Let’s face it: taking into account the demand, seasonality, and any events around the area means that maximizing your Airbnb’s profits takes a lot of time and attention. But what if you can eliminate a lot of that hassle with technology? That’s where Airbnb pricing tools come in—these tools will do all the research for you so that you don’t have to.
Forget about manually analyzing your property against the competition. Instead, use one of our top 6 tools to get optimized pricing recommendations, and maximize your earnings while minimizing your vacancies ASAP.
Here’s a list of our top 6 Airbnb pricing tools to help you out:
- Wheelhouse: Best Overall Airbnb Pricing Tool
- Beyond: Best for Beginners
- Lighthouse: Best for Advanced Analytics
- AirDNA’s Smart Rates: Best for Competitor Analysis
- PriceLabs: Best for Customization
- Lodgify Dynamic Pricing: Best for Multiple Properties
How We Selected the Best Airbnb Pricing Tool
With so many dynamic pricing tools out in the market, it can be overwhelming to choose the best to suit your needs.
We created a stringent criteria to determine the best Airbnb pricing tool out there:
- Pricing Structure: We took a look at tools from all ends of the spectrum (in terms of pricing)—some charge a monthly subscription rate, while some charge a percentage on each booking. However, every tool on our list is relatively affordable for the average host.
- Ease of Use: Most hosts, and especially beginners, don’t want a complicated interface, and the intuitiveness and user-friendliness of the tool was an important criteria we had to include.
- Integration: Surprisingly, many tools don’t integrate seamlessly with Airbnb. To eliminate this hassle, we narrowed down our selection to tools that work the best with the Airbnb platform.
- Customization: More seasoned hosts may want more control over the software, and we took this into account when determining our top tools.
- Insights and Analytics: We prioritized tools that have easy to understand data to help hosts optimize their occupancy rates and revenue with the least amount of fuss.
- Customer Service: Finally, we considered each software’s customer service. And while customer service doesn’t directly impact your pricing strategy, it can affect your ability to use the tool effectively.
With this criteria, Wheelhouse comes out on top as the best overall Airbnb pricing tool. We love its easy-to-use interface, excellent customer support, good pricing structure, and in-depth data insights—all of which help hosts quickly get started with dynamic pricing on Airbnb.
Here’s a more comprehensive look at our choices.
1. Wheelhouse: Best Overall Airbnb Pricing Tool
Hosts looking for a customizable tool with an easy-to-use and beginner-friendly UI should look no further than Wheelhouse. Wheelhouse is the best of both worlds, and both beginner and seasoned hosts will find it a worthwhile investment—that’s why it’s our top pick for the best overall Airbnb pricing tool.
Wheelhouse offers a “free plan” which hosts can use to explore the platform and understand how their dynamic pricing strategy works. For hosts willing to take the plunge, Wheelhouse offers two pricing plans: one that costs 1% of revenue and one that costs a flat $19.99 per month. Both plans offer discounts for more listings. Visit Wheelhouse and check it out.
While seasoned hosts can set their own base pricing on Wheelhouse, beginners can also use the recommended base pricing rates, which are analyzed from billions of data points every night. Wheelhouse also offers three pricing approaches (conservative, recommended, and aggressive), which you can set for your property. All of these customization tools are available in an intuitive UI that hosts will appreciate.
Aside from the UI, Wheelhouse is also working hard at introducing new dynamic pricing features, like their Comp Sets which let you easily analyze your listing’s competitors while also comparing your listing’s historical and present data.
However, despite these dynamic pricing features, we found that Wheelhouse isn’t as customizable as other third-party pricing software (such as PriceLabs). We also dislike that it lacks a mobile app. While their website can be used on mobile, it isn’t fully optimized and can be somewhat clunky.
But, if these issues don’t deter you, then we suggest giving Wheelhouse a go. It has a great mix of customization, unique pricing features, and user-friendliness that will make it easy for any host to get started, and excel, with dynamic pricing on Airbnb.
2. Beyond: Best for Beginners
If Wheelhouse’s UI is still a little too complicated for your taste, then we suggest Beyond. Beyond (formerly Beyond Pricing) will be your new best friend as a beginner host on Airbnb. It’s known for its very user-friendly interface and simple automated pricing adjustments that make it easy for anyone, even complete beginners, to optimize their rental income without having to delve extensively into manual inputs.
However, this simplicity does come with a pretty hefty price: Beyond has three plans, and the cheapest costs 1% of total revenue. You can find out more about the other plans on Beyond’s website.
Using a billion data points, Beyond provides easy-to-understand market insights and trends. It takes a look at seasonality, local demand, search demand, and days of the week to automatically adjust your property’s rates to the perfect price for the perfect time.
While you don’t need to be a tech whiz to use Beyond—which we personally love—some hosts might find the lack of deep customization limiting, and if you’re looking for intricate control over your pricing, Beyond might feel a bit too basic.
