Airbnb released a new tool to help their hosts improve their listings: the Airbnb calculator. Pricing is by far the most complicated aspect of Airbnb hosting. How do you know what the optimal price is?
Ideally, you want to set prices high when demand is high (in the high season, during special events for example) and low when demand is low. Problem is, how do you know what the demand is and how much should you adjust?
Up until today, the only option for Airbnb hosts to improve their pricing was to sign-up with automated pricing apps like Wheelhouse and Beyond Pricing. These apps connect directly to your listing and update prices on a daily base, according to estimated local demand.
Airlines and hotels have entire departments with mathematicians and data analysts to calculate the prices they charge. As an Airbnb host, you’re in the dark and most hosts end up setting the same price for every day of the year.
By doing so, they leave a lot of money on the table. Consequently, Airbnb loses out as well, as their fees are a percentage of the hosts’ revenue.
Hence it makes a lot of sense that Airbnb stepped up their efforts to help hosts set prices more optimally. Unfortunately, they don’t do a very good job at it. The Airbnb calculator (or Airbnb smart pricing as they now call it) consistently sets prices lower than optimal.
It’s not hard to understand why. Airbnb has the interest of both the host and the guest in mind when recommending prices. However, guests’ and hosts’ interests obviously aren’t aligned. Hosts want to make as much money as possible and guests want to pay the lowest price possible. In other words, it’s impossible for Airbnb to be a good advisor when it comes to prices and as a result they recommend prices that are too low.
How does the Airbnb calculator work?
When you go to your calendar, you’ll notice three things have changed: (1) you now see current reservations with a profile picture of your guest, (2) the nights that aren’t booked yet are highlighted and (3) the price has a color, either orange or green.
Here’s what the colors mean:
Green: you’re very likely to get booked at this price, you should increase it
Orange: you’re not very likely to get booked at this price, you should decrease it
If you click on any of the days that are still available in the calendar, you’ll see a box appear on the right side of your screen that shows the price that Airbnb recommends.
You can easily click the “set-this” button to adjust the price, or select another price by using the lever. You may wonder why Airbnb recommends this specific price. To find out, click the “why?” link. A box will pop-up with an explanation.
Now go back to the original calendar screen. Notice on the right there is a box that shows travel trends for the upcoming months. Below it is the best feature of the Airbnb profit calculator.
When you press the “See price tips” button, Airbnb automatically adjusts all your prices to those that they recommend and with one click you can update your calendar with these prices. This way you don’t need to manually adjust all the prices one-by-one.
Related Post: Beyond Pricing Review & Tutorial: Automated Pricing for Airbnb, Homeaway and VRBO
Would I use the price recommendations?
The short answer is: No. Hosts who use the Airbnb fee calculator leave money on the table by pricing too low. Another drawback of the Airbnb profit calculator is that you have to go into your calendar every day to update the prices, as Airbnb calculates them daily. That’s a hassle.
Wheelhouse and Beyond Pricing use many factors such as hotel prices, visitor stats, airline reservations and more to calculate optimal prices for your Airbnb listing.
Unlike Airbnb, they only have the interest of the host in mind when doing so and therefore I trust their prices more. In addition, their business model completely relies on providing the best prices, so it’s in their own interest to do a good job at it, they don’t have a hidden agenda.
Having said that, using Airbnb’s recommendations is definitely much better than setting the same price for each day, so I expect a lot of hosts will profit from using the Airbnb calculator. In addition, it’s free, where as other pricing apps charge 1% of revenue.
Conclusion
I think Airbnb made a good move introducing the Airbnb calculator. However, since Airbnb has the guests’ interest in mind in addition to the hosts’, they consistently underprice listings. Therefore, I’m sticking with Beyond Pricing. I think their price recommendations are better and also I don’t have to update the prices manually each day.
You may also be interested in:
– Interview with David Ordal, CEO of Everbooked
– Interview with Ian McHenry, CEO of Beyond Pricing
Special deals:
Sign-up with Everbooked and get the first 90-days for free (normally 30 days)
Sign-up with Beyond Pricing and get the first 30 days for free plus $60 worth of credit.
What are your thoughts on pricing your listing? Would you use the Airbnb calculator, set the prices yourself or use one of the automated pricing apps? Comment below!