Thank you everyone for your very useful feedback on this topic. I used to think that in order to get booked, our flat needs to be in the top ten cheapest in the area. Perhaps it’s a reflection that I can be obsessed with the cost of things myself. But I am starting to change my perspective on AirBnB pricing, partially due to what I am reading on this thread. I agree, it’s not all about pricing. Other factors, particularly great reviews (which we have in abundance), also play a key role. Having said all that, I do think that being visible on the platform is important and if that means changing prices (including raising prices) than so shall be it. Anyways, thank you everyone for sharing your ideas.
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VikIBKk it sounds like you might be confusing price tips with smart pricing. Price tips are always way, way low. I would never recommend using them. Smart Pricing is where you set your bottom and top limit price. Your price will never go below what your base is and mine sometimes has gone as high as $40++ more than I would ever have considered. It has made me a lot of money and saved me countless hours of having to adjust rates. If you want to bump a particular weekend or day up, just go in your calendar and change those days.
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I believe that this has happened often in this forum; people saying that ‘smart pricing’ gives prices that are too low when they really mean price tips.
Smart pricing will not show prices lower than the minimum the host sets. I know that there are website glitches, but in five years with two apartments I’ve never found that SP has given lower prices than the ones I’ve set.
Me too. There have been instances where smart pricing has shown prices that I’ve thought were exorbitant but they’ve been booked.
If hosts ‘train’ it to work for then it’s a great tool.
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Yep! Smart Pricing has made me the second most expensive private room in our area and I am booked absolutely as much as I want. I never thought I would be booked at these rates.
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OK - i am typically the “outlier” here so i might as well stay the course! I understand that our listing is very different than the typical listing, so how we do things is likely not going to work for most. With that being said, we have stayed open since the initial concerns about COVID-19 were made public and we anticipate to continue to stay open. We are cautiously taking each booking on a case-by-case basis and are extremely OCD with our cleaning and sanitizing. Our calendar was full in early March and then emptied COMPLETELY when COVID-19 hit the national news. Almost immediately, we were full again. Actually, this is the first time in 4 years that our June and July have been this full. For us, when we get down to just one - two days unbooked we usually block it off so we can get a night off. Recently though, we decided to jack our prices UP so that if it did book, it would be worth it to us and if not we would get a night off. So far - it seems price is no object with the current travelers as our June and July are 100% booked! We will never discount our prices. We believe they fairly represent the value of a stay in our guesthouse and anyone that wants to “bicker” about your price is likely to give you a low score on “value” in your review anyway! It has worked well for us, but that’s just us!
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When there is a late freeze we all understand why produce prices are higher in the market. Sophisticated guests will understand that we have increased costs now, including the costs of lost revenue that necessitate us to try to make larger profit margins now. At least, that was my reasoning when increasing prices and it has not proven a wrong strategy.
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Sell you a paragraph, really cheap 
JF