The vacation rental market has experienced explosive growth in recent years, making efficient property management tools more important than ever. Two prominent players in this field are Lodgify and Smoobu. These platforms offer comprehensive solutions to streamline operations, maximize bookings, and enhance guest experiences.
To help you make an informed decision when choosing the right vacation rental software for your business, let’s compare Lodgify and Smoobu.
Who is it for?
Lodgify
Whether you own a single vacation property or manage a portfolio of 30+ rentals, Lodgify is designed to cater to all types of vacation rental businesses. With its intuitive and user-friendly features, Lodgify empowers hosts to effortlessly manage their operations, all from one convenient app.
Smoobu
Smoobu also focuses on independent hosts and smaller agencies.
How much does it cost?
Lodgify
Lodgify offers three cost-effective pricing plans, with the lowest one starting at an affordable $15 per month. This includes all the essential features needed to effectively and efficiently run your business, such as a channel manager, a bookable website, a reservation and payment system, and a property management system.
Lodgify’s Professional plan stands out as the most popular choice, providing access to more advanced features and starting at a modest $43 per month.
The Ultimate plan is tailored toward businesses requiring even more advanced features, such as reporting, cleaning, and task management tools, plus priority customer service. This plan starts at just $55 per month.
Customers subscribing to one or two-year plans can get 20-25% discounts, and all plans come with free, personalized onboarding sessions to help you set up your account and access insider industry tips.
Smoobu
Users who need basic features like a channel manager, a booking system, and communication automation must subscribe to Smoobu’s Professional plan, with monthly subscriptions starting at $31.29 a month.
The platform’s Team’s plan includes premium services and priority support at $214.71/month with a monthly subscription. Customers subscribing to one or two-year plans can get 10-20% discounts.
What are the main differences?
Customer support
Lodgify
All subscribers and trial users enjoy the benefits of Lodgify’s customer support, available 24/7 through phone, chat, and email. Their dedicated team ensures swift responses, making sure users receive the assistance they need promptly.
The Contact page provides convenient telephone numbers for the Customer Success team in multiple regions, including the U.S. & Canada, the U.K., Spain, and Italy.
Smoobu
Smoobu’s customer support is only available Monday through Friday, 9:30 am to 6 pm, Central European Time.
Website builder and booking widget
Lodgify
Lodgify’s website builder tool is well-known in the industry for its user-friendly interface and customizable templates. With just a few clicks, users can create their own bookable website under their desired domain (www.yourwebsite.com) in less than five minutes without requiring any technical expertise.
What sets Lodgify apart is that its websites are optimized for SEO, resulting in an average of 40% of bookings being made directly by customers. Additionally, the website builder enables you to personalize your website, add widgets, and create as many pages as you want—including pages with local attractions or content that will help you rank even higher in search results.
For users who already have a website created using WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or any other content management system (CMS), Lodgify offers seamless integration. By embedding the Lodgify booking widget, guests can now book properties directly on their website, even if it was previously not equipped for bookings.
Smoobu
Smoobu offers users free bookable websites. However, it comes with far fewer options for personalization. Property managers looking to choose between a number of different templates while being able to adapt them to include their logo and brand colors may find Lodgify’s Website Builder more useful.
Smoobu also has a booking widget that can be added to any CMS.
Google Vacation Rentals
Lodgify
Lodgify is dedicated to empowering vacation rental owners and property managers by boosting their direct bookings. To achieve this, Lodgify provides the opportunity for hosts to seamlessly integrate their listings with Google’s innovative metasearch engine, Google Vacation Rentals (GVR), completely free of charge.
Hosts can list their Lodgify website through GVR, which will appear above all other organic searches, outranking even the most prominent OTAs. When guests discover a vacation rental listing on GVR and proceed to book, they will be directed to the host’s own website rather than a Lodgify page.
Smoobu
This feature is currently not available.
Property management
Lodgify
Lodgify’s property management system comes with an array of top tools and features that meet the needs of all business sizes. With Lodgify, users can easily manage bookings and communicate with staff and guests across various platforms from one centralized dashboard.
Subscribers to the Ultimate plan (ranging from $73/month for a monthly subscription to $55/month for a two-year subscription) can also take advantage of more advanced features. For example, the task assignment feature allows property managers to assign cleaning and maintenance tasks automatically, while the analytics and reporting tools provide users with invaluable insights into finances, website traffic, and other business performance metrics.
