Pricing Calculator

[Michele1372]

Nothing has hurt my bookings or caused me more angst as a host than the destructive strategy of removing the calculator that allows hosts to see the exact guest payment and the exact host payout when multiple prices are used over a series of days.  Is there a plan to reinstate?   

[Shelley159]

Hi @Michele1372 

Select multiple nights on the calendar. Click the price block that pops up. Right at the top, after clicking the price, you'll see the date range and "Guest total". When you click that it gives all the detail.

BUT

for some bizarre reason that I cannot explain, we're not able to see this if the nights have a custom promotion. It just tells you that you have a custom promotion.

When is this pricing detail required most of all? Probably to see the impact of a promotion, right? 😬😶

[Joelle43]

Totally agree @Shelley159!  I am experimenting with custom promotions at the moment and really needed to see this information and instead I get a pop up saying i use a Custom Promotion! Well I know that of course!

As you say, I can't select several dates to see the price paid by guests so my only option is to go into guest mode - long way round and of course this increases artificially my number of views to boot!

Please can we have someone from the tech team who is a host themselves to try out all these tweaks so that they can  better understand that all these changes are making our lives so much more difficult and weren't needed in the first place.🙏

[Shelley159]

@Joelle43 I don't even know what "views" really means. If it means someone was on a page that my listing was on, then I estimate about 95% of my listings' views are from me! 😆🤣

That's  because I always look at my custom promotions from guest view due to this strange programming error.

To be fair, I have the option to go to the Listings tab and click "view" there, which I'm certain won't count as an actual view. But I always figure that I have to check the price anyway, so I may as well check how the listing ranks as well.

Another new curveball: if you add the top-rated guest promotion, you don't see that price anywhere. So each time you look at a guest total, you have to also think "someone could pay 15% less than that" and grab a calculator.

Ideally the price details should show

1) For promoted nights as well (there's no reason why it can't) and

2) Have a line item showing the host payout if a top-rated guest books (for listings that have that discount turned on)

[Joelle43]

Hello @Shelley159 

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one looking to see how we rank in a search as I too fear that a lot are coming from me too🤣 I  was referring to the views that we see under Promotions on the regular calendar and that tell us the number of views that our custom promotion has received along with the number of bookings  (although that information does not seem to be working as I received a booking but it's not showing up here🤔)

Are we certain that when we use the "View" option in host mode,  it doesn't count in our number of views under Pro Tools?!  And if we have put our listing in our favourites along with our competitors,  I'm pretty certain that this is counting towards our number of wishlist additions?  What do you think? 

So you've gone with this Top rated discount of 15%?!  Interesting to see if your bookings increase and if your listing really is put forward by the algorithm as a result.  Am I right in thinking that Airbnb throw in an additional 5% to the hosts discount or did I dream that up?! 

[Shelley159]

@Joelle43 

I'm fairly sure using the host-dashboard viewer in the Listings tab won't count as a view, because only the host can use it (although I have no proof).

Yes the view counts on custom promotions can be strange. From what I can tell, they only update once every 24 hours (just my observation from using it for ages, again no proof).

In custom promotions I fairly often see something like "0 vi.ews, 1 booking", which seems odd. I guess such a night was booked by someone whose actions didn't trigger a new view - perhaps they had it saved on the wishlist, or entered directly from Google?

I'm trying the Top-rated guest discount now in my off season (although people can book any dates). I want to see if it helps to keep the general low season rates a bit higher (to reduce the chance of bad guests), while making it cheaper for better guests. I did increase all my prices before adding it - I don't want to lose 15% on the entire high season. I'll keep adjusting as I go.

You can't search in private mode and see the rank boost, because the price won't show the 15% discount. You need to look on someone else's account, who is a top-rated guest, to see where you rank. BUT because you can't use private mode, all their personal history affects where you rank on their account 😖

So it's really a lost cause because it's all so personalised now. But yes, it does look to me like listings with the 15% discount definitely do rank higher for top-rated guests.

[Michele1372]

Is it possible to move the concerns about the "views" to another thread?  They are certainly valid, but I am hoping to get some visibility for the calculator being removed.  And, I agree every time we have to use the traveler view in order to calculator our pricing (super inefficient) it hurts our algorithm.  Thank you so much for your understanding!

[Michele1372]

Hi!  Thank you for your response.  Your solution only works if every night is the same price.  If there are multiple prices within one week for example, the pricing calculator does not work.  And, you are correct it does not work with a promo either. Super frustrating.