AirDNA Review: Is AirDNA's Short Term Rental Data Software Worth It?

AirDNA is a popular short term rental data software that features multiple tools that aim to address the needs of different operators in the vacation rental business. Key AirDNA solutions include STR market and property data, investing tools, host and management tools, and global Airbnb market analysis. Typical AirDNA users are Airbnb investors, hosts, property managers, lenders, hotels, DMOs, OTAs, real estate tech companies, and financial services institutions. But is AirDNA really worth it for individuals and enterprises in the short term rental industry?

With a total of 193 AirDNA reviews across multiple platforms, the average rating of 3.62 out of 5 suggests that while some customers are satisfied, there may be underlying concerns that potential users should consider before making a decision. Many of these negative customer reviews point to data inaccuracy and customer service issues, especially when it comes to pricing and cancellations. Since AirDNA's main selling point is its data, this presents a concern.

In this AirDNA review, we'll go in-depth into this tool – what exactly AirDNA is and what solutions it provides, who it helps, what integrations it offers, AirDNA benefits and common challenges, and what customers think about the software. We'll also suggest the best AirDNA alternatives for different types of users and situations. Summer Forecast stands out as the top alternative to AirDNA for building a high-performing Airbnb portfolio.

What Is AirDNA?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of our AirDNA review, let's answer the question: What is AirDNA?

AirDNA is a leading provider of short term rental data at both the property and the market level. Scott Shatford founded AirDNA in 2015, becoming one of the first tech platforms to collect and analyze Airbnb data. The platform was developed out of the founder's personal need to understand his listing's competitors' behavior and performance in order to better price and manage his listing and to continue growing his STR portfolio.

Shatford's team worked on machine-learning algorithms to track the performance of multiple Airbnb listings to provide analytics and insights to fellow hosts and investors. Over the years, the AirDNA team worked on the tool's ability to track and forecast revenue and overall performance potential of vacation rentals as well as entire markets.

For years, the AirDNA name was equivalent to Airbnb data and analytics, but recent years have seen a surge in the number of similar platforms that frequently exceed AirDNA in terms of capabilities, user experience, and data accuracy.

Currently, AirDNA is headquartered in Denver, CO but offers global coverage. The software tracks ten million Airbnb and Vrbo listings in addition to 1 million partner properties in over 100,000 markets worldwide.

Who AirDNA Is Best For?

AirDNA can serve different types of customers in the short term rental market, as well as the hotel and tourism industries. These include both individuals and businesses.

Users who find the most value in AirDNA include:

Beginner vacation rental property investors evaluating the potential of different addresses and properties for sale
Experienced STR investors looking for the top short term rental markets and profitable properties for sale to expand their portfolio
Airbnb hosts with one or more listings searching for dynamic pricing options and benchmarking the performance of their properties
Small-scale and large-scale Airbnb managers aiming to understand and improve the performance of their listings
Real estate agents and brokers working with investors
Lenders underwriting properties
PMS and channel managers who need short term rental data for their tools and processes
Hotels comparing their performance to short term rental properties in their area
Tourism boards and DMOs searching for travel industry data to inform their policies and decisions
Hedge funds, investment banks, and other financial institutions requiring vacation rental industry data to boost returns and lower risk
Academics and financial analysts studying trends in the Airbnb market

AirDNA has developed a number of tools and features that address the specific needs of each one of these groups of potential customers.

AirDNA Pricing

AirDNA runs a subscription-based model. The AirDNA pricing depends on the type of user (individual vs business), the available tools, the market coverage, and the exact functionalities.

Currently, AirDNA offers the following subscription options:

AirDNA pricing for individuals:

Free: This plan comes with some AirDNA Rentalizer functions, 1-month Smart Rates recommendations, and other limited functions. It's ideal for investors and hosts who are just starting out and operate on no budget.
Pro: This plan comes with dynamic pricing for up to 5 listings, 12-month Smart Rates recommendations, some historical data, some filters, and a few other functions. It's best for individual investors. The price is $50/month when billed annually and $170/month when billed monthly.
Advanced: This plan comes with dynamic pricing for unlimited listings, advanced insights for property investing and management, property-level data for underwriting and purchasing, hand-picked comp sets, and other features. It's the better fit for larger-scale investors, hosts, and Airbnb managers. The cost is custom.