Still, Beyond is a fantastic starting point for new hosts. And if you’re looking for simplicity and effectiveness without being overwhelmed, then we suggest giving it a shot.
3. Lighthouse: Best for Advanced Analytics
Lighthouse, formerly called Transparent, is the perfect tool for data enthusiasts who want to dive deep into analytics. More than the other tools, Lighthouse provides a comprehensive analysis that goes beyond basic pricing suggestions, helping hosts make informed decisions to maximize revenue.
It tracks competitor pricing, competitive performance trends, market demand, distribution channel performance, and insights for short-term rental data. It does much more than just dynamic pricing for Airbnb (although it also does that using an AI-driven tool).
Unlike other tools, Lighthouse is also not transparent about their pricing. To get started on the platform, you’ll need to request a demo on their website.
As you can imagine, Lighthouse isn’t the best for hosts who are just starting out on Airbnb, nor does it want to be. Instead, it’s the best for hosts who want to understand how and why the prices on their properties are the way they are, and improve them. For advanced data, Lighthouse can’t be beat.
4. AirDNA’s Smart Rates: Best for Competitor Analysis
AirDNA’s Smart Rates is your go-to tool if you want to stay ahead of your competition. And, with a completely free plan, you can check it out for yourself. You can also sign up starting at $15 per month on AirDNA, but they have tons of plans so that you can find the perfect fit for your hosting style.
Although Wheelhouse also has Comp Sets, what sets AirDNA apart is just how advanced theirs is. With their custom Comp Sets you can directly look at your competitors and view their amenities, guest capacity, distance/location, performance metrics, property quality, and experience. To get started with their Comp Sets, you only need 5 competitor properties (but you can go up to 20).
This ability to see detailed competitor data is invaluable, especially if you want to outperform your competitors. AirDNA also gauges your property’s future performance against three metrics that total out to your Booking Performance Score: an easy way to see your property’s “health” on the market.
For data-driven hosts, however, these metrics may not be enough. While we appreciate the simplicity of AirDNA, seasoned hosts may want a more intelligent tool. But, if staying ahead of the competition is your main goal, AirDNA’s Smart Rates provides more than enough insights you need to succeed.
5. PriceLabs: Best for Customization
Hosts who want a high degree of control over their pricing should look to PriceLabs. Though you can get started for free on PriceLabs, the dynamic pricing plan starts at $19.99 per month or 1% of the total revenue of your property. What we do dislike is that to access deeper market insights, you’ll need to add “extras” that start at $9.99 per month.
By default, the software already looks at seasons, events, competitors, and booking patterns—among other things—to determine the right prices for your property. But their customization options let you tweak everything so that you can optimize your Airbnb as you see fit.
The customizations may also be a bit complex for beginners who are not used to detailed options, although PriceLabs does state that you shouldn’t play around with the customization options unless you’re unhappy about their recommendations or you have a specific plan in mind.
These customization options are some of the best we’ve seen on the market. And so while PriceLabs can be on the expensive side, especially if you want all the bells and whistles, it’s the best for hosts who love to make adjustments to every aspect of their pricing.
6. Lodgify Dynamic Pricing: Best for Multiple Properties
Are you stretching yourself thin because you have multiple listings? Check out Lodgify. You might be surprised, but Lodgify is very cost-effective for hosts with multiple listings. It might not be the cheapest available for one property (plans start at $20 per month plus a 1.9% booking fee), but Lodgify offers steep discounts when you pay annually or bi-annually, and if you have multiple listings.
What we love about Lodgify is that it has everything that you need to manage your property. Aside from dynamic pricing, Lodgify also has property management software, a booking system that integrates with the largest website builders, its own website builder, multiple integrations, and a channel manager for popular rental websites, including Airbnb.
In short, you don’t need to leave the Lodgify ecosystem to optimize your property. However, this means that its features, including dynamic pricing, aren’t the most advanced. For example, Lodgify doesn’t have many customization options and has no features to directly look at your competitors. The dynamic pricing feature also incurs an extra fee of 0.8% for each confirmed reservation from the tool.
But all these features also mean that if you’re managing multiple listings at once, Lodgify’s full suite will be an indispensable tool in your arsenal. It can help you optimize your listings and your earnings, all without leaving the platform.
Bottom Line
Hosts beginning their journey on Airbnb should quickly get started with a dynamic pricing tool. This will help you optimize and increase your revenue by automatically adjusting rates based on market demand, seasonality, events, and local trends. Many tools do similar things, but among all the options we looked at, we like Wheelhouse the best.
With its perfect combination of advanced analytics and a user-friendly interface, Wheelhouse is great for both beginners and seasoned hosts alike. Leverage Wheelhouse today and watch your Airbnb succeed!
