers context in the conversation, you may ask it follow-up questions to get additional information.
Final Thought
Property management automation is a must-have for STR property managers because manual systems limit your growth. With the right strategy and tools, automation is your competitive advantage in the evolving vacation rental landscape. Automation is not just about technology; it’s about transforming the way you run your short-term rental property management business.
By eliminating routine tasks from your to-do list and reducing human error, comprehensive short-term rental property management software solutions with robust automation capabilities let you work smarter, not harder. The best property management systems, like Hospitable, use AI tools to automate property management tasks, which allows you to operate more efficiently, handle larger portfolios, and focus on strategic decisions.
