Everything you need to know about short-term rental apps, including our top picks and how to make the most out of them.

The Most Useful Airbnb Apps for Hosts in 2024

Airbnb apps for hosts streamline operations and help scale your business while saving time.

From key exchange to cleaning schedules to marketing your rental, there’s an app for that. 

Tools like Uplisting by AirDNA roll many of the top Airbnb app features into one so you’re never overwhelmed by too much tech. 

Technology offers some of the best airbnb tools out there. Ever since smartphones went mainstream, apps like Airbnb have helped hosts and property owners create and manage listings for travelers looking to book a short-term rental. As the vacation rental industry grows, more and more host tools have sprouted up to streamline the process and ease both sides of the transaction. 

Let’s talk about some of the best Airbnb apps for hosts and how they can take your short-term rental business to the next level. 

Plan your STR strategy based on real booking activity and trends—plus, see how things change year over year.

Airbnb offers Host Assist, a collection of apps by companies who have partnered with Airbnb, but it’s hard to know the strength of those recommendations. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the vast number of options available to help you run your vacation rental business. 

It’s a blessing and a curse—to have so many choices and yet not know how to compare them against each other. We suspect that’s why you’ve turned to our guide!

We narrowed down the apps featured in this article according to their user ratings and whether they’re a prominent player in the industry. When available, we looked at customer feedback through online review communities (TrustPilot, Capterra, GetApp or a combination) and eliminated any contenders that had a poor rating overall. 

In addition to those filters, we’ve loosely organized apps for airbnb hosts into categories. Best Apps Overall encompass options with comprehensive services, from property management to guest messaging to bookkeeping. Our favorite apps are the ones that can do it all!

Not every software in this category offers the same products. However, each one has a prominent position in the industry and consistently high reviews that speak to their strength as one of the best apps for airbnb.

We recognize, however, that not everyone is looking for an all-in-one host tool. Perhaps you need help with a specific task, or need a tool to complement your existing property management strategy. The remainder of our categories sort host apps by their function:

Guest Messaging: There are great Airbnb apps for hosts that offer instant and automated messaging to help short-term rental hosts promptly address guest inquiries and concerns.

Guest Experience: These are apps that guests interact with directly, whether that be through a Welcome app like TouchStay or through a smart home and key exchange app like Operto.

Cleaning & Maintenance: Cleaning apps can standardize your cleaning processes and automate cleanings in accordance with your booking calendar.

Insurance and Guest Screening: From preventative risk assessments on potential guests to insurance policies that cover you in a disaster, these apps offer a safety net for your STR business.

Marketing: If social media isn’t your jam, specialized marketing tools can help you reach the guests you need through SMS and email marketing, among other strategies.

Keep in mind that the Best Apps Overall and other categories are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many of our top picks cover some or all of these specific functionalities. Uplisting, for instance, offers guest messaging, tools for marketing your business through a unique booking website, guest screening, and more. 

Lastly, some tools didn’t make the cut because their services weren’t specific enough to short-term rentals. Avalara, a tax compliance software, and Ascent, a payment processing solution, are good examples. They are finance and accounting tools that can benefit Airbnb hosts but don’t offer enough value to warrant more than an honorable mention.  

With the methodology explained, let’s dive in!

Uplisting: With Uplisting, you can send pre-booking messages, instantly accept direct guest bookings, and spin up booking pages for your rental’s website effortlessly.

Guesty: This comprehensive Airbnb property management platform has tools to automate processes, improve guest communication, and effortlessly manage listings across different rental platforms.

Hostaway: Hostaway simplifies booking and guest management with calendar synchronization, automated messaging, and integrations with multiple booking platforms.

Lodgify: This app lets hosts create eye-popping vacation home websites, manage reservations, and accept direct bookings. 

Operto: Operto provides smart home automation like keyless entry, remote temperature control, and noise monitoring, all accessible from a mobile app.

Uplisting: Uplisting’s guest messaging tools empower hosts to automate messages to guests across Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo to save time and keep guests happy. 

