Airdna Review: Is It Worth the Money?

Are you looking for online real estate tools to use for your investment? This AirDNA review will help you decide if the platform is right for you.

Investing in rental properties is one of the best ways to earn lucrative returns from real estate investing. If you’re planning to invest in one, you’ll need to find a good online tool that can help you decide whether a particular rental property will make a good investment. One of the most popular real estate platforms among investors is AirDNA.

Table of Contents

1. What Tools Do You Need to Succeed in Airbnb Rental Investing?
2. What is AirDNA?
3. Mashvisor vs AirDNA
4. AirDNA vs Mashvisor: Is Mashvisor Better Than AirDNA?

In general, AirDNA is an online tool that aims to help real estate investors when it comes to investing in short term rentals. According to AirDNA’s website, the platform is a data and analytics provider focusing on the short term rental industry. It provides tools that are necessary to help investors find investment opportunities and research market trends.

AirDNA also claims to help short term rental owners optimize their vacation rental listings. The company offers a number of tools and solutions, but you need to pay for a subscription to be able to access such tools. Before you decide to subscribe to AirDNA, it’s important to know the source and reliability of its data and how much it costs.

So the question is: Is AirDNA really worth it? In this AirDNA review, we will take a closer look at how the AirDNA platform works and what it can offer versus what you need as a real estate investor. We will also discuss what you can and can’t do using AirDNA, and how the website compares with Mashvisor in terms of the tools that both platforms offer.

What Tools Do You Need to Succeed in Airbnb Rental Investing?

Before we go deeper into how the AirDNA platform works and what it can do to help real estate investors succeed, first, you must know what you need to be profitable in real estate investing. After all, if you want to find an online platform that can help you with your investment journey, it’s crucial to know exactly what you’re looking to get from the tools you’re paying for.

There are a number of online tools that most real estate investors use or may want to use. Some use platforms that help them find investment properties for sale, while others use tools that analyze the market to tell you which areas are worth investing in. Other tools include calculators that allow you to run the math and see how your investment fares in the long term.

Before you buy any vacation rentals for sale, you need to know if the property is worth investing in. You also need to find the right short term rental market to buy into, since not all locations are optimal for vacation rental investing. In general, there are several things that you should do first to ensure that you’re making the right investment decision. 

However, doing such things manually, on your own, can take a lot of time and energy—not to mention that it can also be prone to errors that may lead to wrong decisions. This is where real estate investing tools come in handy. With the right platform that offers the best tools and investment solutions, you’ll likely find the right investment property in no time.

The tools that you need to succeed in short term rental investing should be able to help you: 

Find the Right Short Term Rental Market

Finding the best short term rental markets is a vital first step in making a successful vacation rental investment. Whatever real estate investing platform you choose, make sure that it offers a tool that can help you find the right market to invest in short term rentals. Keep in mind that not all locations are ideal for investing in vacation rentals, so this tool is really useful to get started.

Before you choose a platform to use, make sure to review how the tool to help you find the best location works. The best platform lets you view the best short term markets based on different metrics, including the short term occupancy rate, cash on cash return, and rental income. Being able to do so makes it easier to find which market is worth investing in based on such metrics.

Find the Most Profitable Investment Property

After finding the best short term rental market to invest in, the next tool that you should look for is the one that can help you find the best investment property available. When looking for a real estate platform to use, make sure that it provides you the ability to search for listings from a wide selection of databases. 

The best real estate investing software allows you to easily search for properties based on your preferred location. Also, it should allow you to customize your search and filter the results according to your other preferences. The filters include budget, property size and type, income, and other metrics. 

Analyze the Property’s Profitability Potential

Once you find a few investment properties that you consider buying, you should be able to analyze their profitability potential. You should look for a platform that can help you find accurate real estate data about the property, including its comparable rental income and anticipated expenses. It allows you to calculate how much you can possibly earn from the property.

Usually, the tool is presented as an investment property calculator, which allows you to compute the property’s income potential using different metrics. The best short term rental calculator should be able to provide all the necessary data that you need and compute various metrics for more accurate results. 

Compare Rental Strategies

Even if you are planning to buy vacation homes for sale, it would still be nice to see how the property will perform as a long term rental versus as a short term rental. A platform with a tool that allows you to compare the two rental strategies can help you see a general overview of your possible returns using different strategies. 

By seeing side-by-side your potential income from the property as a short term and long term income, you can easily determine which rental strategy is optimal for that particular property. It will also tell you if you need to find another investment property that is better suited to your preferred investment strategy. 

