This guide addresses the most common questions and challenges our hosts encounter when using Dynamic Pricing.
Common Dynamic Pricing Questions
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Where do the prices come from?
This is a new feature for Hospitable, but we knew it would only be successful if we partnered with experts in the industry. We are leveraging models and data sets of immense scale that allow us to continuously adapt prices to evolving market conditions. The pricing engine analyzes billions of records daily in order to calibrate a price to your property’s unique characteristics.
To generate recommended nightly rates, Hospitable’s Dynamic Pricing takes the following into account:
Your property amenities, rooms, occupancy, and location
Day of the week
Seasonality
Booking window (far out vs. last-minute)
Adjacent reservations
Your historical pricing
Market demand
Local events
Manual changes you may have made in Hospitable dynamic pricing to your pricing or strategy
...and more
How is my "comp set" chosen?
If you've used other dynamic pricing software, you may be familiar with the concept of selecting similar short-term rental properties in your market to benchmark your pricing strategy. With Hospitable's Dynamic Pricing, we do this for you in the background. We look at dozens of attributes of your property, including your historical reservations and review scores, to arrive at a pricing strategy tuned for your market.
How often does Dynamic Pricing update channel pricing?
As soon as you enable Hospitable dynamic pricing, we will immediately push the current recommended prices to your channels. Prices are then automatically updated every 24 hours based on the latest market conditions. If you make any changes to your setup or pricing in Hospitable, the updates are pushed to your channels immediately.
How do my dynamic prices change over time?
Ideally, dynamic pricing means your calendar can run on autopilot over the life cycle of your booking window.
For your dates in the far future, we start by adding a premium that gradually goes away at six months out. For the far future dates, it's generally more difficult to get good signal from market and local event data, so we are also anchoring more heavily on your historical bookings. Within six months, most properties will be in their primary booking window, and prices become more reactive to market demand. At one month out, any dates that are still available will receive a gradually increasing discount to help fill your calendar.
Can I still use discounts and promotions on my listing platform?
Yes, you can still use discounts and promotions on the booking platform. However, it’s important to note that these are not taken into consideration when formulating a price. This means that discounts and promotions can make your property’s nightly rate less than your set minimum price.
How do markup rates work with Dynamic Pricing?
Any markup rates you have set in Hospitable will be applied on top of the recommended price.
Can I override the dynamic price for a particular date?
Yes. You can always manually change your price on the Hospitable calendar to override Dynamic Pricing. Any manually set prices are underlined on the calendar so you can tell them apart from dynamic prices. The source will also show manual edit.
If you have a large percentage of manually set prices, it will limit the impact of Dynamic Price since your manual changes prices will take priority. When you initially set up Dynamic Pricing, we'll calculate how many of your available nights already have a manually set price. In the setup flow, you’ll have the option to keep or replace all existing manual edits.
After the initial setup, you can add and remove manual edits at any time by selecting Use dynamic pricing from the right sidebar when a date(s) is selected. If you remove a manually set price, we will replace it with the current recommended price.
Note that if you ever disable Hospitable's Dynamic Pricing, we'll revert all of your prices to what they were before you started, including any manual changes you may have cleared as part of Dynamic Pricing.
Why is Dynamic Pricing not applying to certain dates?
Any manual price edits prevent Hospitable from setting dynamic prices. If you chose to keep manual edits while setting up Dynamic Pricing, those dates will keep the static price you set. To remove a manual price, select the date(s) on the calendar and click Use dynamic price in the right sidebar under the price.
Why am I not receiving bookings after enabling Dynamic Pricing?
If you notice a decrease in bookings after activating Dynamic Pricing, consider these potential causes:
Minimum price is set too high
If your minimum price is set too high, it may be preventing your rates from dropping low enough during slower periods.
Seasonal factors
You may be in your market's low season when bookings naturally slow down. Your property's occupancy from a few months ago may not be comparable to the current environment.
Restrictive availability settings
Check your minimum stay settings. If your setting is too restrictive (for example, a minimum night stay that is longer than the rest of the market), it may prevent bookings.
Verify that your calendar is open for a sufficient booking window.
Review any other booking restrictions that might limit guest options, such as check-in or check-out restrictions.
Base price strategy is too aggressive
If using "recommended" or "aggressive" base pricing, try switching to "conservative"
Monitor the results for a few weeks (at least 2-4) to see if bookings improve
Why is pricing unusually high or low on certain dates?
Unusual pricing can typically be explained by examining the individual adjustments:
A major local event driving demand
The combined effect of all adjustments (demand might be high despite being in low season)
Your property's recent performance (changes in occupancy or booking patterns)
Recent changes to your property's attributes or Dynamic Pricing settings
You'll want to look at all adjustments to determine why pricing is the way it is.
Can I change my base rate?
