Air Bnb Pricing Tips Vs Beyond Pricing Tips - Questions on how to maximize $$:

[Em0]

Hi Folks!

I just had my first year annaversary as an air bnb host. I've worked hard to make sure my guests have a great stay and that's reflected in my 27 reviews ...all 5 stars!

Now that I have experience and reviews, I want to raise my prices. I've kept them consistent for the entire year (around 100.00 a night).

I live in NYC and rent out my entire apartment. I want to raise my prices to something still competative...but more lucrative for me/my efforts. 

Here are my questions:

1. Air bnb Pricing tips: Air bnb is telling me to raise my prices anywhere from 5-20$ per night over what I have now. I complied but I'm worried that now I'll get less inquiries and am relying on the bookings. Does anyone else use the tips and find them helpful? Has anyone raised their prices a la Air bnb price tips and found that their requests dropped? Conversely, did you raise them and see that people continued to book anyway?

2. I signed up for Beyond Pricing which claims it's customers make as much as 40% more with them then they set pricing on their own....I synced my listing with Beyone Pricing this evening and their system suggested that I set my price 5-10 LESS than what Air bnb is suggesting...Who should I listen to? Air bnbs pricing tips or Beyond Pricing? Obviously I want as much money as I can get for my apartment...but whose suggestion to go with? 

3. Beyond Pricing suggests that all the best bookings happen less than 30 days from date of arrival. I get that...but if I am to wait until last minuet, when I can charge more, what do I do about all the people who want to book well in advance? (people can book up to 3 months in advance for my apartment). If I keep denying renters it's going to negatively effect me (I'm trying to become a super host). Has anyone cracked that nut? How to do you hold out for last min. bookers with out getting penalized by air bnb for saying no to too many people in advance?

Thanks all!

Em

[Ed-and-Hugh0]

Each market, and each listing is different. You'll just have to get a feel for the high and low seasons, and set prices accordingly. Having the same price for high and low seasons doesn't sound like a good idea, but you can certainly give it a try. Each service, Airbnb, Beyond Pricing, Everbooked, etc. uses whatever data it has available, and does its own data mining using their own algorithms so they're likely to have differences. See what works best for you for each season.

[Joshua327]

Hey Ed . This is my first couple a months as a Airbnb host. I see we both host in the same city/state and I just wanted more trips on the trends in our shared market. 

[Marit-Anne0]

@Em0

NY must be popular for week-ends.  Perhaps have higher week-end prices ?

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

You should probably have a good feel for what an increase would look like, when you compare yourself to other  similar places... Or play around with your pricing and see what works best. Put the prices higher for alternative weeks a few months out and see if it makes any difference to enquiriries

[Brittany1]

I got a tip from a blog that has been helpful. It said to price from low to high according to date. Within 30 days should be lower to attract last minute bookings and the far out dates should be high to try to make up for the current low prices. It also said that if you are getting more than 50% booked for the dates that are far out than you are probably priced to low.

We have tried pricing companies like beyond pricing. They made me nervous become they increased our prices so much that it was feeling unreasonable. There is also the issue of guests giving you low stars for value. So I have continued to work on prices by myself. I do look at the price tips Airbnb provides and I know what our competition is and what they are priced at.

I can tell you from experience that the best bookings DO NOT happen within thirty days. It is very risky to price high when you are trying to fill your month last minute and make an income. Our best bookings happen months in advance. You will get a feel for what works for you.

[Stay-Asheville0]

Is beyond pricing like smart pricing?

[Alex209]

Hi Em,

i do t have much to add to the conversation other than I think the best thing for you would be to use smart pricing, charge more on the weekends, and increase the price during the high season or when there's an event.

I actually have a question I was hoping you could answer. I also love in New York City and was curious about the what your experience has been like. I'm getting more requests than I can Hadel right now, but I don't know if I should expect a low season sometime soon. I assume they exist but in your year of hosting have you noticed which months are "hot" and which months tend to have very little activity? Your answer would be much appreciated!