Price Your Short Term Rental Correctly

The short term rental industry is a seasonal business. There are times when the demand is high, but there are also instances when the demand is scarce. It can be detrimental to your profitability if you don’t know how to price your vacation rental properly. To be a successful short term rental owner, you need to know how to set the right rental rates based on the season.

Some short term rental investing platforms offer dynamic pricing tools that can help you price your vacation rental correctly. During peak seasons, it’s expected that your rental rates are also high, given the high demand from guests. But you should also know how to adjust your rates during the low seasons so you can attract renters despite fewer demands from guests.

What is AirDNA?

AirDNA is a short term rental analytics platform that can be used to analyze and compare Airbnb and VRBO rentals to help investors make informed decisions. Founded in 2015 by an experienced data analyst and Airbnb host, AirDNA was established with the goal to track the performance of competitors. 

Where Does AirDNA Get Its Data?

According to a few AirDNA reviews found online, the two main sources of AirDNA’s data are scraped from Airbnb and VRBO. While AirDNA gets its data mostly from Airbnb’s website (which Airbnb makes public), a small amount of the AirDNA data comes from vacation rental business owners. It partners with Airbnb channel managers, property managers, and hosts to get some data.

Here is how the AirDNA data sources work:

• The data scraped from Airbnb and VRBO covers over 10 million listings in around 120,000 short term rental markets worldwide.
• AirDNA features “Matching Algorithm”, which accounts for duplicate listings on both Airbnb and VRBO. 
• According to some reviews, the feature prevents exaggerated analysis and reflects the actual performance of vacation rentals.
• Another feature that AirDNA uses is the “Booked vs. Blocked Methodology”, which analyzes reservations.
• The booked days are those that are reserved and paid for by guests—this is taken into account for the analysis. The blocked dates, which are reserved by the hosts themselves, are not part of the analysis.
• AirDNA also collects data from partner channels, managers, and hosts. It involves around 1.1 million short term rental listings and is based on actual reservations.

Is AirDNA Data Accurate?

In terms of capabilities, AirDNA is focused on the analytics aspect of short term rentals. It can help investors analyze specific properties that they’re interested in. It also lets the investors compare them with a small number of other similar properties located within the area. However, the accuracy of its data can play a significant role in the effectiveness of the analyses.

So, is AirDNA data accurate?

According to the AirDNA website, its data accuracy for the supply of active vacation rentals is estimated to be 97.5% as per CBRE. In addition, the data for earned revenue is around 96.2% accurate. While the figures are pretty high, some AirDNA reviews from actual users report issues regarding the data accuracy of AirDNA.

One very big downside is that AirDNA updates its rental database on a monthly basis. This makes it very unreliable for active investors who want to be able to analyze and make their decisions on the spot. After all, some investors don’t want to have to wait until the beginning of each month to see up-to-date and accurate real estate data.

It also means that AirDNA’s usage peaks at the start of each month, but declines dramatically over the remainder of the month because the data becomes more and more outdated. Keep in mind that outdated information is as good as imprecise and can be erroneous. So, if you’re asking yourself, “how accurate is AirDNA?”—the answer depends on the time of the month. 

Other than the analytics side, AirDNA is lacking many tools that are a necessity for most real estate investors. Tools such as a mortgage calculator, long term rentals analysis, and other types of investment properties are not available within the platform. Such tools, or the lack thereof, can significantly affect the analytics results.

How Much Does AirDNA Cost?

AirDNA is known for having what many users may perceive as an unsatisfactory pricing model for an online platform of this type. While users can use the very basic versions of MarketMinder and Rentalizer tools for free, the platform does not offer a full-access free trial period. Worse, AirDNA tied its subscription fees to the size of the market that you want to search through.

The main tool that most AirDNA users subscribe to is the MarketMinder service, which allows investors to use an interactive map to browse Airbnb listings in their area. However, the bigger the area you want to browse your listings, the higher the subscription fee the system charges.  

It means two things:

• You’ll have to pay more if the market you’re interested in is large
• You’ll have to pay extra for each additional market that you want to search through

Unless you’re absolutely certain about the market that you want to invest in, AirDNA’s cost can be too steep if you want to search several markets and optimize your search to find the perfect real estate market to invest in short term rentals. This kind of pricing is one of the reasons why AirDNA doesn’t get that many good reviews from users. 

AirDNA charges monthly subscription fees per tool per market, and the pricing will significantly depend on the size of the market that you want to access. 

AirDNA Pricing

Let’s take a look at how AirDNA sets up its pricing—the amount varies depending on how big an area you want to access, such as follows:

• Neighborhood: Starts at $12 per month
• City: Starts at $12 per month
• State: Starts at $179 per month
• Country: Starts at $299 per month
• Global: Starts at $599 per month

Note that the prices mentioned above are only the starting amount. They can still go higher, depending on the tools that you want to include with your subscription. Also, users like advanced investors, property managers, lenders and underwriters, financial services, and tourism managers can request custom data with customized pricing. 