AirDNA pricing for businesses:

Property Performance Data: This plan helps find the top-performing markets, acquire new listings, underwrite properties, and improve the performance of short term rentals. It's appropriate for investors, property managers, and lenders. The price is custom.
Tourism Insights: This plan offers access to destination insights including travel origin, points of interest, and STR trends. It's a better fit for the needs of hotels, DMOs, CVBs, and other tourism professionals. Pricing is custom.
APIs & Integrations: This plan allows you to integrate AirDNA data directly into PropTech products and platforms. It's good for real estate tech companies, property portals, OTAs, and VRMs. The price is custom.
Global Industry Insights: This plan helps track the performance of the entire short term rental industry to figure out investment opportunities and limit risk. It's used by funds, banks, financial services enterprises, and academia. The subscription fee is custom.

One of the most important takeaways with regards to AirDNA costs and fees is that there is a free plan (albeit with very limited functions) so that users can get a feel for the platform before committing to a paid subscription. Note that most pricing is custom, which means that interested customers need to connect with the AirDNA Sales Team to get a quote and get started. Costs are likely to be significant for access to multiple features and numerous markets.

How Does AirDNA Work?

AirDNA is a single platform that combines multiple tools, features, and solutions that aim to address the challenges that different individuals and businesses involved in the short term rental industry face in their day-to-day operations. The company offers multiple plans that provide access to tools that are tailored to the needs of different stakeholders. However, the platform risks being too overwhelming, especially for first-time investors, hosts, and property managers.

The main AirDNA tools and solutions include the following.

AirDNA Short Term Rental Data

First and foremost, AirDNA is a vacation rental data and analytics provider. Gathering, analyzing, and offering STR data is at the core of all company business operations.

Some of the most important short term rental data points provided by AirDNA include:

Average daily rates (ADRs)
Airbnb occupancy rate
Revenue
Seasonality
Zoning regulations

Meanwhile, AirDNA doesn't seem to estimate crucial Airbnb profitability metrics such as cash on cash return.

AirDNA provides short term rental data at the property level and at the market level. Data comes from two main sources - Airbnb and Vrbo - as the company automatically scrapes data to track the performance of millions of listings on the two websites. In addition, they get direct data from over a million partner listings. Coverage includes the entire U.S. market plus a selection of global markets with active vacation rental listings.

Importantly, AirDNA offers:

Historical data that covers the last five years
Present data that is continuously scraped and updated
Future-looking pacing of up to one year ahead to predict future property performance and upcoming trends in a specific market or across the industry

Review of AirDNA vacation rental data shows that it can be used for the following purposes:

Researching Airbnb markets: Investors can use market-level historical, current, and future data to select good locations for buying a short term rental or confirming that a certain market meets their expectations. Property managers can learn more about the average performance of their market as well as about competition to evaluate the results of their portfolio.
Finding properties with strong potential: Investors can use performance data on STR comps to analyze real estate listings and off market properties to boost investment results. Agents and brokers can utilize property-level data to direct their investor clients towards potentially profitable opportunities. Airbnb managers can estimate the performance of a rental before deciding whether to work with the owner to know what revenue to expect.
Exploring revenue potential: Property owners, hosts, and managers can find out the expected revenue of any home based on local daily rates and occupancy rates.
Benchmarking performance scores: Hosts and property managers can figure out the Booking Performance Score of their Airbnb listings to check how they are performing against direct competition. Users can build their own list of competitors to benchmark performance.
Pricing vacation rentals: Airbnb hosts and managers can use AirDNA data to dynamically price their listings to benefit from elevated revenue opportunities during high season and generate some income during low season.
Forecasting future performance: Customers can use pacing data on available listings, bookings, median listing price, and others to forecast their property performance within the next 12 months and build proactive strategies to boost results.
Underwriting properties: Lenders can make use of data on comparable short term rentals in the area to evaluate properties for sale and make informed financing decisions.
Analyzing markets and trends: Financial services enterprises, tourism professionals, academics, and economic and financial analysts can use AirDNA global short term rental data to study past, current, and future trends in the industry. This analysis can be used for better decision-making, policy-setting, and reporting.
Increasing returns and decreasing risks: Hedge funds and investment banks can analyze markets, properties, and trends based on AirDNA data and analytics to enhance the performance of their investments while lowering risk.