DACK: DACK is a comprehensive guest experience platform that includes advanced messaging capabilities for Airbnb hosts. It integrates with smart home devices and offers in-app communication features.

Enso Connect: This popular guest messaging app is designed specifically for vacation rental hosts. It focuses on automating communication and providing a centralized platform for managing guest interactions.

Duve: This host tool is a guest management platform that elevates the guest experience through personalized communication and streamlined operations. It offers a range of features from pre-check-in to post-check-out. Duve can also integrate with various property management systems.

TouchStay: With Touch Stay, vacation rental owners can create interactive welcome guides for guests to access via a mobile app. Guides can feature local recommendations, house rules, check-in instructions, and tips on what to do nearby.

In addition to TouchStay, Akia is an honorable mention for digital guidebooks.

Ease of access to your property is one of the most important “first impression” experiences a guest will have. If you’re particularly interested in key exchange apps, we recommend:

RemoteLock: RemoteLock provides cloud-based smart lock solutions that empower property managers to remotely control and monitor access to their properties. 

Yale Access: Yale Access lets hosts grant property access codes to guests via a mobile app, eliminating the need for physical keys and simplifying check-in.

Igloohome: The Igloohome App provides unique PIN codes and Bluetooth keys for each guest. The app also offers real-time entry and exit logs, as well as offline access capabilities to ensure reliable access in areas with poor connectivity.

KeyCafe: KeyCafe’s lockboxes let property managers store physical keys that guests can retrieve using a unique access code upon arrival. 

Breezeway: With Breezeway, hosts can create cleaning checklists and schedules while tracking the completion of tasks in real time. 

Turno: Turno helps hosts organize and automate their property cleaning schedules. Create cleaning tasks, assign them to cleaners, and monitor cleaning progress across multiple properties through the Turno dashboard. Keep track of inventory as well so that cleaners always have supplies at the ready. 

Spruce: Spruce is an all-in-one housekeeping and cleaning service platform for multifamily properties, including short-term rentals. It offers a range of services from standard cleanings to deep cleanings, to maintenance tasks.

 Use Smart Rates™ to optimize your pricing strategy.

Proper: Proper Insurance provides an all-encompassing insurance policy that includes coverage for property damage, liability, and loss of income. Unlike standard homeowner policies, Proper Insurance is specifically crafted to cover the unique exposures of short-term rentals, including guest-caused damages and liabilities. 

Safely: Safely offers guest screening services that check guests' backgrounds and provide risk assessments, helping hosts make informed decisions about their bookings.  It also provides comprehensive insurance coverage for short-term rentals.

AutoHost:  AutoHost automates the guest screening process, including ID verification, background checks, and risk assessments. The platform also ensures compliance with local regulations and supports security protocols such as credit card validation and watchlist checks.

SendSquared: This platform offers tools for email and SMS marketing, allowing hosts to send personalized messages to guests at key points in their journey. 

StayFi: This tool enables hosts to create a branded WiFi login page, collecting guest information and providing secure internet access. Additionally, StayFI offers marketing tools, allowing hosts to communicate with guests during and after their stay.

Tips for Using Apps to Manage Your Vacation Rental Business Efficiently

Airbnb apps for hosts are great at making life easier by using software to solve common problems. 

Stay in Touch: Guests shouldn’t have to wait long for answers to their questions. Apps can provide fast responses to common inquiries. 

Automate Repetitive Tasks: Simple tasks like managing bookings and scheduling cleanings can be a headache for property managers. If those processes don’t often change, save time by automating them. 

Optimize Pricing: Dynamic pricing will help you maximize revenue potential, but knowing how to price short-term rentals requires understanding demand, seasonal trends, and competitor pricing—all of which apps are great at calculating.

Maintain Your Property: Apps that help with guest screening and short-term rental insurance help you make informed decisions about guests to preserve the longevity of your rental. 

Provide a Personal Touch: Guests love things like welcome gifts, local recommendations, and clear house rules. Apps offer opportunities to provide those personal touches.

