13 Feb How I Improved My Airbnb Revenue by 33% – Beyond Pricing Review

What’s up, everyone! In my last posts, I’ve talked about why you should never use Airbnb’s smart pricing. Here’s a screenshot that shows a real example of an Airbnb Host that is currently using Smart Pricing.

(psst, in case you missed my last two posts, here are the links: part one and part two).

Do you see the confusion?

She thinks that by setting her minimum price really high, she’s able to avoid her listing being underpriced by Smart Pricing.

There are two issues. One; there’s a maximum ceiling that I’ve talked about in my response to her. Two; how do you know your “high minimum price” is low enough where you are still getting bookings?

I can set my minimum price to 500 dollars, but obviously, that is not going to get me booked because my competitors are charging less and my place is not nice enough where I can justify charging 500 dollars per night.

How I Increased My Revenue by 33% Using Beyond Pricing (BP)

I have been using BP for almost a year now. I was using Everbooked before, but they decided to discontinue their dynamic pricing after the acquisition( you can read about it on everbooked). It took me a while to research all of the available solutions out there.

For a while, I was adjusting my pricing manually. That was fine for my first listing but quickly became a time-suck as I got more units. Essentially, I would research my competitors, how much hotels were charging, and if there were any major events/conferences/concerts near my listings. I grew frustrated and decided to outsource this specific part of my operation.

In my evaluation, I solicited responses from other seasoned Airbnb hosts as well as my own research on the internet. I found two real contenders: Beyond Pricing and Wheelhouse. To save you some hassle, here are my research findings.

In summary, I went with Beyond Pricing and here is why. 1) I  saved some time from my weekly research. 2) I increased my revenue by 33%. Well, 32% because BP takes 1%.

*BP claims that some users can make up to 40% more, but I tracked my earings and saw a 33% increase. On average, they said you’ll get 10~40%.

So here’s a real example of how much BP charges.

1. 300 dollar booking for two nights
2. Airbnb takes 3% host fee: 300 – 9 = 291 dollars
3. Beyond Pricing takes 1% of that 291 = 2.91

Total fees = 4% (3%Airbnb host fee + 1% BP Fee).

What Dynamic Pricing Means

Ah, crap. Back it up a little bit. Let me explain what dynamic pricing means.

A real-world example would be when you try to book a hotel room. You could pay 100 dollars or 500 dollars for the exact same room. The pricing is based on demand, seasonality, and other factors.

Beyond Pricing takes in those factors such as demand, the day of the week, and seasonality into their algorithm to dynamically price your listing to achieve the maximum amount of money per night for your listing.

Okay, so that is what dynamic means. Now, let’s go take a look at the product.

Beyond Pricing Product Review

This is what the dashboard looks like for me and you can also see my listings.

A few things I’d like to point out.

Health Score: how well your listing is doing based on their algorithm ( out of 100 points).

Booking % for the next 30 days: 50% is perfect, so it’s important not to get underbooked or overbooked.

Booking % for the next 90 days: 32% is perfect, and the key is to maintain a “healthy” amount of reservations for future dates to maximize the amount of money per listing.

**As you can see, my listings are doing well. My health scores are usually between 75 and 90. I will start to worry if it slips into the 60s.

Sync Prices: it allows you to easily auto-sync BP’s pricing into your Airbnb listing(s).

Review Prices: I will talk more about this later, but it allows you to set your base rate and minimum rate.

Market Data: this is where BP gathers a ton of data about your competitors, the number of bookings, and hotels nearby. I will also talk more about this a little bit later.

Review Prices

A couple of things that I want to point out. And these are the only two things that you have to set and everything else will be taken care of behind the scenes.

Base Price: this should be roughly your average nightly rate for your Airbnb, and if you do not have historical data for your listing, you can start by searching your local competition on Airbnb. Find a listing on Airbnb of similar size (bedroom and bathroom) and quality, and ensure that listing has a few confirmed reservations in the next couple of months. You can do this by making sure the Airbnb listing you are looking at has a few positive reviews and has a few booked days in the upcoming months. Take that Base Price and use it as your starting average nightly rate.

*Read this article if you want more information on setting your base price correctly.

Minimum Price: This is the lowest price that you’d accept per night.

So, as you can see that my base price is set to $205 and minimum price is set to $150. You might be wondering why you see 152 and 155 per night for the 17th and 18th.

If I hover over the date, this is what I see.

It lists out all of the reasons on why it’s predicting that price. And the dates without any pricing are all of my successful bookings.

Beyond Pricing: NearBy Listings

If you click on Nearby Listings above the Base Price setting, it’ll take you to this screen.

 This feature was recently implemented. It’s been a huge help for me to determine how much I should charge when my health score slips into the 60s. It gives you the base price of your competitors around your neighborhood.

That alone is worth the 1% charge, in my opinion.

Summary

I’ve been using BP for almost a year now and I trust it. A few of my friends that I had recommended it to have also told me how BP increased their revenue from 15% to 40%. Ian, their CEO came from the hotel industry so he understands the science behind dynamic pricing.

If you want to try it out, here is the link to try it out. You will get one month free, so if you don’t like it, you can always cancel!

Interest in learning how to build your rental arbitrage empire? You can subscribe to my blog and learn tips and insights on my process of creating a profitable 6-figure passive income business using other people’s home.