As an Airbnb pricing tool, is PriceLabs effective? Is it actually worth getting? Read on to find out.
Table of Contents:
- What Is PriceLabs?
- How Does PriceLabs Work?
- PriceLabs Reviews: What Do Users Have to Say?
- PriceLabs Alternatives: Other Airbnb Pricing Options for Real Estate Investors
- Wrapping It Up
One of the challenges of starting an Airbnb business is setting reasonable prices. Offering reasonable prices allows a vacation rental owner to remain competitive in a highly competitive market. The right prices attract potential customers, especially if they see that the price is actually worth it.
For this reason, investors and short-term rental owners rely on pricing tools and apps. This is where a pricing tool like PriceLabs comes in very handy. But among the different pricing app options available, just how good is PriceLabs?
In this article, we will look closely at what PriceLabs offers to real estate investors, especially those who are in the short-term rental business.
What Is PriceLabs?
Setting the right prices for an Airbnb business is one of the key things to ensuring its sustainability and longevity. An overpriced rental property will most likely turn away potential guests. On the other hand, short-term rentals that have below-market rental rates are most likely to end up very expensive to maintain.
PriceLabs is one of the few truly effective revenue management tools available for vacation rental properties. It gives owners of Airbnb and other similar rental properties fairly accurate pricing estimates in their respective markets. The platform’s data-driven approach helps vacation rentals generate higher revenue in far fewer hours than normal.
How Does PriceLabs Work?
Real estate investing is made easier, especially for those into short-term rental properties, with pricing tools like PriceLabs. The work is made easier by eliminating long hours of doing the old-school way of research and analysis.
It usually takes anywhere from several weeks to a few months to conduct a thorough real estate market analysis. Going on foot or driving around looking for rental comps in a large real estate market takes more effort. It is why utilizing AI-assisted pricing tools definitely helps cut down on precious time.
As a dynamic pricing software, PriceLabs analyzes both historical and booking data to come up with pricing recommendations. Upon subscribing to its services, vacation rental owners get the benefit of quality Airbnb smart pricing at affordable prices.
It doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. It does come with its share of areas for improvement, but overall, it is a decent pricing tool for Airbnb investors and hosts.
As a smart pricing tool, PriceLabs updates an Airbnb owner’s calendar with market-accurate pricing using different variables. The PriceLabs pricing tool makes daily automated updates to a vacation rental’s rates to ensure it remains competitive.
Short-term rental owners can connect their properties to PriceLabs easily. Once connected, the intelligent pricing tool analyzes each property and makes recommendations based on several factors. Owners can also control the algorithm according to their market knowledge and investment strategy.
How Much Is a PriceLabs Subscription?
As a pricing tool, PriceLabs offer a lot to its subscribers. But how much is PriceLabs? Is it worth investing in?
For what it offers its subscribers, a PriceLabs subscription is relatively inexpensive. Portfolio analytics do not cost a dollar. Not a single penny. All you need to do is add your listing, and you’re good to go.
Use of the Market Dashboards will cost you $9.99 a month, while its Dynamic Pricing feature costs $19.99 monthly. Potential subscribers get a 30-day free trial for one listing for both PriceLabs Market Dashboard and Dynamic Pricing features.
Those interested in trying it out can get access to PriceLabs Airbnb pricing for 30 days for free. No credit cards are required to sign up for the free trial.
The monthly rates are flat and free from hidden charges. And should you feel unsatisfied with their services, you may cancel your subscription at any time.
Its simple and affordable pricing makes it attractive to vacation rental owners and hosts.
PriceLabs Reviews: What Do Users Have to Say?
Since PriceLabs is one of the more popular Airbnb pricing tools in the market today, let’s find out what people have to say about it. The following PriceLabs review is based on customer feedback from different review sites like TrustPilot and Capterra.
Overall Ratings
Overall, PriceLabs gets a 3.5 out of 5 rating on TrustPilot and 5 out of 5 from Capterra. Most users agree that overall, it is a good product for its price point. It’s by no means perfect, but its products and services are worth every penny you’re paying for.
Price
PriceLabs is one of the most affordable pricing tools on the market, given its flat monthly rates of $9.99 and $19.99 for its Market Dashboard and Dynamic Pricing, respectively. Its 30-day free trial and cancel-anytime feature are enough to lure in potential subscribers and interested rental property owners.
Integrations
One of the things PriceLabs is proud of is its association with most major vacation rental channels. It comes with over 50 integrations, including Airbnb, Vrbo, and Houfy. It is also integrated with other smaller platforms, such as HostAway, Guesty for Hosts, Eviivo, Avantio, Hospitable, and HostHub.
If your PMS is not yet included in their list, you may fill out the appropriate form and PriceLabs will reach out to your PMS.
Dynamic Pricing
PriceLabs uses different market variables in coming up with recommended daily rates for short-term rental investment properties. Some of the factors it considers are the following:
- Hyper-Local Data
- Seasonality
- Market Trends
- Events and Holiday Peaks
- Customization Options
- Airbnb Comps
Market Insights
The pricing app also utilizes Airbnb automated dataset and market trends to provide investors with the right information for better decision-making. It includes setting up the right prices and stay restrictions, both of which are highly important in starting a rental property business.
Customer Support
At the moment, PriceLabs only offers email support. However, most of its subscribers and users pleasantly report receiving very prompt responses in their inbox within a few hours. Plus, PriceLabs also ensures you don’t miss their email address by posting it in several places.
PriceLabs Alternatives: Other Pricing Options for Real Estate Investors
Airbnb rates play a very crucial role in the success of an Airbnb rental. On top of the strict standards and requirements found on the Airbnb website, investors also need to ensure their rental rates are fairly competitive. They can either keep you fully booked or mostly vacant.
