Lodgify Review: The Vacation Rental Software I Use

I manage Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and direct bookings from one calendar, and that calendar lives in Lodgify. So this is a review from someone who runs real homes on it, with the good fit and the poor fit both spelled out.

Disclosure: the Lodgify links in this article are referral links. If you sign up through one, Mood en Scène may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. That did not change my assessment, and the grid below says plainly where another tool is the better pick.

What Lodgify is

Lodgify is vacation rental software that bundles four jobs into one subscription.

• A website builder. A direct booking site with your photos, rates and calendar.
• A channel manager. One master calendar connected to Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and other channels, so a reservation on one closes the dates on the rest.
• A booking engine with payments. The checkout a guest uses when they book with you directly.
• A unified inbox. Guest messages from every channel in one place.

There is also a public API. In plain words, that is a service door that lets another website or program ask Lodgify questions: is the house free on these dates, and what does the stay cost?

If the idea of a channel manager is new to you, I explain why one calendar matters in Beyond Airbnb.

How I use it

For the Southborough home, Airbnb, Vrbo and direct bookings all run on one calendar managed in Lodgify. The whole point: a booking on Vrbo closes those dates on Airbnb, so a second group never falls in love with a weekend that is already gone.

The part I enjoy most is the service door. In September 2026 we built southboroughgardenretreat.com as a custom site, because we wanted things a template does not give you: 15 local guides, and pages delivered as finished HTML that search engines and AI assistants can read easily. The site asks Lodgify for live availability and nightly prices and shows them right on the page. A guest picks dates and sees an itemised price, discounts and cleaning fee included. "Request to book direct" then hands them to Lodgify's secure checkout with the dates already filled in, through a short branded link. Airbnb and Vrbo buttons sit right beside it for guests who prefer a platform they know, and every direct booking is a request I confirm personally.

That site is days old. It is too early to show numbers, so I will not. The method is laid out in building a short-term rental website.

Who it suits

From where I sit, Lodgify fits an owner or small manager with one to a handful of homes who wants the website, the calendar sync and the checkout under one roof, without stitching three products together.

It also fits the owner who wants a custom site and needs the booking machinery behind it. That is my case.

Who may be happier elsewhere

A fair review names the exits. All of these points come from each vendor's own site.

• Large portfolios. Guesty sorts its plans by size: Lite for 1 to 3 listings, Pro for 4 to 199, Enterprise for 200 and up, with trust accounting and an owners portal on its feature list. Hostaway's pricing page starts at 2 listings and runs to 50 and more. If you manage dozens of homes with owner statements to send, start there.
• Airbnb-first hosts who mostly want messaging help. Hospitable has a free Essentials plan with a unified inbox and scheduled guest messages. Its direct booking website arrives with the Professional plan.
• Owners who want the whole price on one page. OwnerRez publishes a per-property price with a slider: 40 US dollars a month for one property on the day I checked, 55 with a hosted website, and it states there are no booking fees.
• Managers who love a guidebook. Hostfully sells digital guidebooks alongside its property management software.

One caution applies to every all-in-one tool, Lodgify included. Your calendar, guest list and website end up with a single vendor, so ask early how you would export your data if you ever left.

Comparison grid

Every competitor cell below was checked on that vendor's own website on September 21, 2026 (the Lodgify row has its own note under the table). Prices are in US dollars, per month, before taxes. "Not published" means the vendor's site did not show it that day.

Software	Sized for, in the vendor's words	Published starting price	Free trial	Direct booking website	Channels named	Public API
Lodgify	See its site	See its site	See its site	Yes, website builder	Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and others	Yes
Hostaway	2 to 14, 15 to 49, or 50+ listings	Not published (quote)	Not published	Yes, Booking Website Pro	Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Google and more	Yes
Guesty	Lite 1 to 3, Pro 4 to 199, Enterprise 200+	"From $9/month per listing"; Pro by quote	14 days, Lite	Yes, all plans; advanced AI builder is a paid add-on	Lite: Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo. Pro: 60+	Pro and Enterprise only
OwnerRez	Priced per property	$40 for 1 property; $55 with hosted website; $88 for 5	14 days	Yes, premium feature	Vrbo, Airbnb, Booking.com, Google Vacation Rentals	Yes
Hospitable	"From large scale property managers to single unit hosts"	Essentials free; Host $29, Professional $59, Mogul $99	14 days, no credit card	Professional and Mogul	Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Agoda	Host plan and up
Hostfully	Growth 1 to 50, Pro 1 to 199, Enterprise 200+	From $15 per property plus a platform fee (amount not published)	Not published (demo)	Yes	60+	Paid add-on

Reminder: the Lodgify links here are referral links. Mood en Scène may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you, and that did not change anything in this table.

A note on the Lodgify row. Its plans and prices change more often than this article will, so I have left those three cells to Lodgify's own pricing page, which shows the current plans, trial and any booking fees. The feature cells in that row come from my own use of it.

Three more things the grid cannot show:

• Starting prices are only a start. Hospitable adds 10 to 30 dollars for each extra property depending on the plan, per its help centre. Hostfully's Growth plan lists a 1% payment gateway fee and a 0.85% direct booking fee. Read the fine print for the number of homes you really have.
• Hospitable's prices load by script on its pricing page. I took the figures from its own help article, linked in the sources.
• Channel counts are the vendor's claim. What matters is whether your channels connect directly, and how fast a booking on one closes the calendar on the others.

Five questions for any vendor

1. What will I pay at two homes, and at five?
2. Is there a fee on direct bookings, on top of card processing?
3. Which channels connect directly, and which only through a calendar link?
4. Is the API included in my plan? You will want it the day you outgrow a template.
5. How do I take my data with me?

Where the software stops

Software keeps calendars from colliding. It does not write the pages that get a home found. That work is in SEO for short-term rentals and in getting discovered by ChatGPT, and the scoreboard is in the metrics that matter.

Choosing the tool, connecting the channels and building the site around it is part of what I set up for owners.

Sources

• Hostaway, pricing page: https://www.hostaway.com/pricing/
• Hostaway, marketing features (Booking Website Pro): https://www.hostaway.com/features/marketing/
• Hostaway, public API reference: https://api.hostaway.com/documentation
• Guesty, pricing and plan comparison: https://www.guesty.com/pricing/
• OwnerRez, pricing: https://www.ownerrez.com/pricing
• OwnerRez, API overview: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/api-overview
• Hospitable, pricing page: https://hospitable.com/pricing
• Hospitable help centre, pricing and subscription costs: https://help.hospitable.com/en/articles/4596748-hospitable-pricing-subscription-costs
• Hostfully, property management software pricing: https://www.hostfully.com/pricing/property-management-software/
• Federal Trade Commission, Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking (why the disclosure sits next to the links): https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking