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Category: Pricing & Revenue
By: Heather Barnes
Reply by Michael Thompson:
This is a common dilemma. Here's the standard approach: **Same price on Airbnb and VRBO** — Both platforms have rate parity clauses that technically require your price to be the same (or the same total cost to the guest). Violating this can get your listing suppressed in search. **Lower price on direct bookings** — Neither Airbnb nor VRBO can see your direct booking prices. This is where you offer the discount to incentivize direct bookings. My setup: - Airbnb & VRBO: $180/night (same) - Direct booking: $160/night (11% discount) After fees: - Airbnb: I receive $174.60 (3% fee) - VRBO: I receive $165.60 (8% fee) - Direct: I receive $155.36 (2.9% Stripe) Wait — I actually receive LESS on direct? Yes, in this example. But direct bookings have no OTA service fee for the guest (so it looks cheaper to them), I own the customer relationship, and repeat bookings are 100% mine. Use a channel manager like Hospitable (https://hospitable.com) or Guesty to sync pricing across platforms with per-channel adjustments.
Reply by Tasha Williams:
One additional strategy: if VRBO takes 8% and Airbnb takes 3%, you can raise your VRBO price slightly (5-8%) to equalize your net revenue. VRBO doesn't require strict rate parity with Airbnb — they just require you don't advertise a lower total price on your own website in a way that undermines their platform. In practice, many hosts charge $10-20 more on VRBO to account for the higher commission. Guests searching VRBO are often comparing within VRBO, not cross-referencing Airbnb.