Knowing what other rental properties are going for will allow investors and hosts to come up with competitive prices to keep their properties in demand. The Airbnb occupancy rate is also directly correlated with its daily rates. For this reason, setting the right prices is a game-changing element for short-term rental investors.
While PriceLabs is a fairly decent app for its price point, there are other similar apps that can somehow give it a run for its money.
1. Mashvisor
Mashvisor is a real estate app that specializes in traditional and rental property data analytics. It maintains a huge database that covers almost every market in the country. It helps thousands of investors find the best deals on both traditional and Airbnb properties.
As an investment tool, Mashvisor gives its users access to a regularly updated database and real estate investing tools that allow them to make accurate projections on return on investment. Its Airbnb calculator is one of its most helpful tools that lets users conduct rental market analysis to get the most optimum rates for their rentals.
Compared to PriceLabs, which mostly only offers pricing services, Mashvisor gives investors more bang for their buck with tons of services and tools that make investing easier.
Some of Mashvisor’s most notable features are:
Property Finder
The Property Finder tool allows users to look for the best short-term rental properties in any market. Once a location is entered, the site then gives you a selection of different properties to choose from. Its filters give you easier search customization options for faster and more focused searches.
Real Estate Heat Map
The Real Estate Heat Map is one of Mashvisor’s most popular tools to date. Its color-coded regions show which neighborhoods are performing exceptionally well and which ones are performing poorly based on the filter used.
Green areas show higher percentages (property prices, monthly income rates, occupancy rates, and cash on cash return), while the red ones show locations with lower rates.
The tool gives an investor a deeper insight into the market they are considering investing in. For those who are wondering how to invest in real estate, obtaining this type of knowledge at the onset will help you make wiser investment decisions.
Mashvisor’s Real Estate Heatmap allows investors to gain a deeper insight into a specific real estate market.
Investment Property Calculator
The real estate website’s investment property calculator is designed to make calculations a lot easier for both experienced and first-time investors. Using the calculator allows you to make accurate projections by performing a rental market analysis, as well as an investment property analysis.
To learn more about how Mashvisor can help you find profitable vacation rental properties, schedule a demo today.
2. Beyond Pricing
Perhaps the most common comparison between Airbnb smart pricing tools is PriceLabs vs Beyond Pricing―and for a good reason. Both are pricing tools that give investors relevant information for vacation rental rates. Using one of them can significantly boost your monthly Airbnb revenue.
Subscription Plans
Like its direct competitor, Beyond Pricing offers a 30-day free trial to interested (and prospective) subscribers. And just like PriceLabs, you don’t need a credit card to sign up for its services.
However, its fees are different from its competitor in that it offers two different payment options.
- 1% Pay on Book. The default tier once the 30-day free trial expires. Rental property owners are charged 1% of their bookings once reservations are made. The fee is charged on the day you sign up for its services. The 1% charge will be returned upon any cancellation or when changes are made to the booking.
- 1.49% Pay on Stay. Another option is the Pay on Stay tier. A 1.49% charge will be made on the day the guest checks in. The app allows owners to switch between the two payment options in the Payment Methods section of their account.
Features
As far as features go, Beyond Pricing is not that different from PriceLabs. It also provides a wide range of integrations with major rental property outlets and minor PMSes. To date, it continues to grow its network by adding more PMS partners.
Beyond Pricing also offers downloadable ebooks to maximize your Airbnb investment. It also conducts webinars to further educate investors and hosts about the latest rental trends, revenue management and pricing tips, and a whole lot more.
Customer Support
One of Beyond Pricing’s advantages over PriceLabs is in the area of customer support. While PriceLabs only offers email support at this time, the former can also be reached via their hotline. It makes addressing and resolving customer concerns a lot faster and more efficient.
3. AirDNA
Lastly, one other pricing option investors can look into is AirDNA. While AirDNA might be a closer competitor to Mashvisor than it is to PriceLabs, it is also worth considering as a pricing tool.
AirDNA is an analytics platform targeted at vacation rental property owners. It provides market intelligence and rental analytics for savvy investors and first-timers to make better investment choices.
Its Market Minder is one of its strengths as it incorporates the following features:
My Properties
AirDNA’s My Properties tool is quite helpful in optimizing short-term rental properties. Once a listing is connected to the tool, it allows users to create a comp by setting the following filters:
- Amenities
- Distance and Location
- Property Size
- Guest Capacity
- Property Quality
- Performance Metrics
Additionally, the following metrics will then be displayed on your dashboard. They will give you a fairly accurate prediction for the next few months:
- Future Occupancy
- Booked Rate
- Lead Time
The abovementioned metrics are updated weekly so you can make the necessary changes accordingly.
Rentalizer
AirDNA’s Rentalizer is one of the platform’s investment property calculators that allow users and investors to make income projections based on market data.
Smart Rates
Smart Rates is Market Minder’s pricing tool that recommends optimal prices to boost your revenue. The recommended rates are based on currently existing market factors which help keep your property visible on short-term rental platforms.
You can also check out a comparison between PriceLabs vs Wheelhouse, another popular dynamic pricing tool for vacation rental properties.
Wrapping It Up
Given how important Airbnb pricing is, using a pricing tool like PriceLabs definitely comes with certain advantages to it. However, if you want to really elevate your Airbnb game, you need more than just a pricing tool.
You will need a one-stop-shop website like Mashvisor. You not only get to calculate accurate nightly rates, but you also gain access to a massive database and lots of other investing tools to improve your investing game.
To add Mashvisor to your real estate investing toolkit, sign up for a 7-day free trial, followed by 15% off for life.