[David-and-Victoria0]

Hi. We find Airbnb pricing tips a joke. We live right outside of Glacier National Park and the suggested pricing in the summer is WAY to low, like half of what we get and the quiet winter season is way too high, nearly 1/3 to 1/2 too much. We don't follow them at all. We were booked solid in June, July and August (all but a handful of nights over the summer) with three different rooms.

[Melissa221]

Totally agree with you about the pricing tips during high season.  I set my own prices during high season (summer and winter).  That said, I use Airbnb price tips during low season.  My reasoning is that some business is better than no business.   I tend to get longer stays in low season as prices are so low it looks like a bargain.

According to my cleaning company, this strategy seems to work.  Out of all their clients, I get signifigantly more business than anyone else.

[Mari98]

yes, i agree to this. I live in a small town in Norway and AirBnB's price suggestions is way way to love for me to even make money on the listing. Its not worth it. I also just pay attention to the competition, ( not that many) and price from there. You have to stay on top of the game. I will say I am the best listing in my area, but Im not located in the center of town so I will get the people who got a car. Its many factors that play a role. Location, small or big city etc...  Take a look at my listing here: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6143848

[Betty124]

Mari!  Your BnB is darling!  I would love to stay there.   I may decide to make a trip to Norway just to enjoy your listing!   Good job!

Betty

[Rory18 · Accepted solution]

I have compared BP to SP on airbnb and the suggested prices by airbnb are just so off the wall compared to BP. I have used BP for a year now.. Hardest part is determining your "base price" but basically take your last 4-6 weeks of bookings, average out your average nightly rate for confirmed reservations (*exclude cleaning and any other fees you may charge b/c BP nightly prices do not account for those extra fees).

Let's say you calculate you've been getting bookings averaging $150 per night. BUt what's more important is taking into account how often you are booked. if you book every single night you are way too low. If you don't get alot then obviously you need to lower your price. BP has the perfect chart to help you pick the best baseline price:

So, every so often or when i notice my bookings are too frequent or slow down I look at this to determine how much I hsould increase or dec. my base price. i.e. if the next 14 days I am booked 70% during that period I shouldn't change a thing. However... let's say over the next 28 days I am booked only 30% of the time--- read the chart, it suggests lowering your base price 19%.  As you can see this is very easy to understand and it WORKS i love it. I'd probably pay 5% of my earnings for this instead of 1%. 

The key to making the most money is obviously pricing right but TURNOVER. the more turnovers you have the better. I flip my place on average every ~2 days. I offer 0 discounts for week or monthly stays--- you do not want to ever offer discounts. BP has a blog about these things explaining why. 

- think about the turnover point tho, if you are like me and clean yourself ( well I used to, but I still make $40 every clean---$100 fee, 60 goes to my house keeper and I pocket the $40 extra. you flip your place 10 times a month you just made an extra $1000 bucks! or in my case, $400 extra. --- there is one more really good reason to have very high turnover rates---check BP blog. 

Lastly, BP provides you with numerous really helpful and interesting stats... updates prices 2x a day, which makes your listing higher up in search results b/c airbnb thinks you are contantly updating your profile --and they claim "active" hosts are easier to find in seach results. One of my fav things is that BP even ha a breakdown for every single day why it picks the price it does

i.e. I have a 2-day vacancy---tues-wed next week. it will take my base price, and subtract say.. 26 bucks b/c "2 day vacancies are difficult to fill) --- seahawks home football game raise the price $60 bucks or w/e because "local event is causing demand to rise" 

Beyond Pricing is a lifesaver I swear by it. In just this last year I made nearly 3x more than my mortgage cost for the year. 

[Joe323]

Hey Rory - 

Does BP allow a way to automating pricing updates (e.g.: update the price 2x a day by increasing then decreasing $1?)

[Matthew285]

@Joe323 why do you want to do this?

I think Beyond Pricing does an *actual* update of pricing every day, adjusting pricing as circumstances change.

(I use Wheelhouse, which does an actual pricing update every 24 hours.)

(By the way, if you are hoping that adjusting the pricing 2x a day will increase your ranking the in search results, the AirBnB search algorithm people have explicitly said that making constant changes does nothing to increase your ranking.)