Pricelabs vs Smart Pricing - lose the ability to promote?

[Timothy Hogan]

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]

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!