AirDNA Rentalizer

The Rentalizer is AirDNA's flagship Airbnb calculator that is largely used by investors and property managers.

This tool allows real estate investors to estimate the performance potential of any address globally before buying an investment property there. Meanwhile, the owners of second homes can decide whether listing their property on Airbnb or another platform makes sense from a financial point of view. Those involved in Airbnb arbitrage can also analyze whether this strategy makes sense for a specific home based on revenue potential as a short term rental. Similarly, vacation rental managers can use this tool to evaluate whether working with a certain home is worth it based on the average performance of similar properties within the area.

The inputs which users need to provide to the Rentalizer include:

Street address
Number of bedrooms
Number of bathrooms
Number of guests

After setting up an account with AirDNA, you can typically find these results:

Projected annual revenue
Average daily rate
Occupancy
Operating expenses
Net operating income (NOI)
Cap rate
Seasonality impact on earnings
Short term rental comps
Most popular amenities in the area

The Rentalizer comes with a built-in financial calculator that predicts expenses and cash flow to estimate ROI. Hosts and property managers can adjust expenses based on their knowledge of the business and the market to get customized results.

It's important to note that a very basic version of the AirDNA Rentalizer is available for free with an account, but to get access to the more advanced features, users need to obtain a paid subscription.

AirDNA Properties for Sale

A relatively new feature available on the AirDNA platform is the properties for sale. Currently, this solution is only available for the U.S. market.

Importantly, each listing comes with investment property analysis to show its potential if listed for renting on a daily/nightly basis. The short term rental property analysis is powered by the AirDNA data on comps.

Some information that is provided for each property for sale includes:

Listing price
Address
Days on market
Property size
Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
Expected revenue
Daily rate
Occupancy
Zoning regulations

When searching for available investment opportunities with the help of AirDNA, investors can use different filters, such as market, Market Score, listings, amenities, and others. They can arrange results by an increasing or decreasing order of price, listing date, number of bedrooms, and square footage.

AirDNA Smart Rates

Smart Rates refers to the AirDNA Airbnb pricing tool. With its help, property owners and managers can implement a dynamic vacation rental pricing strategy which reflects the importance of seasonality in the short term rental business. In other words, nightly prices can be lowered during slow times to capture additional bookings when fewer visitors are coming to a market, and they can be increased during busy times without negatively affecting reservations to boost earnings.

Airbnb listings can be directly connected to the AirDNA platform for the automated pushing of recommended daily rates without the intervention of the host. In this way, the tool determines the optimal daily rates for each night for which the property is made available for renting in line with the user's strategy and automatically posts them on the Airbnb platform.

With AirDNA Smart Rates, STR operators can choose their preferred strategy from maximizing occupancy (risking overall income), having aggressive daily rates (in an attempt to optimize revenue), or going in-between (for potentially optimal results).

The Smart Rates algorithm takes into account:

Weekend vs weekday demand
Peak season vs off season trends
Yearly seasonality
Holidays
Lead time insights
Upcoming booking demand trends
Hand-picked top competitors behavior

AirDNA claims that the Smart Rates tool works to maximize revenue for Airbnb hosts and managers. However, the final results depend on the strategy that users choose - more or less aggressive.

AirDNA Comp Sets

The AirDNA Comp Sets feature allows vacation rental property owners and managers to compare the performance of their listings to competitors and plan the necessary action to catch up, if needed.

Users can build their own customized list of competitors that matter the most to them and their business, referred to as a comp set.

AirDNA comp sets can be generated based on the following criteria:

Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
Maximum number of guests
Proximity
Star rating
Number of reviews
Included and excluded amenities

The comp sets can be used for obtaining a quick property performance score based on:

Future occupancy as percentage of available nights
Booked rate
Lead time

Knowing whether their listing is outperforming or underperforming compared to competitors can help owners and property managers adjust their pricing and marketing strategies to boost results.

AirDNA Tourism Insights

AirDNA provides U.S. and global tourism data that can be used by different stakeholders for various purposes.