Yes, you can adjust your base price at any time. We recommend hosts choose from our data-driven base prices: recommended, conservative (-10%), or aggressive (+10%). Using a data-driven base rate means your median price automatically adjusts to changes in your property and its performance.
You can also enable/disable a custom base rate. While our suggested base price works well for most properties and circumstances, setting a custom base price might be better in some situations:
For properties that differ substantially from the market:
Exceptional views or location advantages
Recent renovations that dramatically change the value
Designer furnishings or luxury upgrades
Custom amenities not common in your market
For new listings with limited booking history:
If you have specific knowledge about your property's competitive position
As the property owner or manager, you often have intuitive knowledge about where your property stands in the local market. A custom base price gives you control over your pricing foundation while still benefiting from all the automatic adjustments for demand, seasonality, and other market factors.
Monitor your booking performance after setting a custom base price and be prepared to adjust if needed. As your property builds more booking history, you may be able to return to a data-driven base price instead.
New prices related to changes to your Base Rate will be generated within a few minutes.
Do I need to set different weekday and weekend base rates?
No. Our pricing engine understands how your market prices weekends and we adjust automatically.
I only want to use Hospitable's Dynamic Pricing on some of my properties. Is that possible?
Yes, you decide which properties you want to use with our Dynamic Pricing. You can even use another pricing tool (like PriceLabs) for your other properties, if you wish.
Dynamic pricing overrode my current calendar prices.
This is expected since Dynamic Pricing is meant to adjust your pricing! The only exception is for any dates with manually set prices.
While you're going through the initial setup flow, we'll ask whether you would like Dynamic Pricing to override any of your existing manual prices. If you chose that option, but want to restore those edits, you can always disable dynamic pricing and we will return your prices to exactly as they were before.
I'm already using another pricing tool. How do I switch to Hospitable's Dynamic Pricing?
You can turn on Hospitable's Dynamic Pricing without needing to disconnect your existing pricing integration. This makes it easy to try. If you decide it's not a good fit, disable Hospitable Dynamic Pricing and we'll revert to the prices of any other pricing integration you have. If you decide you're comfortable with Hospitable Dynamic Pricing, you'll eventually want to remove or disable the property from your third-party pricing tool to avoid being charged.
You can disconnect your current pricing tool by going to Apps > Connected apps > Remove access. If you disconnect, you should also cancel your subscription with the pricing tool.
How can I disable Dynamic Pricing and revert my pricing back to what it was before?
If you wish to stop using Dynamic Pricing on any property:
Go to your property calendar in Hospitable
Select Dynamic Pricing from the right sidebar
At the bottom of the right sidebar, click Turn off Dynamic Pricing
Click Yes on the confirmation screen to disable it.
When you disable Dynamic Pricing, your calendar will revert to the prices that were set before enabling the feature. This includes restoring any manual pricing that was in place prior to activation.
Does Dynamic Pricing control anything else besides my price?
Currently, no. We only update your prices. We hope to have additional functionality in the future to optimize availability rules, such as the minimum stay requirement for your booking window and gap nights.
How much does Dynamic Pricing cost?
Hospitable's Dynamic Pricing is included for all Host, Professional, and Mogul users at no additional cost.
However, there is one caveat: If Dynamic Pricing is enabled on a property, that property will always be considered "active" for billing purposes. This is only relevant for hosts who have more properties than what is included in their base subscription (Host includes one property, Professional includes two, and Mogul includes three).
What does this mean, exactly? Add-on fees for active properties beyond what is included in your plan are normally only invoiced by Hospitable if they have a check-in during a billing period. Dynamic Pricing changes Hospitable's costs and the value we provide. Even if you don't have a check-in during the month, Hospitable provides daily pricing updates on the next two years of your calendar. For this reason, all properties with Dynamic Pricing enabled will be included on your invoice.
Legacy plan hosts: You will be able to preview some pricing recommendations, but you will need to upgrade to a current subscription tier in order to enable Dynamic Pricing.
Should I set a minimum and maximum rate?
Both minimum and maximum rates are optional fields that will constrain your prices (discounts, promotions, and markups, however, are applied on top of your dynamic price and may result in your prices dropping below your minimum or increasing above your maximum). You may choose to leave these fields empty.
Your minimum price should be the absolute lowest rate you'll accept for your property on the slowest day of the lowest season (before discounts and/or markups are applied). Think of it as your break-even price. This is not the same thing as a base price.
Your maximum price is the highest rate you'd feel comfortable charging for your property (markups will be added on top of your maximum price).
Why can't I enable Dynamic Pricing on my account?
Dynamic Pricing setup is available from the desktop version of our app (this is not available from our mobile app).
Because it affects billing, enabling Dynamic Pricing is available only to primary account holders. If you're a secondary user, you will not see the option to turn it on.
Legacy Plan users will need to upgrade to a different plan in order to use Dynamic Pricing.
Your property may be missing information or in an unsupported market.
Additional Resources
Still need help? Reach out to our support team.