3rd Party Pricing Tools

[Joe539]

Hello All,

I'm doing research on 3rd party pricing tools such as BeyondPricing, Pricelabs, Wheelhouse, etc and I would like to know if any hosts on here use them and have had success. I'm a little skeptical about using these because there are a few nights in the spring/summer where they suggest I charge up to $153 a night! That's more than double what the Airbnb Smart pricing suggest I charge. Don't get me wrong... I would love to charge that much however I'm uncertian that someone would actually book that night at that rate. To make sure this was legit, I did a search on the Airbnb site for those exact dates and I'm priced WAY higher than other units that are simlair to mine (1 queen bed/entire house/sleeps 2).

Since I'm doing trial memberhips with two (Beyondpricing & Pricelabs), I'm noticing that some nights vary upwards to $20 between the two. I understand two different  companies = two different algorithms but I just wonder how accurate and reliable their data is for projecting prices. 

Since I've been hosting, I've been using the smartpricing tool Airbnb offers and my place is constantly booked. Of course, the 3rd party folks are saying that could be an indication that I'm priced too low.  My average is about $80 per night. Really considering using one of the 3rd parties but modifying their prices so that my price is competative with simialir listings. 

Would love to hear other experiences! 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Joe539

why would you use third party pricing suggestions ?????

You are the owner, you should know the prices in your own town , in your own neighborhood, in certain time of the year. It depends of your competitors, your location, your interior design, events in your area, season and many other factors. Who can know it better then you?

Airbnb smart pricing is a joke, everyone will tell you the same. Just to give you one example - once I was suggested to lower my price to 6€ / night even though the minimum price we can set on Airbnb is 10€ 😄 😄 And whatever price you set Airbnb will suggest you to lower it for few €.

Another example - Zagreb is well known Advent destination and it is very hard to find a room for weekends in Zagreb but Airbnb suggest us extremly low prices. Airbnb doesn't know what is going on in Zagreb, for them December in Europe is low season so they suggest low prices. Period.

Browse through Airbnb and find your competitors, see what they offer at what price and then set your prices accordingly. If you are fully booked 1 month in advance this means your prices are WAY to low.

[Jennifer-Rae0]

The lack of seasonal pricing on AirBnB drove me to use Beyond Pricing.  I jsut started using the tool and am impressed with how they automatically know the events in the region.

I live in Switzerland and there are at least 15-20 villages within 10km that all have their own events, which is hard to keep track of.  Wine festivals, music festivals, local village fairs.  And the year would start creeping up on me, I would see a booking 7 months in advance that was booked at a rate much lower due to Smart Pricing. And then go, duh, that is the jazz festival in a village 7km away.  We have too many to keep track of.

so I turned SP off and was left doing craploads of analysis, manual price changes and it was taking too much time.

So far I like BP as I can still set the lowest rate I would take, it adjusts the price for high volume times and seasons. It allows you to increase and decrease pricing in time frames, like when in the next 10 days lower the rate by % to get occupancy levels up.

I am lookin gat WheelHouse now, just to see the difference.  I have been using BP for over a week and will use it for a month to see how it is working out for me.

Good luck!