Lodging and visitation data offered by AirDNA includes:

Traveler origin trends and impact on revenue and profit
Events that drive the most occupancy and the highest revenue
Most popular points of interest for visitors
Destination marketing campaigns impact on visitations
Hotel vs short term rental performance

Typical customers of this AirDNA solution include hotels, DMOs, CVBs, and other tourism institutions and professionals.

AirDNA Data Accuracy

The level of data accuracy is a crucial factor that investors and property managers need to take into consideration when deciding if AirDNA is the right short term rental data software for their needs. After all, using inaccurate data is as bad as not using any data at all in your property investment and management decisions.

On the company website, AirDNA claims that their tools have consistent data accuracy in the range of 95% to 99%. In specific, AirDNA data matches Airbnb data with 94.9% accuracy and Vrbo data with 98.7%. These numbers are rather impressive across the vacation rental data industry.

However, AirDNA reviews from customers paint a different picture. As we'll discuss shortly, reviews for the platform are few and those that do exist point to issues with data accuracy that hurt decision making. Since AirDNA's top benefit is its data, this lack of accuracy could be an issue.

AirDNA Integrations

The platform allows for endless integrations with different websites and tools via the AirDNA API. Customers can get access to all available short term rental data in a raw form to make their own calculations, get their own insights, and improve their decision-making processes.

AirDNA offers two API packages:

Airbnb API package
Vrbo API package

The AirDNA API is generally used by:

Investors
Property managers
PMSs
Property portals
PropTech companies
Revenue managers
Dynamic pricing specialists

The AirDNA API can be used for integrations and connections with listing websites, channel managers, dynamic pricing tools, Airbnb management software systems, and others.

AirDNA Reviews

There are surprisingly few AirDNA reviews on third-party review websites for a company that reports to have hundreds of thousands of customers over the past nine years.

Some customer reviews of AirDNA can be found on:

Trustpilot: 3.7/5 stars from 183 reviews
G2: 3.6/5 stars from 4 reviews
BBB: 1.0/5 stars from 2 reviews
Capterra: 1.5/5 stars from 2 reviews
Software Advice: 1.5/5 stars from 2 reviews
BiggerPockets
Reddit

In their positive reviews of AirDNA, happy customers mention the competition insights, easy-to-use platform, and helpful support staff.

Meanwhile, negative AirDNA reviews often highlight data inaccuracies, difficult-to-use features, scammy practices, sudden changes in billing policies, charges after cancellation, high costs that are not worth it, and poor customer service.

AirDNA Pros and Cons

Deploying AirDNA data analytics and tools comes with important advantages and disadvantages that investors, hosts, property managers, and other users need to consider before making a decision.

Let's take a look at the main pros and cons:

AirDNA Pros

The most significant benefits of using AirDNA for your investment and property management decisions include:

Global market coverage
Availability of both Airbnb and Vrbo data as well as partner data
Availability of market-level and property-level data and analytics
Diverse tools meeting the needs of different STR industry operators
Multi-tier subscription packages for individuals and businesses

AirDNA Cons

The major AirDNA drawbacks that need to be taken into account include:

Poor data accuracy according to many customer reviews (noted below)
Incomplete Airbnb property analysis with missing data points
Sometimes unnecessarily complicated UI interface
Unclear costs with reportedly steep pricing for more sophisticated plans

All in all, while AirDNA comes with some important advantages, the disadvantages are equally important, and investors and property managers need to consider them before getting a subscription.

AirDNA Alternatives

The AirDNA platform has a lot of different tools and features that could help various STR industry stakeholders. However, the low data accuracy and the mediocre AirDNA reviews by customers are a concern. That's why investors, hosts, property managers, and others might want to turn to one of the top AirDNA competitors in the vacation rental data business.

The best AirDNA alternatives available on the market include the following.

AirDNA vs Forecast by Summer

Summer Forecast is the top AirDNA competitor for investors, property managers, vacation rental management companies, and investment funds. SummerOS is an all-in-one solution for the needs of short term rental property operators that helps in searching for, designing, and managing vacation rentals. Since it was built by property managers for other property managers, the tool is more intuitive and created with your workflows and needs in mind.

