Pricing tool users: Do you override holiday pricing suggestions?

1

For anyone using Wheelhouse, Beyond Pricing, etc. - how do you find their holiday and special event rates to be priced? Too high/low/just right?

I’m a Wheelhouse user and manually set my Thanksgiving weekend to be 30% higher than their suggestions. I haven’t received a booking yet, but we’re still a good three weeks out.

Has anyone else experienced similar?

2

That’s the problem with most pricing engines, you want them to increase your prices on high demand dates but they inevitably seem to drop the pricing too soon if you’re not booked or don’t increase your prices at all which seems to be your case.

I feel like I can’t trust any of the pricing engines except for Superhost Tools because it gives me more control over my prices. It allows me to set minimums for dates in the future while still automatically increasing my prices based on demand and availability. I have a small one bedroom apartment and this is how I’ve setup my pricing:

  • 0 to 3 days into the future I have a minimum price of $50/night
    • my place is typically booked before this but sometimes there will be a orphan period (1 or 2 days between bookings) that are still available and I would rather have someone stay at $50/night than leave it empty
  • 3 to 7 days, minimum of $70/night
  • 7 to 14 days, minimum of $85/night
  • 14 to 30 days, minimum of $95/night
  • 30 days and on $120/night

That makes sure I don’t book for too low of a nightly rate but still allows the pricing engine to increase my prices as much as it thinks it needs to for events and holidays. My goal it to have most of my bookings in the 7 to 30 day range.

4 Likes
3

I’ve got Wheelhouse on but I’m not particularly impressed, and do sometimes manually override it. They claim to have local events at their fingertips but I’ve yet to notice any effect. At the moment, there is the annual Arts Festival in Canterbury on for three weeks, a huge weekend coming up at the local Duke of York’s Military School, including Armistice Day services and parades, and events at Dover Castle going strong, none of which appear reflected in their pricing for November. But still, they are infinitely preferable to Air’s Smart Pricing.

4

I agree. I don’t think the pricing engines can detect events everywhere accurately. The only source that I can see having a chance at detecting events is Airbnb itself but I don’t trust Airbnb’s Smart Pricing either. I think it’s pretty good at detecting events but not good at setting the price. No program is going to be as good as you at setting your listing’s price. That’s why I’m happy with my solution, it’s simple and effective and reliable. Plus, superhost tools is free.

5

What’s the provenance of these super host tools please? A link perhaps???

6

https://superhosttools.com

7

Thank you! Duly forwarded to my in-house boffin…