Stay Informed: Stay up-to-date with industry trends, regulations, and best practices to keep your short-term rental business competitive.

Collect Guest Feedback: Encourage guests to leave reviews and feedback so that you can identify areas to improve. Apps can automatically follow-up with guests during and after their stay.

Network With Other Hosts: Fellow Airbnb hosts can provide helpful insights. Look at the user reviews of the apps you’re interested in and connect with others who use the same systems to compare notes on best practices.

Apps for Airbnb hosts can help improve the guest experience while earning more money. The better you understand them, the easier it’ll be to keep your rental properties occupied, profitable, and pleasant for guests. 

With a reliable platform, you can focus on growing your business and not waste time with double bookings, unhappy guests, upset clients and worrying what might go wrong next.

Find the focus you need to scale your business.

Airbnb apps for hosts make it easier to simplify short-term rental management while earning more. Get the complete list of top Airbnb apps for 2024.

Airbnb Occupancy Rate: Insights and Tips

Key Takeaways
The Airbnb occupancy rate is a vital metric for success and is calculated by dividing the number of booked nights by the available nights. The occupancy rate reflects how often your property is rented out compared to its availability.
Understanding and monitoring your occupancy rate is key to maximizing earnings, as it indicates property performance and influences pricing and marketing strategies.
How you interpret your occupancy rate is essential; high and low occupancy rates don’t always mean what you think.

Successful Airbnb hosts are obsessed with bookings, and for good reason—it’s the name of the vacation rental game.

When hosts talk about Airbnb bookings, they're really talking about occupancy rate: the percentage of available nights that guests book. Monitoring your occupancy rate is important because it shows how well your Airbnb stacks up against the competition. The occupancy rate can also indicate whether you need to switch up your strategy or pricing to boost your rental income.

Whether you’re new to short-term vacation rentals or an industry expert, it’s important to understand the methodology and best practices behind your occupancy rate. 

Learn about short-term rental data

What is Airbnb Occupancy Rate?

In its simplest form, the occupancy rate is the percentage of time a vacation rental property is booked compared to the time it is available for bookings. 

To make understanding occupancy rate easier, let's use a straightforward example.

Imagine you own a cabin that's available for guests all year. That means it could potentially be booked for 365 nights. Throughout the year, guests book your cabin for 90 of those nights. We can use that number to calculate the occupancy rate and see how often your property was rented out compared to its availability. 

By dividing the booked nights (90) by the total available nights (365) and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage, we find an occupancy rate of approximately 25%. This means your cabin was rented out for about a quarter of the year.

Reasons Why Your Occupancy Rate Matters
Maximize Revenue Potential: Physical products can be sold at any time if they’re not immediately purchased. However, a vacant vacation rental represents a unique challenge. If a property goes unbooked for a night, it's impossible to "sell" that night again. Each unbooked night directly translates into a tangible loss of potential income. That’s why the occupancy rate is crucial for owners looking to maximize their earnings. 
Reveal Property Performance Insights: Consider two similar properties in the same location. Property A consistently achieves an 80% occupancy rate, while Property B struggles to reach 50%. This stark difference signals that Property A might be better aligned with guest preferences or have better marketing. Analyzing occupancy rates helps identify performance gaps and areas for improvement, whether that's improving your listing or adjusting pricing strategies to meet market demand.
Determine Market Demand and Inform Pricing Strategies: High Airbnb occupancy rates indicate strong market demand, while low occupancy rates can reflect lower demand. This information informs your pricing strategy. Let’s consider an apartment near a convention center that has high occupancy during events but low occupancy rates otherwise. This trend suggests that you may want to consider adjusting your rates in relation to the convention center’s event calendar. Dynamic pricing takes into consideration trends like this and uses them to optimize revenue during peak and off-peak times.
Guide Investment and Enhancement Decisions: Evaluate occupancy rates before and after making upgrades, like installing high-speed internet or renovating the kitchen, to assess the return on investment (ROI). This analysis is crucial for prioritizing property improvements that make your listing more appealing and, subsequently, improve the occupancy rate.

