Frequently Asked Questions

Yes! Click the "Try Demo" button in the navigation bar on any page to instantly explore a fully interactive demo, no account or credit card required. The demo includes a pre-populated property with bookings, guests, invoices, and a branded public booking site with photos, amenity highlights, location privacy, live sample pricing, and Request to Book. The booking handoff is simulated: it never creates a request or reservation, sends an email, authorizes a card, or contacts a payment processor. The data resets every hour.

The dashboard groups everything you need to glance at into clear sections. The Today strip surfaces operational items happening right now: check-ins today, check-outs today, guests in-house, scheduled cleanings, and unread inbox messages or AI-drafted replies waiting on you. Below it, four stat cards summarize performance: YTD Revenue with a year-over-year comparison, Occupancy this month, ADR / RevPAR for the current month with prorated math for stays that cross month boundaries, and Total Nights YTD. A Booking Source Mix bar shows the share of YTD bookings from Airbnb, VRBO, Direct, and Other so you can see channel concentration at a glance. Action Items lists everything waiting on you in one place: new inquiries, open property alerts, contracts awaiting signature, unpaid invoices with the outstanding total, pending pre-arrival forms, and revenue gaps. Each row jumps to the right page. Pro also includes a Market Position widget comparing your rates to nearby comparable listings.

HostMoat is an all-in-one vacation rental management platform built specifically for independent property owners. Pro includes up to two properties and brings calendar sync, booking management, guest communication, financial tracking, tax tools, direct bookings, owner reports, and team operations into one dashboard.

Guided setup is four short steps with a visible counter: name your property, import your rental, review guest messages, and a closing screen that says "Setup complete" and shows exactly what is now running, such as calendar sync every 2 hours and your selected messages. Base pricing, publishing your booking site, and payments are optional follow-ups tracked on the dashboard Launch Status card as Live, Draft, or Later; none of them block completion.

Yes. When you connect an Airbnb calendar feed, HostMoat can look up your public listing and suggest details such as bathrooms, bedrooms, check-in and check-out times, and your map location, and it can import photos from your listing when they are available after you confirm you have the rights to use them. You can also paste your listing text from any platform and HostMoat suggests a description, amenities, and guest count using the built-in AI included with Pro and the trial. You review every suggested value and choose what to apply; nothing is saved until you confirm, and HostMoat never changes those details on its own afterward. Run it during guided setup or anytime from Property Profile. Your street address still needs to be entered by hand.

The 14-day trial includes the complete Pro product. Naming one property creates your dashboard immediately, and setup continues straight into importing your rental so bookings, details, and photos can fill themselves in. Every remaining step is skippable, and Launch Status then tracks location, base pricing, your private booking-site draft, paused-by-default guest messages, and guest tools when you are ready.

New users can enter an email on the homepage or click "Start Trial". Existing users can choose "Log In" or "Sign In". We'll send a secure magic link, no password needed. If it does not arrive, check spam or junk and use Resend link on the same screen.

No. The 14-day Pro trial requires no credit card. Add billing only when you choose to continue with Pro.

Yes. Every new account starts with a 14-day Pro trial: full access to all features, no credit card required. You can explore all Pro features before deciding whether to upgrade.

Inside HostMoat, open Help & Support at the bottom of the sidebar under Account. It has searchable help articles plus an Email Support button that fills in your account, property, subscription, and the page you were on, so you don't have to describe your setup. Support is included during the trial and with Pro; grandfathered customers retain their existing support access. If you're logged out, use the contact page. We typically respond within one business day.

Yes, as an installable web app. On iPhone or iPad (iOS 16.4 or later), open hostmoat.com in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, Chrome offers an Install option in its menu (Android also supports push notifications without installing). The installed app opens full screen and supports push notifications for bookings, inquiries, and guest messages.

Enable them per device from Settings under Notifications. HostMoat sends a push notification when it records a new inquiry, guest message, booking request, or a booking update from email import; delivery to your device is handled by your platform's push service. Reservations and urgent calendar conflicts discovered through iCal polling arrive on the regular sync cadence, so those alerts follow the sync, not the platform booking instant. You can remove a device or turn notifications off at any time, and signing out removes your devices automatically.

