Pricelabs vs Smart Pricing - lose the ability to promote?

Question

HI all!

I run a 1br STR in beautiful Ojai, California. We're consistently 85%+ occupancy and #1 ranked for 1person and 2person stays. I'm also listed on VRBO and booking.com, but not getting much action from either, but that is another story. https://airbnb.com/h/themeinersdaughter

I've recently begun experimenting with hosting platforms (hospitable), ranking (rankbreeze), and pricing (pricelabs).

So far I'm not seeing much advantage to Pricelabs vs smartpricing, other than pushing pricing to VRBO and booking.com.

My questions:

1) Is it a proven fact that pushing pricing changes to airbnb via hospitable positively affects rankings? It seems like airbnb would prioritize its own pricing engine?

2) With pricelabs/hospitable, I believe I lose the ability to use the Airbnb promotions feature, which I've used successfully in the past to promote and book the gaps in my calendar. Has anyone A/B tested this? Seems like running a promotion on Airbnb, with their associated badges and notifications, would be more effective.

Potential combo - use pricelabs / hospitable for intelligent pricing on vrbo / booking.com, and turn on smart pricing and use promotions on Airbnb (thereby breaking the pricing connection with hospitable)

Open to any feedback or insights!

Many thanks. -Tim

Alyssa Dyer · Answer

I swapped to PriceLabs a couple months ago. I was hesitant, I didn’t really want to spend money when airbnb has a free smart pricing option built in. Similar to you, I also used airbnb’s promos.

I did the free trial on PriceLabs and revenue had a small uptick. I decided to sign up when the trial was over because they don’t require a long term contract. Revenue stayed high (and increasing) so I’ve continued to use it. It’s not a magic bullet and I didn’t make A TON more right away.

I log in every Sunday night for 5-10 minutes and adjust settings slightly to keep it dialed into the market. So it’s not a one and done. But I was constantly looking at airbnb pricing so that doesn’t bug me.

You mentioned airbnb still running promos and it combining with PriceLabs. Totally true. I had that bite me on a couple long term stays where discounts were layered. Not a big deal and easy to correct. But you might considering adding some restrictions while you’re getting used to the changes.

Let me know if you have any specific questions, I'm happy to help if I can!

Zachary Cain Humphrey · Answer

I would avoid smart pricing feature from air bnb as it seems its only goal is to drop your prices in order to obtain bookings (air bnb primary concern - not your profit). Price labs is great. But I think the best option is organic adjustment you personally make as you know and learn your own market. But Price Labs is great once you learn how to use it as a tool.

Riley Schaefer · Answer

Pricelabs 100% is the way to go!  I do believe they charge per location now, which is a downside unless you are only operating in one market.

Timothy Hogan · Answer

Hi @Ryan Moyer - I should have been more clear. It was a reference to hospitable.com and their previous branding smartbnb, where the listing appeared more active and favorable because of price updates.

However, hospitable.com also has said their updates do not influence rankings, which brings my question more directly:

Airbnb clearly wants hosts to use Smart Pricing - and I do not see a meaningful difference in the results of SmartPricing vs Pricelabs.

So the question is whether the minimal differences in the pricelabs algorithm are effective other than pushing to VRBO and Booking.com, and worth potential negative algorithmic effects on Airbnb.

Tim

Ryan Moyer · Answer

Regarding #1, where are you even getting the theory that hospitable/pricelabs are supposed to increase ranking relative to Airbnb smart pricing?

I don't think that's the end goal at all with using pricelabs.  Pricelab's advantage is that it is a much more robust pricing tool with many more options to customize your pricing/stay length algorithmically and better algorithms to find the right price.  I've never seen it claimed that it increases rankings in Airbnb's search algorithm.

Timothy Hogan · Answer

May have answered my own question. From Hospitable.com support (who are super helpful)

"Those promotions will never display on Hospitable.com or PriceLabs. You won't be able to see them there. We will only ever show the price that PriceLabs sent us.Then when we send that to Airbnb, we will still only send the price from PriceLabs. So let's say you have an orphan night and you have a promotion on Airbnb for those (let's say a 15% discount). If PriceLabs sent us $200 for that night, we will send that to Airbnb. Then, when a guest goes to book that date, they should see $170. The same applies if you have promotions set up on Booking.com."

Tim

Pricelabs vs Smart Pricing - lose the ability to promote?

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