Learn about Dynamic Pricing

How to Calculate the Airbnb Occupancy Rate

Understanding the occupancy rate of your Airbnb property is pivotal for optimizing your rental strategy. Yet, it all comes down to a single equation.

Airbnb Occupancy Rate Calculation

Reserved Days / Available Days x 100 = Occupancy Rate

With that in mind, here's a simple guide on how to find Airbnb occupancy rates:

Step-by-Step Calculation
Determine the Total Number of Reserved Days: Start by counting how many days guests booked your property over a specific period of time, usually 12 months. 
Identify the Total Number of Available Days: Calculate the total days your property was available for booking over the same time period, excluding any days you blocked off for personal use.
Calculate the Occupancy Rate: Divide the total number of reserved days by the total number of available days, then multiply the result by 100 to convert it into a percentage. These steps represent AirDNA’s version of an Airbnb occupancy rate calculator.

Example Calculation:

Imagine you own a house on the water in North Carolina and you're evaluating its performance on Airbnb over the last 12 months. The property was available for 340 days and booked for 240 days within this timeframe.

Reserved Days: 240

Available Days: 340

Occupancy Rate Calculation: 240/340 x 100 = 70.58%

Calculate potential earnings

Understand the investment potential of any address in the world. 

See your STR revenue potential
Interpreting Your Occupancy Rate

While a 70% occupancy rate may seem ideal, signaling guest satisfaction and consistent revenue, it's essential to delve deeper. High occupancy could indicate underpricing, meaning you might be missing out on potential income. It's crucial to balance occupancy with your average daily rates (ADRs) to maximize revenue. 

Think about it: A property with a 50% or 60% occupancy rate could earn more revenue than one that’s booked 70% of the time. It’s all relative to pricing. A property booked more often at $100 per night may not outearn a property that’s booked less often at $300 per night.

It’s important to ask yourself: Do I want higher occupancy or higher average daily rates (ADRs)? An accurate data tool can help you sort out which strategy is best for your bottom line. (Why guess when you can know exactly what you should be charging guests?)

What is a Good Airbnb Occupancy Rate?

Average Airbnb occupancy rates vary from market to market and year to year. You can see how the national average occupancy rate has fluctuated:

Trailing twelve months (TTM), March 2023 to February 2024: 55.1%
2023: 55.4%
2022: 58.6%
2021: 60.3%

The occupancy rate in 2022 reflects a recovery trend in the industry after the pandemic brought the average occupancy rate into the low fifties in 2020.

Determining a "good" rate is less about finding a universal number and more about understanding local market conditions, historical performance, and your personal goals for the property. Knowing your market's average helps inform decisions on pricing, marketing, and operations.

Start AirDNA for free

Average Airbnb Occupancy Rates by City: Top 10 Highest Occupancy Rates

If you’re new to the short-term rental market, understanding the average airbnb occupancy rates by city can help you choose a location that’s likely to generate a healthy revenue.

These markets had the highest trailing twelve-month short-term occupancy rates (March 2023 to February 2024):

Kauai, Hawaii: 74.4%
Oahu, Hawaii: 73.4%
Maui, Hawaii: 72.4%
Maine DownEast/Acadia Coastal: 67.7%
Big Island, Hawaii: 67.1%
New York City: 65.5%
Denver: 65.3%
Anaheim, California: 65.2%
Boulder, Colorado: 64.3%
 Outer Banks, North Carolina: 64.3%

Many of the markets with the highest occupancy rates are located in Hawaii. However, seeing as the vacation rental market in Hawaii is subject to fairly heavy restrictions, let’s consider the markets with the highest occupancy rates in the contiguous U.S.