Request a sign-in email as usual, then type the one-time code shown in that email into the app instead of tapping the link. The code and link both expire after one hour.

HostMoat connects to your Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com calendar feeds via iCal URLs. It automatically imports bookings and keeps your availability up to date across platforms, checking for changes every 2 hours. During sync, HostMoat also extracts guest details (name, phone, email, guest count, and confirmation codes) from the iCal DESCRIPTION field and automatically creates guest profiles in the Guest CRM. Learn more about Calendar Sync.

Absolutely. HostMoat is designed to work alongside your existing platform listings. It syncs your bookings from those platforms so you have a unified view, while you continue to receive bookings through Airbnb, VRBO, and direct.

HostMoat syncs calendars every 2 hours and exports your availability back to platforms, which significantly reduces double-booking risk. If two platforms do sell the same nights, HostMoat refuses to store overlapping stays and raises an urgent alert naming both bookings, both platforms, and the exact dates that clash, so you can fix it at the source instead of finding out at check-in. For best results, also set up direct iCal connections between Airbnb and VRBO as a backup.

HostMoat will not import dates that overlap a booking or block already on your calendar, because showing both would make your availability unreliable. Instead you get an urgent alert on the Alerts page that names the incoming stay, the platform it came from, and the existing booking it collides with. Resolve the clash on the platform that owns the losing reservation, and the dates import automatically on the next sync. The alert closes itself once the conflict is gone.

Email import lets you forward Airbnb or VRBO booking confirmation, update, and cancellation emails to a unique per-property address (e.g., 4a16da67@hostmoat.com). HostMoat extracts guest name, revenue/payout, nightly rate, host platform fee, cleaning fee, guest count, confirmation code, reservation URL, and contact details when the platform includes them. It matches to existing bookings by confirmation code, then guest name + dates, then date overlap, or creates a new booking. Update emails overwrite financial data with the new values. Cancellation emails automatically cancel the matching booking and update revenue when a cancellation payout is included. Booking.com email import is coming soon.

Step 1: In Gmail, go to Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Click "Add a forwarding address" and enter your HostMoat property email (e.g., 4a16da67@hostmoat.com). Gmail sends a verification email, and HostMoat automatically forwards it to your inbox so you can click the confirmation link. Important: after confirming, hard refresh Gmail (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R), because the new address won't appear in filter options until you do. Step 2: Create separate filters for confirmations, updates, and cancellations. For Airbnb, filter automated@airbnb.com subjects "Reservation confirmed", "Reservation updated", and "Canceled". For VRBO, open one of each message type and choose the three-dot menu > "Filter messages like these" because VRBO sender addresses and subject wording vary by account and market. Set each filter to forward to your HostMoat address.

Yes. Pro supports manual booking entry alongside calendar imports. You can add direct bookings, phone reservations, or a booking from a platform not connected through iCal.

This property setting controls required empty time between stays. At 0, a new guest may check in on the prior guest's checkout date. At 1, same-day arrival is disabled and the next full day is reserved for turnover: a Jun 8 checkout makes Jun 10 the earliest next check-in. HostMoat enforces the rule for manual and direct bookings, guest-facing calendars, inquiries, availability-aware AI replies, the Gap Detector, and iCal exports. Imported iCal or confirmation-email reservations keep their original platform dates; HostMoat never shifts or shortens them to manufacture a buffer.

Open Property, Property Profile and click "+ Add Property" at the top. Pro supports two properties. Need more than two? Contact support to discuss your setup. Existing legacy portfolio subscribers retain their recorded property limits. Switch between properties using the dropdown in the sidebar.

Open Direct Booking > Widgets to add HostMoat to an existing website. The free Calendar widget shows live availability, optional nightly prices, and an optional inquiry form. Pro hosts can also use the Booking Checkout widget, which keeps guests on the host's website while they choose dates, review pricing, enter their details, and pay securely through Stripe.

Nothing is deleted. Paid features pause after the paid period, while properties, feeds, templates, bank connections, and other saved settings remain available to restore when you return to Pro.

