Searching for vacation rental software free? There are a number of great tools that help you take control of your vacation rental property. VacationRentPro is one option, and it’s one that’s worth learning more about before you make a purchasing decision.
This is the ultimate guide to help you find the best vacation rental software that is also free. Plus, with this overview of my top picks, you’ll be able to compare the differences between each software. Whether you’re looking for free Airbnb management software or a free vacation rental management software then you’ve come to the right place. If you’ve ever tried doing your own vacation rental website, then you’ll know that it can be a pain at times. I’m not saying it’s impossible to build your own website. While building your own vacation rental software may be a little tricky, it is certainly something you can do if you’ve got some programming experience.
But the real problem when creating your own software is that there are just so many different moving parts. You have to reduce the risk of future liabilities & damages from lawsuits. And — importantly — you have to make sure that it looks good. Elevator pitch for a new product idea you’re working on? Are you a short-term rental business owner? Even if you are renting out your own condo during your time off, the performance of your booking software is important. I’ve seen problems with vacation rental software in the past because business owners didn’t know what to look for. If you want to achieve efficiency from your vacation rental software, here are a few suggestions.
Vacation rental software can be a huge help to you as an owner or manager of a vacation rental. It allows you to run your entire business from one central place, making life much easier on both you and your guests. Here are some features that come with vacation rental software:
Rental Management Software
Rental Management Software is software that allows you to manage your vacation rental business. You can use this software to manage your reservations, marketing, guests, payments and even accounting!
I have used Rental Management Software for years and it has helped me grow my business tremendously. It’s so easy to use and it takes the guesswork out of managing my vacation rental business.
Manage Your Reservations
To manage your reservations, you can use the built-in calendar and reservation management features to keep track of all of your reservations. The software will automatically suggest a billable rate based on the length and number of days requested by each guest. You can also add additional information about their stay (such as room type or meals) to make sure that your guests are getting exactly what they paid for.
Once you have set up your payment options and created a policy for cancellations, we will automatically generate an email confirmation when guests book their reservation with us!
If there are any changes or updates needed after this point in time, our team is here to help! We offer 24/7 customer support via phone call or email so that no matter what questions arise during their stay—you’re always ready with answers!
Automate Your Marketing
- Automate your marketing campaigns. With the help of an automated marketing system, you can get more out of the time and money you put into your marketing efforts.
- Create automated email campaigns. You can use automation to create emails that send automatically based on events such as someone visiting a specific page or signing up for a newsletter. The benefit is that you save time by not having to manually create new emails every time there’s something new to announce or remind customers about in your business.
- Use social media automation platforms like Hootsuite and Buffer to schedule posts for later publication and publish them when it’s most convenient for you—or when certain conditions are met (like posting only images during lunch hours).
Guest Messaging
All of the above-mentioned features are customizable to your needs and preferences. You can even use it to send messages specifically to guests, owners, staff and vendors. And if you need more flexibility than that, give us a call—we’ll work with you on an individual basis!
Booking Website with Channel Manager
A booking website is a great way to get started with your Airbnb business. With a booking engine, you can accept bookings directly from the channel manager and avoid the costs associated with hiring a third-party service or merchant account.
There are numerous channel managers out there that allow you to set up your own booking software for free or at low cost. One of my favorites is Channel Manager by Booking System Software because it integrates well into most existing websites, has all of the features one would need in order to run an efficient business, and it’s completely free!
Accounting & Payment Processing
There are two aspects of accounting and payment processing that are essential for your business:
- Accounting: You need to track expenditures, income and payroll expenses.
- Payment Processing: You need the ability to accept credit cards from guests and manage the payments securely.
You can integrate accounting software with vacation rental software by providing an API (application programming interface) or using an existing integration tool. In addition, you can use a separate payment gateway service provider like Stripe or PayPal to process payments through your website – this is also called a checkout funnel integration in marketing jargon.
Reporting and Analytics
If you want to know how your business is doing, analytics are the key. Vacation rental software helps owners manage their properties, but it also gives them access to analytics and reports that can help them improve their vacation rental business.
Here’s a look at some of the ways analytics can help improve your vacation rental management:
- Visitor information
You can see where visitors come from, what pages they’re looking at and how long they stay on your website. This will allow you to tailor content for specific markets or regions and make changes if there are any problems with site performance. You’ll also be able to identify which channels and types of advertising bring in the most traffic so that you know where future investment should go!