Can You Use AirDNA to Find Properties for Sale?

Are you a real estate investor looking to find an investment property for sale to generate a passive income and help you grow financially? If so, then you will definitely need more than just a tool to analyze each property.

Every real estate investment starts with the most important step: searching for the right investment property for sale. In this section of our AirDNA review, we will find out if the platform allows its users to search for properties for sale.

While the AirDNA platform sets its pricing according to how large the area you want to search through, searching for a short term rental property within the platform is not as easy as it should be. It can be a bit frustrating for users, especially those who paid a high subscription fee just to access a larger area.

To put it short, AirDNA doesn’t provide the best tools required to search for short term rentals for sale. In fact, an online review states that the platform doesn’t let investors to search for profitable opportunities using their website’s database.

How Does AirDNA Help Investors Find Investment Properties?

AirDNA does not allow investors search for listings on their platform. Instead, it lets you enter the address of a property that you’re interested in, and the tool will give you investment insights about that location and the property. You’ll see an overview of the property’s potential returns as a short term rental based on similar properties in the same area.

While it is useful for analyzing specific short term rentals that you’re already aware of, it lacks the ability to help new investors understand the overall market. As a beginner investor, you will need access to more data about each market and get familiarized with the available inventory, as well as the different price ranges that exist within that market.

Being able to see different available properties for sale in the area allows you to compare which investment property will provide better returns. You’ll also be able to understand the market trends better. Unfortunately, AirDNA doesn’t really offer much use in that regard. It is for this reason that many AirDNA user reviews are not happy about the platform. 

In fact, actual reviews from existing AirDNA customers found on the TrustPilot website show that a high percentage of users are not satisfied with its services. As per the review site, AirDNA only got an overall score of 3.4 stars out of 5 stars.

Mashvisor vs AirDNA

AirDNA, as an online platform, is effective at what it does—despite the fact that it lacks some important features that will help investors make profitable decisions. As a smart investor, you should know how to navigate around the platform’s shortcomings and cover the gaps by using other tools to make the most out of AirDNA.

However, since this AirDNA review is aimed towards beginner investors in particular, it’s important to talk about better alternatives that can offer the same uses as AirDNA and so much more. The best alternative to AirDNA is a platform that also provides much more in terms of features, flexibility, data accuracy, and additional uses in general.

When it comes to making an accurate rental property analysis, investors can’t go wrong with Mashvisor. While this review is focused on AirDNA, we will compare the features offered by AirDNA versus those of Mashvisor to see which platform is the best for both new and seasoned investors. 

What Is Mashvisor?

Similar to AirDNA, Mashvisor is a real estate investment platform designed to help real estate investors of all levels make more educated and calculated decisions. Mashvisor aims to provide the necessary information to help investors eventually succeed in their real estate investments.

The platform offers a wide selection of tools that cover all the needs of a beginner real estate investor. In fact, even seasoned real estate investors still find Mashvisor useful because the platform helps save them time and energy. With Mashvisor, you won’t need to do your own research and you’ll be able to analyze properties in a matter of minutes.

From the steps of searching for a proper investment market and finding the right property to analyzing the market and comparing properties—Mashvisor is the best investment partner for you. The platform will help you all the way to the final steps of your investment, including hiring an agent and closing the deal.

Mashvisor vs AirDNA: Data Accuracy

When it comes to the quality and quantity of data, Mashvisor enjoys a clear advantage when compared to AirDNA. Many user reviews from Mashvisor show satisfactory results because of Mashvisor’s data accuracy, relevance, and frequency of updates.

In fact, in addition to getting data from Airbnb directly, Mashvisor gets most of its data from the MLS. It means that when using Mashvisor, you will be gaining access to data that meets the MLS quality standards: tested and proven accurate, up-to-date at all times, and with historical records.

Additionally, Mashvisor’s database gets updated much more frequently. What’s more, it includes data not only for short term rentals but for long term rentals, as well. It allows investors to make easy comparisons as to which rental strategy is best for a particular investment property. 

Finally, Mashvisor’s data also includes off market properties, foreclosed properties, and properties listed for sale by owner. It gives the user more comprehensive market data and lets them to see how the market is performing as a whole instead of only for short term rentals.

Mashvisor vs AirDNA: Finding Properties for Sale

Not only does Mashvisor provide a larger and more diverse set of data, but you will also be able to search for properties based on several criteria. It enables you to find the perfect property for sale in the market that matches your preferences.