New customers get one paid plan: Pro for $7.99/month or $79.90/year, including up to two properties* and the complete HostMoat product. * Need more than 2 properties? Contact support to discuss your setup. Every new account starts with a 14-day Pro trial and no card is required. Existing Essential, Pro 5, and Pro 10 subscribers are grandfathered at their current price and limits until an intentional migration.

Every new account gets the complete Pro product with no card required. The guided setup establishes a working rental first. If you do not subscribe after 14 days, paid features pause while your data remains safe.

One Pro plan means the trial matches what customers keep, onboarding never branches by arbitrary feature tiers, and HostMoat can explain the outcome instead of a plan checklist. Existing legacy subscriptions are not repriced or removed.

Enter a property name and HostMoat creates the property and its dashboard immediately, then setup continues into importing your rental: bookings from your calendar link, plus listing details and photos you review before anything is saved. Guided setup is four short steps and ends with a closing screen that shows exactly what is running. Launch Status then tracks optional follow-ups like location, base rate, publishing the private booking-site draft, paused guest messages, Stripe, and the pre-arrival form and guest portal with Live, Draft, and Later labels.

No long-term commitment. Choose monthly or annual Pro billing and cancel renewal anytime. Your data stays yours.

Paid features pause but your data remains safe. Subscribe to Pro at any time to restore the complete product.

Yes. Manage payment methods, invoices, cancellation, and available billing changes through the Stripe billing portal in account settings.

Pro is billed through Stripe at $7.99 monthly or $79.90 annually. Existing legacy subscriptions retain their current billing until an intentional migration.

Yes. Pro includes one standing owner-report link per property. Open Profit & Loss from the sidebar, then Owner Sharing, and choose whether the link may show fixed property costs and depreciation. The live, read-only report supports monthly, year-to-date, and full-year views plus print-to-PDF, but never includes guest identities, notes, or the property street address. Disable or rotate the link whenever access should end.

The homepage explains the activation flow first. The feature guides and this help center document individual workflows after you understand how property data, availability, pricing, the booking site, messages, pre-arrival forms, and the guest portal fit together.

Yes. The Free Host Tools page has calculators any host can use with no sign-up: an Airbnb profit calculator, a host fee calculator that compares platform fees to direct-booking costs, and a short-term rental ROI calculator for evaluating a property purchase. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is saved.

The Featured Stays directory is a free public "book direct" page that showcases HostMoat customers' direct booking sites so travelers can find and book them without platform service fees. Listing is opt-in: on the Booking Site page, enable your site and switch on "Featured Stays Directory". The listing shows only what is already public on your site (property name, location, tagline, and hero photo) and links straight to your booking site, which also gives it an extra inbound link for search engines.

Yes. Open Property > Smart Devices, connect Seam on Setup, assign the discovered lock to the correct property, choose it as the primary unit lock, and enable access automation on Access. HostMoat sends a separate access-ready email only after the unit PIN and any selected shared entrances are confirmed. The same current access appears in the guest portal after its reveal, contract, and pre-arrival gates are satisfied, then disappears when cancelled, replaced, or expired.

HostMoat uses Seam’s standardized capabilities rather than a short hard-coded brand list. It can discover supported smart locks, building access entrances, thermostats, and noise monitors from the owner’s Seam workspace. Each device stays unassigned and inactive until you choose its property. Exact actions depend on what that model reports through Seam: for example, a lock must support programmable codes and a shared entrance must support the requested PIN or mobile-key method.

Nothing changes. The fixed door code in Property → Property Profile → Guest Information & Rules continues to appear in authorized guest emails and the guest portal exactly as before. Automatic codes only take over on properties where you have connected a lock and switched automation on.

Yes. Turn on cleaner PINs under Property > Smart Devices > Access and set the cleaning-day hours. Each scheduled clean gets a separate temporary PIN in the cleaner portal; it never reuses the guest credential and stops working when the window closes or the clean is completed.

Open Property > Smart Devices > Noise. Sync supported monitors from Seam or add one manually, then set each monitor’s threshold. Noise readings and alerts are owner/staff information only: they do not appear in pre-arrival emails or the guest portal. Threshold breaches, lock battery/offline warnings, thermostat alerts, and door-open warnings surface under Alerts & Health.

