How to create an Airbnb pricing strategy. With changing travel trends in your area, it can be a guessing game. If you are looking to save time? Earn more? Increase occupancies? Then let me break down how using a pricing tool can help you as a host!
As an Airbnb Ambassador who helps hosts onboard the platform, a question I am often asked is “what should my nightly rate be?” Knowing the ‘magical number’ of your nightly price can seem like a mystery. You don’t want to go too low and leave money on the table, and you also don’t want to be overpriced…which leads to lowered guest value reviews. I’m happy to share this knowledge with all hosts and help you decide on a pricing strategy that works hard for you and your profits!
Airbnb Pricing Strategy Tip #1 – Research your area
If you are doing your own static pricing just using the Airbnb or VRBO platform, look at what at least 5 other similar properties are pricing at. You will need to look deeply at their calendars in both the peak and low seasons to gauge how they are pricing their vacation rental. Then, look at your own monthly costs, and find a price that is worth your value, yet still competitive.
Research every potential event that would bring in more visitors to your area. These can be yearly events such as festivals, concerts, university graduations, football games, etc. The tourist board of your town may have a list of these events on their website to make it easier. Write down all of these dates and manually change them to the highest price to not miss out on booking at a lower price. Even if you have the most beautiful apartment or house in the neighborhood if you don’t price it comparatively, your chances of getting more bookings will decrease.
Airbnb Pricing Strategy Tip #2 – Lower prices a week or few days in advance
This is something you will need to do manually. If it’s Monday AM and your Airbnb is not booked over the weekend, try lowering the price to attract any last-minute bookings. The price you set for your home should never be the same throughout the year. Make sure you offer attractive weekend rates to travelers for giving them an incentive to stay with you during the week. When you lower your price even a few dollars a night less than your competitors, then your changes or getting booked are higher.
But, going into your calendar daily to research and change your prices can be time-consuming and feel like a guessing game, right? The main problem with static pricing is that it either leaves a lot of money on the table during the busy season or vacancies remain too high during slower demand.
Airbnb Pricing Strategy Tip #3 – Use an automated & data-driven pricing tool
Dynamic pricing takes out the tedious guesswork, uncertainty, and stress caused by static pricing. Beyond is a revenue management platform for short-term rental managers and owners to get, grow and keep revenue. Their mission is to help hosts succeed in a new era of data and insights. It’s a great way to increase revenue and occupancy rates with data-driven pricing.
How does Beyond’s dynamic pricing tool work?
Beyond uses real-time, hyper-local market data to maximize your overall revenue by booking at the best price at the best time. Airlines and hotels have been doing this for decades, and they are here to help apply the same concept to your vacation rental! Each day, Beyond’s software automatically push suggested nightly rates to Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, or your property management software. They do this based on factors that change demand in your market, like seasonality, day of the week, and local events. Amazing right?
How does dynamic pricing work differently than static pricing?
Dynamic pricing has the ability to meet demand – automatically increasing or decreasing the price of your listing based on historical and real-time data, all done on a daily basis. Therefore, dynamic pricing reacts in real-time to make sure you are maximizing revenue and occupancy. Beyond integrates seamlessly with Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Escapia, Streamline, SuperControl, VRM, and more!
Who is it for?
Any short-term rental manager or owner can sign up to use Beyond’s platform, whether you’re a homeowner with one or two properties or a professional property manager with hundreds of listings. Beyond prides itself on our customer support, industry expertise, and market-leading algorithm. Beyond is ranked as the leader in the vacation rental software category according to user reviews.
Beyond customers have seen:
• 12% higher occupancy rate
• 21% more reservations
• 15% more revenue
Is there a free trial?
Beyond offers hosts a 30-day free trial. Simply test out the tool and you won’t be charged. You can see if it works and increases your bookings and profits. No credit card is required to get started which is always a win-win! You can learn more here & I hope this helps to bring you more bookings and profits to your STR!
