Comparison · Structured data · Sourced
Guesty vs Hostaway: short term rental platforms, not property management systems
Read this first, because it is the whole point of the comparison. Guesty and Hostaway are holiday let and channel management platforms. They are classified as short term rental, not property management. Neither does lease management or service charge accounting, and a long term letting agency would not buy either of them. Our data is careful here: lease management and service charges are recorded as unverified rather than absent on both, because no source states that either product lacks them, so we make no lease accounting claim either way. What we do say, editorially, is that neither is a substitute for a long term property management system: there is no tenancy administration, arrears and compliance workflow or lease machinery, so a residential or commercial letting business cannot run on them. If you came here looking for a property management system, this is the wrong pair and you should be comparing Buildium, DoorLoop, TenantCloud or a commercial product like Re-Leased instead.
What these two actually do is hospitality operations. Both verify unit level listing records, channel management, an owner portal, reporting, a mobile app and a documented public API. Both make direct API channel connections rather than iCal feeds their headline claim, which is the core defence against double bookings: Guesty to Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and a wider OTA set, and Hostaway to Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Expedia, Google and Marriott Homes and Villas with a multi calendar view. That, not accounting depth, is the axis that matters for a short term operator.
Last reviewed 7 November 2026
The products
Guesty
Guesty
Short term and holiday rental management platform: channel management across Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and other OTAs, unified guest inbox, multi calendar, dynamic pricing, guest payments and an open REST API. It is a hospitality operations tool, not a residential or commercial property management system.
Full profileHostaway
Hostaway
Vacation rental and short term rental management platform combining OTA channel management, a unified guest inbox, dynamic pricing, direct booking websites, owner statements and an open REST API. It is a hospitality operations tool, not a residential or commercial property management system.
Full profileThe main differences
Only Guesty publishes a figure, and it is narrow. Guesty Lite is 9 per listing per month, described as a starting price and applying only to one to three listings, with a lower annual billing rate that is not quantified. Pro is quoted and Enterprise is a customised offer, so most professional managers get no public figure at all. Add ons including PriceOptimizer, Damage Protection and LocksManager are priced separately with no figures published, and the Guesty Ultimate bundle claims a 40 percent saving without stating a price. Currency is an inference, not a fact: the Guesty pricing page prints a bare dollar sign and never names an ISO currency, so the US dollar reading comes from it being a US facing page. Guesty states it charges no percentage based fee on direct booking reservations or cancellations, but standard payment processor fees apply. A 14 day trial is offered on Lite only, with no trial stated for Pro or Enterprise, and there is no free version; freemium labels beside some guest messaging features in the comparison table do not amount to a free tier.
Hostaway publishes nothing at all. Its pricing page carries no currency, no plan names, no minimum monthly fee and no per listing rate. It groups buyers into listing count bands of 2 to 14, 15 to 49 and 50 or more, routes enquiries through a three step form, and sends single listing operators to a separate page. It states nothing about a trial or a free version, so both are unverified. Review aggregators do publish per listing figures for Hostaway; they are not vendor sourced and are not recorded here.
On openness, Guesty is the more verifiable. It publishes documented Open API material with OAuth 2.0, webhooks, a Postman collection and guides for calendar, accounting and reservations management. Hostaway announced a public REST API at api.hostaway.com covering listings, reservations and calendar, but the documentation page could not be opened directly, so the API is recorded on the strength of the vendor launch announcement and endpoint scope beyond those three areas is not asserted. Hostaway does name QuickBooks connectivity on its homepage, and records owner statements with templates and automated delivery plus a direct booking website builder for operators trying to reduce OTA commission. Guesty verifies accounting; Hostaway accounting module scope is unverified.