Create professional invoices and send them directly to guests via email. Supported online payments use Stripe. Automatic reminders can reduce manual follow-up, but you remain responsible for monitoring delivery, payment status, refunds, disputes, and offline payments. When creating an invoice, you can also enable "Track my cost" to log what you paid a vendor for the service as a separate expense. If the cost differs from the invoice amount, HostMoat shows the recorded margin for your review.\n\nVoiding invoices: Sent, viewed, or overdue invoices can be voided (cancelled) using the Void button in the action column. Voided invoices are preserved for your records and can be filtered using the dedicated Voided status tab.\n\nPayment tracking: Stripe payments are tracked when HostMoat receives the relevant processor status. For payments received offline (cash, check, wire transfer), use the "Mark Paid" button to record the payment. Review the status against Stripe or your source records when it matters.

Click "Connect with Stripe" in Settings, choose the country where your legal entity and payout bank are based, and complete Stripe's hosted onboarding. Guest payments are processed directly on that connected account and pay out to the bank Stripe collects. HostMoat never holds your money and adds no platform fee. US accounts may offer cards and US ACH; supported non-US accounts currently offer cards while still receiving local bank payouts.

Supported currencies are USD, CAD, MXN, and EUR. Each property has one currency for its rates, invoices, contracts, and guest charges, chosen during setup or later in Property Profile. Guests always pay in the property's currency. If your Stripe account settles in a different currency, Stripe converts the payout and applies its own conversion fee. Tax Center reports in USD only.

Yes, but only before the property has durable financial history and while every inherited monetary value is zero. HostMoat never converts an amount or relabels a non-zero financial record. Clear editable rates, pricing rules, upsells, and costs first; re-route any active bank account assigned to the property; then use Property Profile's Currency card. Empty manual booking and work-order shells may be relabeled. A checkout attempt that never collected money stops locking the currency only after HostMoat records terminal proof that no Stripe payment remains in flight. Guest CRM revenue thresholds keep their numeric values under the new currency label, so review them after a change.

Pro is $7.99/month or $79.90/year. Depending on the platform fee model and stay value, moving a repeat guest or referral to your own site may cover the subscription. HostMoat takes 0% commission on direct bookings; standard Stripe processing still applies. Run your own numbers with the free host fee calculator.

Yes. When you create an invoice, it's automatically emailed to the guest. There's no draft stage. Staff members can opt in to receive email notifications when invoices are created, paid, or voided. Configure this in Staff settings under Notification Preferences.

Create reusable contract templates with merge fields that auto-fill guest and booking details. Every property starts with an active Standard Rental Agreement marked as its default. Customize it or send it as-is. Direct Booking Sites automatically use the property's default template unless you turn automatic contracts off. HostMoat emails the secure signing link, preserves required custom fields, and can require a Stripe payment method on file when the template calls for it.

Yes. The Send Contract modal has an Additional Terms textarea: anything you type there is added to that one contract only. If your template includes the {{additional_terms}} merge field the text appears at that spot; otherwise it's appended to the end of the agreement. Useful for one-off arrangements like an early arrival agreement, a special access note, or a per-stay cleaning fee adjustment without touching your reusable template.

Yes. Every property starts with one active default. On the Contract Templates page, click "Set as default" on another active template to replace it. The default is pre-selected for manual sends and the property's Booking Site follows it for automatic direct-booking contracts.

Yes. For manually sent contracts, enable "Auto-create invoices on signing," then enter the deposit amount and balance due date. The deposit invoice sends immediately after signature and the balance invoice is scheduled from your reminder settings. Direct Booking Site checkout is different: it creates the payment invoices during checkout, so its automatic contract does not create duplicate invoices on signature.

Yes. In Booking Site -> Setup, choose Deposit and set Balance Due Before Arrival. Earlier reservations pay the configured deposit and receive a balance invoice due on that date. Reservations made on or after the balance due date must pay the full total at checkout. The automatic agreement states which amount was collected and whether a remaining balance is due. The balance invoice is paid through its secure link; HostMoat does not automatically recharge the original deposit card.

When you send a contract with 'Require payment method on file' toggled on, the guest must save a supported payment method during signing. When this is toggled off, the guest signs without entering payment details. Stripe stores the payment method securely; its full details are never visible to you. After checkout, you can initiate an incidental charge from the Contracts page, and the guest receives an email receipt for each successful charge. This is not a pre-authorized card hold.

