Smart pricing

[Tony2200]

Hello All,

Just asking your view about turning on smart pricing. Would it help attract more bookings?

Any one have success stories about it? Just started few months ago. 

[Shelley159]

In my experience (which may differ somewhat based on location) one needs to set the smart pricing minimum price at the cheapest you're willing to accept during the entire availability window @Tony2200 

Rather use discounts to go lower on specific dates - if you set the smart pricing minimum low, smart pricing will tend to generate a low price.

The Airbnb search algorithm is very price-sensitive, so if smart pricing generated high prices, listings that use smart pricing would not place well in search results. Instead, it suggests a price that will look good to the search algorithm on those particular dates. This isn't always in line with host expectations.

For me, smart pricing works best when you set the minimum high enough to be happy with that price, use discounts where you worry you won't get booked, and only rely on the upside of smart pricing (on those popular dates that get priced higher than your set minimum). Keep in mind that the higher you set the minimum, the smaller the chance that some nights will be priced higher.

[Tony2200]

Thank you so much Shelley. It definitely shed lights. Cheers

[Joan2709]

@Tony2200 

We don't use Smart Pricing as it's not very Smart.

I suggest to my Host clients to use a dynamic pricing software like PriceLabs that does a much better job. 

@Shelley159 has been able to workaround some of the Smart Pricing limitations by setting her min price relatively high and then using custom promotions to reduce the price in off-peak season. 

No pricing software including Smart Pricing is ever set and forget. You have to monitor it. There is definitely less monitoring required with PriceLabs vs Smart Pricing.

[Tony2200]

Thank you Joan. I will check the PriceLabs. Cheers

[Sharon1192]

The smart pricing seemed to low. I did do a trial of Price labs and did learn more about Dynamic pricing, Smart pricing always went way to low. Now Airbnb does have Price tips, have you seen that button when you go look at the calendar at the top? Its more like Price labs, it shows your current prices and recommended prices for all your dates. I have played with a few of those and selected only the ones I wanted to try. Im newly experimenting with it myself, it did bring some of my price labs prices down but it seemed Price labs was often very high in my case or too low, but I learned more about how to guage my own market with the time I did use it better.

[Joan2709]

@Sharon1192 

With PriceLabs you need to tweak your Base Price and don't enter a Max Price. That seems to work for most Hosts.

[Sharon1192]

@Joan2709 yes agreed, I was referring to airbnbs "smart pricing" not Price labs. Price labs I did set a base price but they wanted me even lower then that and I had to ignore their recommendations, if I listened to their system recommends also, but yes you can set your low price point. 

[Joan2709]

@Sharon1192 

Yes...can't recommend Smart Pricing...it will always price the listing too low unless you do what @Shelley159 does and make the min price higher and then customize with promotion discounts.

Those clients who use PriceLabs have had to tweak their min and base price the first few months in order to get where they need to be. Always good to pick some competitors with similar listings and see what they are doing.