Loading...
Loading...
Category: Tech & Automation
By: James Wu
Reply by Heather Barnes:
I've actually A/B tested all three because I'm that kind of nerd lol. Here's what I found. PriceLabs (https://pricelabs.co) is what I ended up sticking with. $20-30 per listing per month, flat fee. It gives you a ton of control — you can set up custom rules for all sorts of scenarios, view neighborhood-level market data (not just city averages), and the orphan day management is genuinely great (more on that below). It takes longer to set up because there's so much to configure, but once it's dialed in, it's the most precise tool out there. My properties saw about 18-25% more revenue vs when I was doing flat pricing myself. Beyond Pricing takes 1% of your booked revenue instead of a flat fee. The pitch is "set it and forget it" — you turn it on and their algorithm handles everything. And honestly, it works reasonably well if you don't want to think about pricing at all. But that 1% adds up fast. On a $40k/year property that's $400 vs PriceLabs at maybe $300. And you get less control over what it's doing. My properties did about 15-20% better than flat pricing, so slightly less than PriceLabs but with way less effort on my part. Wheelhouse has a free tier which is actually legitimately useful if you're just starting out. Their paid plan is $20/listing/month. The educational dashboard is cool — it explains WHY it's pricing things the way it is, which helps you learn. But in my experience the data's not as deep, especially in smaller markets outside major metros. Results were more like 12-18% improvement. For your 3 properties, PriceLabs is the move. The flat fee keeps costs predictable and the granular control pays dividends as you learn what works in your specific market. The math is pretty simple: even a modest 15% revenue increase on a $30k property is $4,500 more per year. PriceLabs costs you maybe $300-360. It pays for itself in about 2 weeks.
Reply by David Okafor:
One thing to add: **PriceLabs' orphan day management is a game changer.** An "orphan day" is a single unbooked night between two bookings. Example: booking on Mon-Wed, then booking Fri-Sun, but Thursday sits empty. PriceLabs detects orphan days and automatically drops the price to incentivize filling them. You set the rules: "If only 1 night is open between two bookings, drop price by 25%." Before PriceLabs orphan day management: I had ~15 orphan days per month across my portfolio = ~$1,800 in lost revenue. After: I fill about 60% of orphan days at a discounted rate. That's ~$650/month recovered. Over a year: $7,800 in revenue that would have been $0. Orphan day management alone justifies the PriceLabs subscription.