Yes. When adding or editing a transaction in the Expenses page, select the associated booking from the dropdown. Linked expenses appear on the booking detail view alongside revenue, giving you a clear picture of per-booking net profit. This is useful for tracking cleaning costs, supply purchases, or any other booking-specific expense.

Yes. Pro includes both reviewed CSV import and read-only bank connections. Export a CSV from your bank or credit card, click Import CSV on the Expenses page, and HostMoat reads the file in your browser. Nothing is uploaded until you review the rows and confirm. The statement currency must match the active property because HostMoat does not convert CSV amounts; mixed or conflicting explicit currency markers are blocked. Chase and American Express exports are recognized automatically; other files need Date, Description, and Amount columns. HostMoat may suggest a category from merchant text, but the merchant alone cannot establish the correct accounting or tax treatment. Review every row, classification, and suggested Schedule E line against source records or with a tax professional. Money coming in is left for you to confirm rather than assumed to be rental income.

Nothing is duplicated. HostMoat fingerprints each row by its date, amount, and description, so re-uploading a file you have already imported reports "Imported 0, skipped 7 already-imported rows". Renaming the file makes no difference: the fingerprint is based on the transactions themselves, not the filename. Two genuinely separate charges on the same day for the same amount at the same merchant are treated as two transactions and both import correctly.

Not automatically, and this is deliberate. A bank statement contains deposits that are not rental income: payouts already counted through your bookings, refunds, and transfers between your own accounts. Counting them would inflate the rental income on your Schedule E. Imported deposits are held out of Gross Rental Income until you classify one as "Rents received", and the Tax Center shows a notice telling you exactly how many are waiting and what they total, so nothing is quietly dropped either.

Yes. Automatic bank sync is included in Pro. Open Bank Sync in the sidebar and click Connect Bank. Your banking password is entered on Plaid's screen and never reaches HostMoat, which only receives read-only transaction data and cannot move money. You can also import a bank or card CSV from Accounting → Transactions without a live connection.

On a multi-property Pro plan, Bank Sync lists the individual checking, savings, and card accounts beneath each bank login. Route an account automatically to one property, choose Import & review for an account containing activity from several rentals, or exclude it. A reviewed transaction can be assigned to one property or split across up to 20 same-owner properties, and the allocations must equal the bank transaction exactly. Routing changes affect future transactions only. Accounting → Transactions can consolidate same-currency properties, while Tax Center remains property-specific. If you have one property, nothing changes: every supported account routes there automatically and the routing controls stay hidden.

The public Pro plan includes 10 connected accounts. One bank login can expose several accounts (checking, savings, and two credit cards at the same bank count as four) because that is how the underlying service bills. Existing legacy subscribers retain their recorded account limits. You can disconnect a bank at any time to free slots.

Connecting or reconnecting a bank asks for a 6-digit code from an authenticator app. This is step-up verification: it applies only to bank-connection actions, never to normal sign-in, which stays passwordless. It exists because a bank connection is the most sensitive thing in your account, and it is a commitment HostMoat made to Plaid during security review. If you lose your authenticator you can still sign in normally. Contact support to reset the factor.

Your access token is revoked at Plaid immediately, so no further transactions can be pulled. Already-imported transactions are kept for 30 days in case you want to export them or reconnect, then automatically deleted, per our published data retention policy. If HostMoat cannot confirm the disconnect with Plaid, the connection shows "Disconnecting…" and keeps retrying rather than telling you it succeeded.

Only where it can do so safely. Utilities, hardware-store repairs, and cleaning-service charges are categorized automatically. Deliberately left for you to decide: general shopping (guest supplies vs household), travel (a rental trip vs a personal one), laundry, and anything a bank feed simply cannot distinguish. The bias is to leave a transaction uncategorized rather than invent a deduction on your tax return.

When creating a new invoice, you can enable "Track my cost for this service" to automatically log an expense for what you paid the vendor. For example, if you invoice a guest $200 for a chef service but your cost was $150, HostMoat records the $150 expense and shows your $50 markup. This keeps your expense tracking in sync with your invoicing without manual double entry.