Furthermore, users can integrate their PMS with numerous tools through Lodgify’s marketplace, from dynamic pricing solutions and vacation rental insurance to guest turnover automation and unauthorized party prevention tools.
Smoobu
Smoobu also offers a comprehensive property management system. However, more advanced PMS features are only available on their Team plan, starting at $214.71 for a monthly subscription.
Mobile app
Lodgify
Hosts can manage their business on the go with Lodgify’s mobile app, which is available for Android and iOS. Users on the Ultimate plan can also download the Lodgify PM app to connect with cleaners, check-in agents, and rental managers. Plus, guests can download the Lodgify Guest app to easily access host resources, such as guidebooks, Wi-Fi passwords, check-in details, and so on.
The Lodgify mobile app is rated 4.9 stars on Google Play.
Smoobu
Smoobu’s mobile app offers similar features and is rated 3.0 stars on Google Play. The app is currently not available on the App Store for iOS users.
Vacation rental courses
Lodgify
Lodgify provides free vacation rental courses to help and educate users on everything they need to know to start and grow a successful vacation rental business. Users who sign up for the Lodgify Academy can learn how to attract more direct bookings, use social media as a marketing tool, take high-quality photos for their property listing, and more.
Smoobu
This service is not provided.
Preferred partner status
Lodgify
Lodgify is an Airbnb Preferred+ partner and Vrbo Elite partner.
Smoobu
Smoobu is only an Airbnb Preferred partner and currently has no status with Vrbo.
What do customers say about Lodgify?
Finding reliable and unbiased information while researching products online can pose a challenge for prospective customers. As a result, a significant majority of consumers, approximately 93%, state that online reviews have a significant impact on their purchasing choices.
When it comes to vacation rental owners and property managers, making informed decisions is crucial for the success of their business. Users can explore and compare Lodgify online, along with assessing the opinions of Lodgify customers. Here’s where to compare us:
Trustpilot
What people on Trustpilot are saying about Lodgify:
“Using Lodgify has been an awesome and easy experience from start to finish. Not only is the platform intuitive and really easy to use, they offer an onboarding service that teaches you how to make the most of the Service. Sara (our onboarding team member) could not have been more helpful, really supported us to make sense of the platform and how to get it to do most of the hardwork so we can focus on other things. Highly recommend to anyone managing short term holiday lets.” -Charlie H.
Lodgify rating: 4.6
Capterra
What people on Capterra are saying about Lodgify:
“We have no doubt that we chose well. The price is fair, service is excellent, the software is easy to use and it is a company that is always innovating and improving.” -Djamila D.
Lodgify rating: 4.5
GetApp
What people on GetApp are saying about Lodgify:
“The best feature about this product is the seamless-ness between third party software and my own website. It has all the information from everywhere in one place.” -Tara S.
Lodgify rating: 4.5
G2.com
What people on G2.com are saying about Lodgify:
“We went from being held back by AirBNB to in control of our own bookings! Occasionally, AirBNB would not authorize a booking or hold our account until an issue was resolved. Now we can offer direct bookings and VRBO booking options to our best guests. We love the ease of use of Lodgify, and how their customer support made it easy to implement both direct bookings and VRBO integration. We now only use Lodgify’s interface every day…” -Steven W.
Lodgify rating: 4.0
Can I try it before I buy?
Lodgify
Property managers have the opportunity to explore Lodgify at no cost with a 7-day trial, which can be extended upon request. They can also gain insights into Lodgify’s functionality by scheduling a personalized demo call with a knowledgeable product expert. During the demo, the expert will provide a comprehensive overview of all the features and recommend the most suitable subscription plan.
For immediate testing without the need to input rental or user data, Lodgify offers access to a pre-configured test demo account.
Smoobu
Smoobu offers a free 14-day trial and the ability to book calls through their contact page. However, there is no option for a demo account.
Which vacation rental software should I use?
Both Lodgify and Smoobu offer excellent vacation rental software solutions, each with its own strengths. Lodgify provides a visually appealing platform with robust property management features and a best-in-class Website Builder that is highly effective for boosting direct bookings.
Ultimately, the choice between the two platforms depends on your specific needs, budget, and priorities. If you’re looking for an affordable all-in-one solution that’ll help you grow and scale your business, Lodgify is the right choice for you.
Assess your requirements, consider the features, pricing, and value for money, and select the software that aligns best with your vacation rental business goals. We recommend exploring free trials, demo versions, and customer reviews to help you decide.
Why not give Lodgify a try for free by starting a trial below?