Maine DownEast/Acadia Coastal: 67.7%
New York City: 65.5%
Denver: 65.3%
Anaheim, California: 65.2%
Boulder, Colorado: 64.3%
Outer Banks, North Carolina: 64.3%
San Diego: 64.2%
Sarasota, Florida: 64.1%
Lincoln City/Newport, Oregon: 64%
Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, Tennessee: 63.9%

Average Occupancy Rates by City: Top 10 Lowest Occupancy Rates

The average Airbnb occupancy rates by city in the following areas leave hosts wanting more. These markets currently have the lowest trailing twelve-month occupancy rates:

Oxford, MS: 34.9%
Big Bear, CA: 39.6%
Southbend, Indiana: 40.4%
Texas East Area: 41.4%
College Station, Texas: 41.8%
Mississippi area: 42.1%
Augusta, Georgia/South Carolina: 42.8%
Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania: 43.2%
California South area: 43.7%
 Louisiana area: 43.9%

If you’re looking to invest in vacation properties, avoid these markets because you likely won't get a good ROI. Property managers and hosts in these markets may need to lower their rates to encourage guests to book with them rather than other Airbnbs.

Hottest Airbnb Markets
Free Airbnb Calculator
Why Airbnb Occupancy Rates Differ from Hotels 

Hotels offer a consistent product and pricing strategy, but STRs vary widely in terms of property type, location, amenities, and host engagement. It’s crucial to assess STR occupancy differently than traditional hotel occupancy in order to accurately reflect performance in the vacation rental market.

AirDNA only considers active listings in its occupancy rate calculations, whether it’s for a specific market or when someone uses our Airbnb calculator. We define active as having at least one calendar day classified as reserved or available during the reporting period. If we included every available night from every available listing in our occupancy calculation, it would return a falsely low occupancy rate. This is due to variations in vacation rental host behaviors and motivations. We’re talking about host attentiveness in managing listing calendars and their responsiveness to reservation requests.

Here are three host cases that would falsely skew occupancy downward if we included them in the occupancy rate calculation: 

Event-Based Hosts: Hosts who list properties temporarily to take advantage of specific events, causing temporary market fluctuations that don’t reflect regular hosting activity.

"Make Me Move" Hosts: Hosts who set their prices significantly above the market rate, using Airbnb as an opportunistic platform rather than a committed hosting venue.

Dormant Listings: Properties that appear available but haven't seen a booking for months, often due to a shift in host priorities or property usage.

AirDNA ensures that its occupancy rate calculations reflect genuine market activity and trends by focusing on active listings. We stand by the accuracy of our data and use this methodology to help stakeholders understand the true dynamics of the STR market. Our insights are distinct from those that can be gleaned from hotel occupancy data.

How to Get High Occupancy on Airbnb

Occupancy rate may not be a complete picture of your property’s performance, but it’s still important. After all, you’re only making money if guests are staying at your property. If your occupancy rate is falling short of expectations, take these data-driven steps to learn how to increase occupancy rate on Airbnb. 

Increase Your Airbnb Occupancy Rate

Occupancy Rate is Just the Beginning  

According to ou annual best places to invest report, most of the destinations at the top of the list have occupancy rates of 60-70%. If you're interested to learn more about a market's occupancy rate, visit the AirDNA app.

While Airbnb occupancy rates are important, you need to track a range of metrics to assess how your Airbnb is performing overall. Our insights can help you optimize your properties for the best possible occupancy rate, average daily rate (ADR), revenue per available rental (RevPAR), and overall profitability.

Frequently Asked Questions:
What is a good occupancy rate for an Airbnb?

There is no universal “good" occupancy rate. Determining whether your occupancy rate is optimized requires understanding local market conditions, historical performance, and your personal goals for the property. Keep in mind that lower occupancy rates don’t necessarily indicate lost revenue. If you are charging a higher average daily rate, you might not need as many bookings to make as much money as a competitor with higher occupancy but a lower nightly rate.

Where can you see Airbnb occupancy rates?

You can see the occupancy rate for your listing as well as that of competitors in the area on your AirDNA dashboard. 

Find out what “Airbnb occupancy rate” refers to, how to calculate it, and tips for improving your occupancy rate and increasing your STR income.

The Most Useful Airbnb Apps for Hosts in 2024

ARTICLE SUMMARY

QUICK NAVIGATION