Go to Finance > Commissions to set up commission rules with agent names and percentage rates. When you create or edit a booking, the Agent field becomes a dropdown with your configured agents. Selecting an agent automatically calculates the commission amount as the rule's rate times the rental amount. You can manually override the calculated amount if needed. If you change the rental amount with an agent selected, the commission recalculates automatically.

Open Finance > Commissions and go to the Payouts tab. Bookings with a commission are grouped by agent and split into Owed and Paid. Click "Mark paid" on a single booking when you settle it, or use "Mark all paid" to bulk-clear an agent's entire outstanding balance after you cut them a check. The top stat cards show total outstanding, total paid, and total accrued. Toggle "Show paid bookings" to see history. Marking a booking unpaid restores it to the owed list.

The Commission column now only shows referral commissions you've assigned via an agent. It used to fall back to the Airbnb/VRBO platform fee when no commission was set, which was misleading. Platform fees are still deducted from your net profit. They just live on their own line now (visible in the Profitability P&L and the booking detail popover). A green checkmark next to a commission means it's been marked paid; a yellow dot means it's still owed.

Go to the Pricing tab in the sidebar. The Base Rate card at the top shows your current nightly rate, cleaning fee, and weekend premium. Click the Edit button on that card to update any of these values. The nightly rate is your default per-night price for all dates not covered by a seasonal rule. The cleaning fee is added once per booking. The weekend premium is a percentage surcharge (e.g., 20%) that automatically applies on top of your rate for Friday and Saturday nights.

Go to Property → Property Profile → Spaces & Amenities and set Default Minimum Nights. HostMoat uses it for quotes, inquiries, the booking form, and server-side checkout whenever no date-specific minimum applies. A non-blank minimum on a seasonal pricing rule overrides the default for that rule’s dates and may be higher or lower; leave it blank to inherit the default. If a stay touches several explicit overrides, the highest applicable override is enforced. Direct-booking checkout verifies the result before creating a tentative hold or starting payment.

When you open the Base Rate editor (Pricing tab → Edit on the Base Rate card), HostMoat automatically analyzes your last 12 months of bookings and shows a suggestion banner with three recommended values: a nightly rate with a 5% inflation uplift over your historical average, a cleaning fee based on your historical average cleaning fee, and a weekend premium of at least 10%. Click "Apply Suggested Rates" to fill in all three fields at once. You can still adjust any value before saving. The banner only appears when there is sufficient booking history; it won't show for new properties with no past bookings.

Go to the Pricing tab and scroll to the Pricing Rules section. Click "+ Add Rule" (or "Add First Rule" if you have none yet). Give the rule a name (e.g., "Summer Peak"), set a start and end date, enter the nightly rate for that period, and optionally set a minimum stay. A rule minimum overrides the property default for that rule’s dates, so it can allow a shorter stay; leave it blank to inherit the default. Click Save. The rule immediately applies to bookings and inquiries that fall within those dates.

The system prevents overlapping date ranges. If you try to save a rule whose dates conflict with an existing rule, you'll see an error and the save will be blocked. You must adjust the dates so no two rules cover the same night. This ensures every night has an unambiguous price.

Revenue Autopilot is an optional Pro feature that proposes and, after explicit approval, manages direct-booking nightly prices inside your floor and ceiling. Preview and pending rates never reach guests. Manual seasonal rules remain authoritative, every published change has a receipt, and Stop & restore returns the property to its established pricing path without changing those rules. See how Revenue Autopilot works.

Pricing has three controls: set the normal price, protect exceptions with special-date prices, and decide whether Autopilot may adjust everything else. A special-date price always wins. Market signals, the automatic AirROI Smart Comp Set, and the manual Watchlist live under Advanced insights; they can inform or constrain a proposal but never publish a guest price by themselves. Read the operator manual.

No. HostMoat provides an Airbnb / VRBO update sheet for rates you choose to copy to those channels. Marking an item applied records your confirmation only. Revenue Autopilot cannot run alongside HostMoat Airbnb price sync; turning it on requires explicit confirmation before that sync is disabled.