Forecast by Summer offers customizable workflows which allow you to start the property search and analysis in the most convenient way. The investment property analysis is entirely customizable as well so that investors and Airbnb managers can focus on the numbers that really matter. You can define your market based on your own criteria, build your own comp sets, modify existing interfaces and graphs and create new ones, and add custom notes.

Moreover, Forecast has a more affordable flat pricing model than AirDNA. With intuitive insights on revenue, occupancy rates, market trends, and comps, Forecast enables you to evaluate new investments, optimize your portfolio, and stay ahead in the competitive short-term rental market.

Whether you're managing a few properties or a large portfolio, Forecast simplifies the process and puts all of your essential data in one place. Learn more about Summer Forecast now!

Better data, smarter decisions: Summer Forecast

Learn more

AirDNA vs Mashvisor

Mashvisor has traditionally been perceived as one of the main alternatives to AirDNA. The most significant advantage of Mashvisor vs AirDNA is that the former provides both short term and long term rental market and property analysis, so investors can search for properties for sale that would work for both strategies. On the flip side, Mashvisor market coverage is largely restricted to the U.S. market.

The Mashvisor platform helps investors find potentially profitable markets and listings for sale by providing comprehensive analysis that includes property price, startup and recurring expenses, rental income, daily rate, occupancy rate, cash flow, cap rate, and cash on cash return. The property-level analysis is based on the performance of comps and is relatively customizable so that users can fit it to their situation.

For hosts and property managers, Mashvisor has a dynamic pricing tool similar to the AirDNA Smart Rates. The tool integrates with Airbnb directly to recommend and publish daily rates based on demand, seasonality, and booking history. Mashvisor has additional short term rental management software tools such as an Airbnb channel manager, unified inbox, and multi-calendar.

However, the main issue with Mashvisor is data accuracy. Customer reviews comment on poor analysis of properties in certain markets as well as inaccurate estimates of performance for rentals they are familiar with.

In terms of pricing, Mashvisor has tiered subscription plans, similar to AirDNA. There are four different levels, with quarterly and annual options. The Lite plan costs $24.99/month when billed annually, and the Professional plan costs $99.99/month when billed annually. The cost of the Enterprise plan is custom.

AirDNA vs Rabbu

Rabbu is another popular AirDNA competitor that helps investors find, buy, and sell vacation rental properties. Real estate agents, brokers, and lenders can also find some value in the platform, but it's not really of any use to Airbnb property managers.

Rabbu provides both market-level and property-level analysis for investors looking for good opportunities across the U.S. Similar to AirDNA, the platform offers a list of available listings for sale, and the accompanying short term rental property analysis is more detailed than the one supplied by AirDNA.

In addition, Rabbu can connect beginner investors with partner agents and lenders who specialize in investment properties to speed up the purchasing process. Furthermore, once they decide it's time to sell a property, investors can list it on the Rabbu website.

The main disadvantages of Rabbu vs AirDNA are the lack of tools supporting Airbnb hosts and managers and the data inaccuracy. While some free access is available, the Rabbu website does not offer any pricing information about more comprehensive subscription plans.

Bottom Line

Our detailed AirDNA review shows that the STR data software platform has the capacity to facilitate the work of Airbnb investors, hosts, and property managers as well as other professionals in the vacation rental, hotel, and tourism industries. There are multiple products and tools that aim to address different challenges in the short term rental business. However, there are only a few AirDNA reviews by customers that result in average ratings, which makes it impossible to confirm the usefulness of the platform and accuracy of its data.

Investors and property managers looking for intuitive insights, accurate data, and made-for-you workflows should check out Forecast by Summer.

Summer Forecast is your go-to platform for building a high-performing Airbnb portfolio, designed by property managers for property managers. Our institutional-quality Airbnb data and forecasting tools are designed to help property managers and investors like you make smarter decisions. With intuitive insights on revenue, occupancy rates, market trends, and comps, Forecast enables you to evaluate new investments, optimize your portfolio, and stay ahead in the competitive short-term rental market.

Whether you're managing a few properties or a large portfolio, Forecast simplifies the process and puts all of your essential data in one place. Ready to take your STR performance to the next level? Learn how Forecast by Summer can help you make data-driven decisions with confidence.