- Content performance analysis (CPA) tools are available as add-ons within many platforms, allowing users access to valuable insights about how effective their content marketing efforts have been thus far — including lead generation metrics such as clicks through rate (CTR), page views per visitor ratio (PVR), average time spent per visit metrics etcetera – all broken down by various demographics such as age bracket or gender category etcetera…
This software allows you to run your entire vacation rental business from one central place.
If you’re looking for free vacation rental software that takes care of your entire business, this is it. It allows you to manage your marketing, reservations, accounting and payments from one central location. The software also allows you to manage your calendar, pricing and guest messaging from one place. Lastly, the platform allows you a single point of entry into all of your tools: channel manager, website builder and reporting dashboard.
Guesty
As one of the most well-known companies in the vacation rental technology space, Guesty offers a lot of value to short-term rental owners and managers who are looking to take their businesses to the next level. The company has generated a lot of buzz, having graduated from the Y Combinator startup incubator and raising nearly $60M in funding (including a $35M series C investment in 2019).
Guesty offers all of the standard property management system functionality: a multi-calendar, a messaging tool, and reporting and analysis tools. The system also allows you to set up multiple user accounts with different access levels, create automated message templates and tasks (charging the balance of a reservation on the day of arrival, for example), and manage your listings’ content and photos from one central place. Guesty pushes rates, availability, content, photos, fees, and policies to its direct integration channels, so you don’t need to update this information on each channel individually.
Lodgify
Based in Barcelona, Spain, Lodgify offers a beautiful property management system that’s user-friendly and functional. The multi-calendar works well for multiple units, and it’s easy to input reservations manually. The customer service team is always friendly and quick to respond (you can even take advantage of personalized onboarding support), and the company maintains a robust library of resources and blog articles.
Unique features: Lodgify’s website builder is one of the best in the market. The tool includes several templates so you can quickly drag and drop widgets and add your own custom text. You can even add videos, maps, and custom code.
iGMS
iGMS is a reliable mid-tier VRMS that works particularly well for those who manage properties on Airbnb. Their free plan supports up to four properties, which is ideal for those who manage their own vacation properties. While functionality is limited compared with the paid plans, most features will work for Airbnb listings.
With the free plan, customers will have access to the following features:
- Automated Airbnb messaging
- Channel manager
- Pricing control
- Multi-calendar
- Team management
- Unified inbox
- Task management
The biggest iGMS drawback is that there’s currently no direct booking website feature, which many other software tools have. However, this drawback doesn’t negate how helpful their free plan is for those who host properties on Airbnb.
Smoobu
Smoobu is a vacation rental management software with over 70,000 active listings. It’s an affordable mid-tier solution with a free plan that includes features like a reservation system, a website subdomain, and statistics.
There are no setup fees or commissions charged per booking. The tool is quite easy to use and has a streamlined dashboard to keep track of things. There are nowhere near as many included features as there are in the iGMS free plan, but if you need the ultimate basic tool and plan, it’s worth considering.
What are the Benefits of Vacation Rental Software?
Although property management systems do come with a subscription fee or commission, that fee is far less than what it costs vacation rental managers in time and lost bookings when trying to complete those same tasks without them. From the moment you set up your system and sync all of your channels, you can rest assured that you won’t receive a double booking or lose a reservation in the shuffle. These systems also allow vacation rental owners to automate many operational tasks from bookings to guest experience. For example, you can configure check-in templates to be sent automatically before arrival. You could also set up automated text messages for your cleaning staff to alert them when you need a new cleaning. Many property management systems also offer a booking engine, which lets you easily accept direct bookings with major credit cards and other mainstream payment methods to rely less on the online travel agencies.
Conclusion
The Vacation Rental Software Free is a tool that will help you manage your business. It allows you to automate your marketing, organize and send direct messages to guests, book reservations in one place and track all of them from one central dashboard. You can also save time by keeping track of your accounting and payments in real-time. All this makes it easier than ever before for you to run a successful vacation rental business! Airbnb is a new way to travel and stay, but there’s more than one way to profit from this popular service. And while Airbnb offers its own management tools, they’re not free. Learn how you can use free alternative software to control your vacation rentals and bookings with ease. The vacation rental software market is so competitive that some companies are offering free software in an effort to get the attention of prospective customers. With so many features offered for free, it is hard to compare products.
Plus, there are a number of companies that give you a free trial or offer coupons to offset the initial costs as customers try out their software. If you offer your guests any sort of service, you have to be able to always have constant access to your online booking software. In case you are offline for just a couple of hours, all the bookings will be canceled and new reservations will not be possible. This is a big mistake and even if your website goes down for 2 minutes, you will lose the client if it is not working when she needs it most.