Side by side
| Attribute | Guesty | Hostaway |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Guesty | Hostaway |
| Primary use | Short-term rental management | Short-term rental management |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Organisation size | Small, Medium, Enterprise | Small, Medium, Enterprise |
| Licensing model | Commercial | Commercial |
| Free version | No | Not verified |
| Trial | Yes | Not verified |
| Published price | USD 9 per listing per month, Guesty Lite tier, 1 to 3 listings only | Contact vendor for pricing |
| Product status | Active | Active |
| Capabilities | ||
| Mobile app | Yes source | Yes source |
| Documented API | Yes source | Yes source |
| Listing and channel management | Yes source | Yes source |
| Reporting | Yes source | Yes source |
| Document management | Not verified | Not verified |
| Tenant portal | Not verified | Not verified |
| Owner portal | Yes source | Yes source |
| Inspections | Not verified | Not verified |
| Maintenance requests | Not verified | Not verified |
| Accounting and general ledger | Yes source | Not verified |
| Service charges and recoveries | Not verified | Not verified |
| Rent collection and payments | Yes source | Not verified |
| Lease management and renewals | Not verified | Not verified |
| Tenant management | Not verified | Not verified |
| Portfolio and unit management | Yes source | Yes source |
| Last reviewed | 7 November 2026 | 7 November 2026 |
| Profile | View profile | View profile |
Not verified means the capability has not been checked for that product. It does not mean the product lacks it. Blank cells and unverified rows are never counted as a "no".
Strengths and limitations
Drawn from each product's own profile, where every item is labelled a verified fact or an editorial judgement.
Guesty
Read the full assessmentHostaway
Read the full assessmentWhich to choose
If you run short term lets, pick on pricing visibility and channel set. Guesty is the only one of the two you can price at the small end: 9 per listing per month for one to three listings with a 14 day trial is a real entry point for an operator with a handful of properties, and the documented API with webhooks and a Postman collection is the better bet if you intend to build around the platform. Be aware that the published figure stops at three listings and that the page never names a currency, so do not quote it in a budget without asking which currency applies. Be aware too that Guesty pages contradict each other on channel coverage, saying 60 or more listing channels in one place and 70 or more booking channels in the FAQ, so get your required channels confirmed by name.
Hostaway is worth a conversation if your priority is reducing OTA commission and reporting to owners. The direct booking website builder, owner statements with templates and automated delivery, and the named channel set including Expedia, Google and Marriott Homes and Villas are the concrete reasons. Accept that you will learn nothing about cost until you fill in the form, and that the vendor is heavily growth funded and expanding fast, with AI features the most prominent and most recent part of the marketing, so trial the newest modules rather than taking the demo at face value.
And if you run a mixed book, with long term tenancies as well as holiday lets, do not try to make one of these do both. The honest answer is two systems: a property management product for the tenancies, where lease administration, arrears and compliance live, and one of these for the short term inventory, where channel parity and guest messaging live. Nothing in the verified evidence for either product supports running a long term letting business on it.
Frequently asked questions
No. Both are short term rental and channel management platforms. Neither offers tenancy administration, arrears and compliance workflow or lease machinery, so a residential or commercial letting business cannot run on them. We record lease management and service charges as unverified rather than absent, but the positioning is unambiguous.
Guesty Lite is 9 per listing per month as a starting price, for one to three listings only, with an unquantified annual billing discount. Pro is quoted and Enterprise is customised. The page prints a bare dollar sign and never names a currency, so the US dollar reading is an inference. Add ons are priced separately with no figures published.
Hostaway publishes no figure anywhere on its own site. Its pricing page gives only listing count bands of 2 to 14, 15 to 49 and 50 or more and a three step enquiry form, with no currency, plan names, minimum fee or per listing rate. Aggregator figures exist and are not vendor sourced, so we do not use them.
Guesty is the more verifiable: publicly documented Open API with OAuth 2.0, webhooks, a Postman collection and guides for calendar, accounting and reservations. Hostaway announced a public REST API covering listings, reservations and calendar, but the documentation page could not be opened directly, so scope beyond that is not asserted.
Sources and review basis
Attribute values come from each product's structured profile rather than being written into this page, so a correction made once appears everywhere. This comparison was last reviewed on 7 November 2026. Assessment of this category is documentation-based, not hands-on testing of every product.
- Guesty pricing accessed 7 November 2026
- Guesty Open API documentation accessed 7 November 2026
- Hostaway pricing accessed 7 November 2026
- Hostaway API v1 is launched accessed 7 November 2026
Disclosure
Alongside advisory work I also build a CMMS and CAFM platform, so I have a commercial interest in enterprise software generally. No vendor here has paid for inclusion, placement or wording, and there are no reseller or affiliate arrangements.
Deciding between these?
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