Comparing Guesty and OwnerRez: What you need to know
Vacation rental management has become more complex in recent years. More OTAs, higher guest expectations, and tight competition mean relying on manual processes just isn’t viable anymore. You’re likely to burn out trying to keep pace with the demands of your business.
Many operators turn to property management software (PMS) to save time. These centralize bookings, automate key processes, and give you real-time data insights into performance.
Guesty and OwnerRez are two well-established PMS in the market. Both provide robust feature sets, making them a solid choice for vacation rental operators looking to streamline operations. But there’s no guarantee either will be right for your company and bring you the results you need.
Let’s compare both solutions based on their features, pricing, and customer support so you can see whether they suit your business — or if you need to look elsewhere.
Key differences between Guesty and OwnerRez
The biggest difference between Guesty and OwnerRez lies in their pricing and focus.
Guesty offers tiered pricing. If you have up to three properties, you must use the Guesty Lite plan with basic features but no long-term commitment. Beyond that, its pricing is custom and designed to scale with larger companies.
Whereas OwnerRez takes a more modular approach from the start. Instead of rigid tiers, you have essential features like a channel manager and team management, and choose between add-ons like guest communication and booking management.
Guesty also focuses more on automation, providing guest messaging and data syncing from its first tier. On the other hand, OwnerRez emphasizes outreach and lead generation with its hosted sites and WordPress plugins.
Guesty: Who is it best for?
Guesty is a strong choice for anyone overseeing large portfolios. Its automation enables you to streamline and standardize processes across units, and its financial reporting tools give you insights into performance.
Small businesses may appreciate the Guesty Lite plan, but some might find they’re pushed into custom pricing too soon. This makes Guesty a better option for established companies that already need a high level of control over features.
OwnerRez: Who is it best for?
In direct comparison, OwnerRez works best for small to mid-sized companies looking for flexibility in their setup. Its modular pricing ensures you only get what you need, keeping your subscription costs down.
OwnerRez is also a good option for those looking to increase direct bookings. The hosted sites and WordPress plugins mean you can develop a website to handle reservations, while the channel manager lets you sync calendar data with your PMS.
Why Hostfully is the best alternative to Guesty and OwnerRez
Guesty and OwnerRez are solid options, but neither can beat Hostfully on features and ease of use. Hostfully has everything you need with our CRM-style booking engine, proprietary guidebook, and no-code website builder. We also recently introduced our smart devices with locks, thermostats, cabinets, and more to give hosts an extra advantage.
If you’re looking for niche add-ons, Hostfully has a large integration marketplace. We connect with all the most popular dynamic pricing tools, payment processing apps, and insurance providers.
Although we deliver on features, we still compete on pricing. Hostfully has fixed tiers for small vacation rental businesses and moves to custom plans as you grow and need a more tailored solution.
No matter which plan you get, everyone has access to Hostfully’s 24/7 live chat customer support. That’s because we understand that nobody can wait for solutions when the guest experience is at stake.
Hostfully vs Guesty and OwnerRez: A feature comparison
| Feature | Hostfully | Guesty | OwnerRez | 
| Centralized automation | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Multi/stacked calendars | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Booking pipeline | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | 
| Proprietary guidebook | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | 
| Channel manager | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Unified inbox | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| AI assistant | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Direct booking website | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Accounting functionality | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Owner statements and portal | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Email templates | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Task management | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Mobile app | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ (PWA only) | 
| Minimum contract period | One month | One month (for the Lite plan only) | One month | 
| Booking fee | Zero booking fees | Zero booking fees | Zero booking fees | 
| Property minimum | One | One | One | 
| Scalable pricing | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Custom plans | ✔️ from 21 listings | ✔️ from 4 listings | ✔️ from 500 listings | 
| Customer success manager | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Direct integrations with popular booking sites (Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, etc) | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| Open API | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | 
| 24/7 global live chat support (including weekends) | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | 
Real customer testimonials: Why businesses choose Hostfully over Guesty and OwnerRez
| “Great all around Property management Platform. As an avid user of Guesty for Hosts previously, I was needing a more well rounded platform that could handle more as my company and portfolio grew. I looked around to many PMS systems, but none compared to Hostfully with their reporting level and owners’ reports.” | 
| “What I love most is that Hostfully strikes the perfect balance between cutting-edge technology and real human support. They listen to feedback, roll out meaningful updates, and go above and beyond to ensure their customers succeed.” | 
| “Switched from Guesty to Hostfully and we’re much happier!I like the Pipeline for instant glance of the status of the bookings and I like the app for on the go tasks. The customer support is very good!” | 
Switching to Hostfully is easy and seamless
Changing PMS is no small decision; otherwise, you would’ve done it already. No doubt you’re apprehensive about the possible downtime and disruption to your operations.
That’s why Hostfully puts such a strong emphasis on onboarding. From the moment you sign up, our customer success manager takes over and helps you coordinate with the rest of the team. We help you manage everything from data transfers to integration setup.
Are you switching from Guesty to Hostfully? Our team ensures you can rebuild your automation workflows on our platform or rework them entirely if that’s what you want. If you’re moving from OwnerRez to Hostfully, we can match the level of control you’re used to without all the add-ons.
Throughout the onboarding process, you call the shots. You tell us what pace you’d like to move at and when you need your setup to be complete.
 
				 
				 
															