Comparing Hospitable and Hostaway: What you need to know
Managing a short-term rental without the right tools puts you at a serious disadvantage. Even small businesses are leveraging a Property Management Software (PMS) to streamline key processes and improve the guest experience.
But choosing the wrong software can be worse than nothing whatsoever. Badly fitting tools can slow down processes further and lead to errors like double bookings and delayed check-ins. What really matters is finding a PMS that suits your budget, gives you room to grow, and helps you meet your business goals.
Hospitable and Hostaway are two big names in the vacation rental space. Both offer ease of use, competitive pricing, and a choice of features to support your operations. All that said, they might not be right for you.
Need to make a decision soon? Let’s compare the two platforms based on their key features, pricing, and best use cases to see which one (if either) is the right fit.
Key differences between Hospitable and Hostaway
Hospitable and Hostaway have a very different core focus. While Hospitable prioritizes simplicity and automation, Hostaway aims to give you full operational control.
This difference is particularly evident in the complexity of their features. Hostaway has deep guest communication and task management tools based on rule-based automation to standardize workflows. On the other hand, Hospitable focuses on how to manage operations at scale with trigger-based automation and bulk actions.
Hospitable: Who is it best for?
Hospitable works best for lone solo operators or small teams who want the benefits of automation without managing a large tech stack. It gives you access to essential features like guest messaging and property syncing while leaving more advanced tools as optional extras.
Part-time Airbnb hosts may find Hospitable an especially convenient option. The platform lets you off the hook for inactive properties, provided you have certain features enabled.
Hostaway: Who is it best for?
By comparison, Hostaway is most likely to suit medium to large vacation rental businesses. Its operations and analytics modules are designed to help you manage multiple properties and coordinate big, distributed teams.
Hostaway’s custom pricing model is also more suitable for large portfolios. Instead of paying an additional fee per rental property or for add-ons, you agree on a single monthly price with the provider. This makes your subscription costs more predictable and manageable, so they’re less likely to cut into your profits.
Why Hostfully is the best alternative to Hospitable and Hostaway
Although both platforms have their strengths, neither Hospitable nor Hostaway can sustain growth like Hostfully can. They can only take you from one level to the next, whereas Hostfully can support you from your very first vacation rental through to multi-property expansion.
Hostfully is the only vacation rental software to bring all the core features into one platform. Our solution includes the essential booking, property management, and guest messaging features, plus a website builder and digital guidebook. We let you manage operations without stitching together multiple services and subscriptions.
Our platform continues to grow alongside your vacation rental business, too. Where Hostaway involves a lot of complexity upfront and Hospitable may feel limiting as your portfolio expands, Hostfully finds a middle ground. Many multi-property features, such as the channel manager and owner portal, are available from our lowest cost plan, and we save the truly advanced tools, like custom engineering and full API access, for the top tier.
Plus, Hostfully keeps pricing simple yet flexible. Small businesses can start on a low, fixed monthly plan with all the essentials included and move to custom pricing as soon as they hit property number five.
Hostfully vs Hospitable vs Hostaway: A feature comparison
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Feature |
Hostfully |
Hospitable |
Hostaway |
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Centralized automation |
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Multi/stacked calendars |
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Booking pipeline |
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Proprietary guidebook |
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Channel manager |
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Unified inbox |
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AI assistant |
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Direct booking website builder |
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Accounting functionality |
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Owner portal |
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Messaging templates |
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Task management |
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Mobile app |
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Minimum contract period |
One month |
One month |
One month |
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Booking fee |
Zero booking fees |
1 – 4% |
1.8% |
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Property minimum |
One |
One |
One |
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Scalable pricing |
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Custom plans |
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Customer success manager |
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Direct integrations with popular booking platforms (Airbnb, Vrbo, Expedia, Booking.com, etc) |
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API |
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24/7 global live chat support (including weekends) |
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Real customer testimonials: Why businesses choose Hostfully over Hospitable and Hostaway
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“Get it if you’re looking to grow your business! Great team to onboard with and open office hours to answer questions between scheduled meetings with a dedicated specialist. There are so many great educational help articles and videos to learn the platform. Robust features, a lot of integrations (some are even free with using Hostfully, like Turno, so I’m already saving on my monthly costs since enrolling), and customizable, detailed owner reports that can automatically generate. Hostfully takes user feedback seriously and makes updates for a better experience when possible. There have been a few new features already since I started using the platform 6 months ago.” — Kelsey J |
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“A great experience over the nearly 4 years that we’ve worked together, with all Hostfully team members being helpful and kind. The customer support team is amazing, responsive, and always friendly. The platform itself has a great selection of integrations, and it is constantly expanding. The Hostfully dev team is constantly adding and updating things, and everyone always seems open to new ideas and ways of improving.” |
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FRB Rentals wouldn’t be what it is today without Hostfully. The PMP that keeps on giving! The Hostfully platform and especially the team have been a pleasure to work with. They are VERY responsive to anything the FRB Rentals team throws at them, be it a question, suggestion for improvement or a bug. Rich D, owner of FRB Rentals |
Switching to Hostfully is easy and seamless
Changing PMS is a major step. You may keep putting it off if you’re concerned about the possible disruption to your vacation rental management business.
Hostfully makes the transition easier by handling the process from start to finish. Our onboarding team takes care of migrating your data, reconnecting your integrations, and setting up your new account. If you’re moving from Hospitable to Hostfully, for example, we’ll help you rebuild your automation workflows so nothing gets lost in the switch.
Coming from Hostaway to Hostfully? If your contract’s still active, we can time your setup to avoid overlap and downtime, making sure the move fits around your existing commitments with as little disruption as possible.
Already picturing the move? Take the next steps with Hostfully
Book a personalized demo to experience the Hostfully platform firsthand.