With AirDNA, you’re only able to search for properties with addresses that you already know. In contrast, Mashvisor’s search engine allows you to search for properties across the entire market. 

Property Search and Property Finder Tools

You can also filter your search based on the following:

• Location (State, city, neighborhood levels)
• Property type (Single family, multifamily, condo, apartment, etc.)
• Price range
• Preferred financing method (cash or mortgage)
• Minimum number of bedrooms
• Minimum number of bathrooms
• Airbnb rental income
• Airbnb cash on cash return
• Airbnb cap rate

It will show you properties on the map that are available for purchase based on the criteria you set using the available filters. Of course, you will also be able to see each property’s analytics (such as projected cap rate, cash on cash return, occupancy rate, rental income, cash flows, and expenses. You’ll also see each neighborhood or city’s medians.

If that’s not enough, you can also use Mashvisor’s Property Finder tool to find properties for sale based on your criteria (price, type, number of rooms). You can search for properties across the entire country, or in specific states, cities, or neighborhoods. 

The results will show you a list of all properties that match your criteria, listed in descending order based their projected return on investment. With this, you can easily find the best property in your preferred location, according to your preferences.

The property search feature of Mashvisor is one of the reasons why the platform gets better user reviews than AirDNA. In fact, on the Trustpilot review website, Mashvisor shows an overall user rating of 4.7 stars out of 5, which is significantly higher than AirDNA’s 3.4 stars.

Mashvisor vs AirDNA: Rental Property Analytics

Since AirDNA is a tool that mostly focuses on short term rental analytics, we shouldn’t underestimate its analysis prowess when it comes to such types of properties. The short term rental analytics is the part of this AirDNA review that has the most pros. After all, the data analysis that the tool provides is sufficient to help short term rental investors make smart decisions.

The downside, of course, is the inconsistency of the data based on the time of the month, as well as the difficulty of finding properties for sale that you want to analyze. Also, while rental property analytics is where AirDNA and Mashvisor have the most in common, it is also where Mashvisor has the biggest advantages over AirDNA.

Simply put, both AirDNA and Mashvisor provide similar levels of depth when it comes to short term rental analytics. However, Mashvisor’s analytics cover long term rentals as much as short term rentals, and that makes a massive difference.

Since Mashvisor’s data includes both short term and long term rentals, it means that using Mashvisor allows you to compare both rental strategies side by side. You will be able to not only see how each property is likely to perform using each rental strategy, but you will also be able to see which one suits you best.

Mashvisor vs AirDNA: Investment Property Calculator

Similarly, both platforms offer a rental property calculator that allows you to run the math on startup costs and recurring expenses. The investment calculator also lets you compute the property’s rental income and other metrics of returns to see what the projected ROIs are for each property.

However, there is one more tool that Mashvisor offers that Airdna doesn’t: the mortgage calculator.

A mortgage calculator is very important when analyzing rental properties because the mortgage payments will probably be your biggest recurring expense. Therefore, taking the mortgage into account is essential as it is one of the biggest factors affecting your rate of return. Based on various Mashvisor reviews, users find the mortgage calculator helpful in projecting returns.

Additionally, Mashvisor’s mortgage calculator allows you to choose from different types of mortgages, the duration of the mortgage, and its size. It also allows Mashvisor to compute the cash on cash return for each property in addition to the cap rate, giving investors more flexibility and additional insights.

Want to see how Mashvisor works? Start your 7-day free trial now to access Mashvisor’s tools and services.

AirDNA vs Mashvisor: Is Mashvisor Better Than AirDNA?

To find out which platform will better serve your real estate investing needs, check out the following video:

AirDNA Review: Is It Worth the Money?

The short answer is: It depends on your needs.

Based on this AirDNA review, the platform offers a limited amount of data for free. However, AirDNA’s tiered pricing model can be a huge drawback, especially if you want access to the tools you need. In fact, many user reviews don’t like AirDNA’s paid subscription setup.

The pricing model of AirDNA means beginner investors will need to pay a steep price if they’re unsure about the market in which they want to invest. Also, every time they decide to look for a new market, it will cost them a considerable amount of money.

Mashvisor, on the other hand, offers more diverse subscription plans, depending on the use that you want to get from it. As a beginner investor, it is significantly more affordable to use Mashvisor for searching and analyzing properties nationwide. Plus, the higher plans offer additional perks that are ideal for more advanced and seasoned investors.

Overall, whether you’re a beginner investor or a lifelong short term investor, Mashvisor is much more worth the money considering what it offers in return compared to AirDNA.

As a follow-up to this AirDNA review, schedule a demo today with Mashvisor to learn more about its helpful features.