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Vacation rental managers

Five tools, each billed per unit. Add a property and every line goes up.

A rental manager's software is a stack, not a product. Each layer is priced per property per month, so signing a new owner raises the bill on every one of them before the first guest arrives.

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The per-unit stack

Your own list may be shorter or longer. What matters is which of these lines multiply by your unit count.

Property management systemPer unit per month, or a share of booking revenue, with features gated by plan.
Channel managerPer unit or per connected channel. This is the connection to the listing sites and it is the part to keep.
Guest messagingPer unit, for scheduled messages and a shared inbox.
Cleaning and turnover schedulingPer unit or per cleaner, with the task app for staff as a further charge.
Dynamic pricingPer listing per month, or a share of booking revenue.
Owner portal and statementsAn add-on tier, or a separate accounting product priced per unit.

Growth multiplies every line at once

Per-unit pricing feels proportionate when you manage a handful of homes. The trouble is that a rental business carries several per-unit tools, so the real rate is the sum of all of them, multiplied by every property, every month, including the low season when some of those homes earn very little.

It also charges you at the wrong moment. Onboarding a new owner means photography, listings and set-up work before any revenue arrives, and the software bill for that unit starts on day one.

Then count the labour between the tools. When messaging, cleaning and statements are separate products, somebody re-enters a late checkout in three places, and owner statements get finished by hand in a spreadsheet because no single system holds all the figures.

What we rebuild around the channel connection

  • Guest messagingYour templates, sent on your schedule, with one inbox across every channel the connection provides.
  • A cleaning and turnover boardTurnovers generated from the booking calendar, assigned to cleaners, with photos and issue reports coming back.
  • Owner statements your wayStays, channel fees, your commission, cleaning and maintenance charges, owner stays and the payout, laid out to match your management agreement.
  • An owner portalOwners see their calendar, their statements and can block their own dates.
  • A direct booking siteFor repeat guests and referrals, reading the same availability as the channels.
  • Maintenance ticketsReported by guests or cleaners, assigned, and charged to the right owner.

What you should keep renting

  • The channel connectionListing sites are the network that brings the guests, and the approved connections to them belong to channel managers. Keep that layer. We build on top of it.
  • Card processingUnchanged under any system.
  • Pricing data servicesDynamic pricing tools draw on market data we do not have. If yours earns its fee, keep it and we read its rates.
  • Smart lock and device platformsDoor codes are issued through the lock maker's own service. We call it; we do not replace it.

Owner statements are where managers lose their evenings

Every management agreement is slightly different: what counts as gross revenue, whether the commission is taken before or after channel fees, how cleaning is charged, what reserve is held. Rented systems offer a fixed statement format with a few options, and the gaps are filled in a spreadsheet at month end.

A statement built from your agreements removes that work and the errors that come with it. Trust accounting rules differ by state and country, so we build the reports to what your accountant specifies, and the books themselves stay in your accounting package.

Questions rental managers ask

Do we have to leave our channel manager?

No, and you should not. The channel connection is the one part of the stack that depends on someone else's network. We replace the tools around it that are billed per unit and that you could own.

Can statements follow our management agreement exactly?

Yes. That is usually the first thing managers ask for. We build the calculation from your agreement, including different terms for different owners, and show the working so an owner can follow it.

How do direct bookings fit in?

Your direct booking site reads the same calendar as the channels, so a direct reservation blocks the dates everywhere. Payment goes through your card processor and the stay appears on the owner's statement like any other.

How risky is switching mid-season?

We would not switch everything mid-season. The new system runs beside the old one, often starting with a few properties or with one function such as turnovers, and the old tools are cancelled only when you have seen a full month close correctly.

From the blog, for vacation rental managers

Keep reading

Free toolSoftware bill calculatorType in how you are billed, per seat, per unit or per ticket, and see what it comes to over a year and over three.Open the calculator
GuideOwning your software: the build or rent guideBuild or rent, switching risk, running two systems side by side, who maintains it, getting your data out, and when not to go custom.Read the guide
Published feesWhat the platforms chargeEvery rate read from the vendor's own pricing page, dated, and totalled over a year.See the fees
Who it's forCampgrounds and RV parksYour sites are not interchangeable. The per-site fee does not care.Read this page
Who it's forSports teams and venuesYour ticketing bill grows with every good seasonRead this page

Send us your per-unit bills

Each tool, what it costs per property, and how many properties you manage.

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Hiro costs about a tenth of what you pay now, quoted against your own bill. Hosting, fixes and changes included, and no per-seat fees.