how much for this Vacation Rental Software?

Dose anyone knew how much for this software? I can not find any price on the website.

Thank you!

Hi Freeman611,

There is no price right now. The service is entirely free while we work through the public beta phase.

The eventual price structure will be a flat rate per month or per booking. For instance:

1) $30-40 per month for 1-5 properties, tiering up after that per property.

2) $5 per booking with no monthly rate. So if you have 3 bookings this month, you'd be charged $15 at the end of the month.

Which of those two models do you like better? Or should owners be allowed to pick either model?

Thanks for joining,

Sam

I clicked into this because I am about to streamline my booking procedure anyway but it's not looking very promising right now.

1) There is no way I would ever pay $35 a month. I probably average 3-4 bookings a month, that is with 2 units (a duplex). In the high season, we have guests stay a month or more. In the off season we have at most 50% occupancy, either way that is not many bookings a month. $5 a booking might be possible if it saved me a bunch of time over my current method of using email and Word.

2)The underlying assumption of your default rates is that rates are constant throughout the year. This is not the case for us. I used to have 9 different rate periods, although I am now simplifying to 7. And each of these periods have different weekly rates, monthly rates, may not allow less than a month during certain rate periods, etc. I am not sure if this could ever be accouted for, but the software would have to be many times more complex.

3) But even disregarding all that, the real deal killer is the apparent necessity to maintain a seperate calendar. If you can't use the homeawayconnect (formerly rentalo) calendar, then the need to update and maintain an additional calendar makes it pointless. I can certainly understand why you couldn't use the homeawayconnect calendar but we dropped all of our rental websites except homeaway, vrbo and vacationrentals.com (all owned by homeaway now) in large part because now we only have to worry about the accuracy of one calendar.

It's a pity because the advantage would be that you could, in theory, type the guest name, period, and rate only once and generate all documents (we use three - holding reservation, rental agreement, and confirmation) error free,

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the feedback.

On number 2...

We do support multiple rate periods throughout the year. You can set as many as you want. Here's how...

Open your Properties (here's the direct link: https://app.ownerrez.com/properties) and click on the property you want to adjust. Click the Rates menu. Notice the "Rate Overrides" section underneath the Default Rates? You can add as many as you want.

Here's more about it in a blog post: https://www.ownerrez.com/blog/rate-overrides-for-seasons-or-specific-dates

On number 3...

It is not possible to support the HomeAwayConnect calendar system (the calendar that fuels all the HomeAway sites) because HomeAway does not allow 3rd party integration. They have a 'property manager' mode that allows some integration but a) it's very limited and b) it only updates the HomeAway.com website specifically, not the other HomeAway sites (VRBO, VacationRentals, GreatEscapes, etc).

We have spent a fair amount of time talking with their development team, and we foresee adding that integration in the near future. It is one our biggest goals because so many owners use that calendar.

You can find other software vendors that advertise "supports HomeAway calendar" but they do not actually support in the way you would want them too. I have only ever seen one vendor support it such that you can actually keep your listings up to date across all sites, but the method they use goes against the HomeAway official terms of service by emulating a user's account when logging in. Again, that is expressly forbidden by HomeAway.

I am new to this vacation rental "Business" and not knowing if my property will rent more than once a month, or once a season or... at all. I believe that a fee PER RENTAL or transaction is preferable and will not scare potential customers (us the property owners) away.

For someone who doesn't get many bookings the 5$ per booking is great, sometimes i get no bookings sometimes 3 or 4 per month. But mostly people book from June to October only.

I too would vote for the per booking fee. I think this will make you very competitive.

David

Greg, I just wanted to let you know we now integrate with the HomeAway Connect calendar. Any booking that is added, updated or deleted/canceled in our system is now updated in almost real time (a 5-10 minute delay) to your HomeAway Connect calendar.

Read more about it here:

https://www.ownerrez.com/blog/new-calendar-synchronization-for-homeaway-vrbo-and-the-gang

Hope that helps,

Michelle

A a manager I prefer a flat fee, providing a choice of FF or PB would be a great move on your part and allow you to capture business from both owners of a single property and owners / managers of multiple properties.

I see you went live today. Congratulations!

So that I understand, we will begin to incur expenses, if not using your merchant account, starting next month? Since you have a trail period of a week, correct? So, any bookings made from July 5th on?

Thanks,
Claudia

Claudia, thanks! It's been a long time coming. We feel like we're a "real product" now instead of just a hobby that we were passionate about. Yes, you nailed it - existing users have a 7 day trial, after which the first month begins. New users still have a full 30 day trial ~Sam

Claudia,

You beat me to it! I was going to post on this thread to alert the watchers.

You can see the overview pricing here:

https://www.ownerrez.com/pricing

You can see a personalized pricing page in your account here:

https://app.ownerrez.com/account/billing/plan

Active beta users will also get a 25% lifetime discount on their bookings fees, which is mentioned on your personalized pricing page.

-Michelle

That's great news - I am thinking about moving over to your merchant account from the one I have been using. The site state:
"All merchant accounts have fees, based on Interchange rates. Our banking partner's fees are within the industry average at 2.95%. No other setup, annual, monthly or gateway fees are charged. Just a flat rate of 2.95%."

Is there somewhere that I can see all the terms and pricing (i.e. non-qual transactions, PCI compliance, etc (before I go through the trouble of signing-up?

Thanks,
David

Hi David,

I will email you the paper version of the application so you can see the rates page.

There is no extra fee for non-qual, foreign, PCI or any of that. No monthly minimum, no gateway, no annual, no setup. There is only a flat rate of 2.95%.

At the end of the month, you'll get a statement showing how much you processed and 2.95% of that will be deducted from your bank account.

Lately we've been dealing with an issue known as FANF - a new fee that Visa has leveled at everyone in the industry in response to the Durbin amendment, which hurt Visa and helped MasterCard. But even that fee will not be charged to you. If it shows up, our banking partner will credit it back.

Again, only 2.95% of whatever your gross processing is.

Look for an email from me with the application and T&C.

-Michelle