HostMoat analyzes your booking history, holiday calendars (US and Mexico), and seasonal patterns to suggest optimal rates. Each suggestion shows estimated revenue impact and confidence level. Click "Apply" on any recommendation to instantly create a pricing rule with those dates and rate. Once a rule is active, the recommendation card updates to show an ACTIVE badge with Edit and Remove buttons so you can adjust or delete the rule without leaving the recommendations view.

The Prices calendar is the default view for the active property. Every date shows its effective nightly guest price and source. Select a night to see who controls it, why that price applies, and an override action. Available, booked, special-price, imported, weekend, and Autopilot dates remain color-coded for quick scanning.

The Demand Calendar is a 12-month color-coded heat map on the Market Intelligence tab (Pricing page) showing demand scores from 1 to 10 for every date. Green indicates low demand, yellow is moderate, and red is high. Click any date to see the breakdown of factors driving its score and create a pricing rule directly from there.

The Pricing Health score is a 0-100 rating that measures how well your pricing rules cover high-demand dates and whether your occupancy is trending upward. A score above 70 is solid. The score includes a specific recommended action to improve it, such as adding a rule for an uncovered holiday weekend or adjusting a rate for an underperforming period.

We combine your own booking history with AirROI booked-rate comparables, Inside Airbnb asking-price datasets where available, BLS lodging inflation data, direct Airbnb listing and price-calendar checks, and Ticketmaster event context. Each source stays labeled because booked ADR and published asking prices measure different things. Paid AirROI comparables use freshness guards and typically refresh quarterly; live calculations update when you open the page.

If you have an Airbnb iCal feed connected, HostMoat automatically pulls your listing's performance data, including your trailing-twelve-month ADR, occupancy rate, annual revenue, RevPAR, and guest rating. This gives you a quick snapshot of how your listing is performing on Airbnb without leaving HostMoat. The data refreshes monthly alongside other market intelligence data.

Yes! We track major sports games, university graduations, and other demand-driving events near your property. Events with significant attendance are flagged as pricing opportunities with one-click rule creation.

Seasonal pricing lets you set date-range rules that automatically override your base nightly rate for specific periods: holidays, peak season, school breaks, or any custom window. Each rule has a start date, end date, and nightly rate. When a booking or inquiry falls within a rule's date range, that rule's rate is used for those nights instead of your base rate. Rules are configured in the Pricing tab. You can also set a minimum stay per rule; it replaces the property default for that rule’s dates and is enforced on your Direct Booking Site before a hold or payment starts.

The weekend premium is a percentage surcharge that automatically applies to Friday and Saturday nights. Set it in the Base Rate card on the Pricing tab (for example, 20%) and every Friday and Saturday night in any booking calculation will be priced at that premium above whatever the applicable nightly rate is, base or seasonal. It's applied on top of seasonal pricing rules, so a Friday night in peak season gets both the seasonal rate and the weekend uplift.

When guests submit an inquiry or book through your Direct Booking Site, they see a detailed per-night breakdown showing exactly how their total is calculated. Each night lists the applicable rate (whether it's your base rate, a seasonal rule, or a weekend premium), so there are no surprises. For manual bookings, HostMoat auto-suggests a total based on the same pricing rules, which you can accept or override. The pricing calculation is: base rate → seasonal rule override (if applicable) → weekend premium on top → cleaning fee added once.

The Tax Center organizes property income and categorized expenses by Schedule E line, tracks depreciation inputs and personal-use days, calculates rental-use allocations, and exports the supporting records. It prepares source data for your accountant or tax software; it does not file a return or replace tax advice.

The Gap Detector scans your calendar for orphan nights (single unbooked nights between bookings), unbooked weekends, and seasonal dead zones. It calculates the estimated revenue you're leaving on the table and suggests actions.

Yes. Pro plans include team sharing: invite co-hosts, property managers, or partners with role-based access (viewer or manager). Managers can create, edit, and delete property data, including setting up the Direct Booking Site. Viewers have read-only access. You can configure seat limits per property.

The Staff page is the unified place for managing everyone on your team: cleaners, co-hosts, property managers, and any other staff. Add members with name, role, email, phone, notes, and cleaning rate. The Cleanings tab manages all cleaning tasks: turnover cleans, daily cleans, and deep cleans. The Templates tab lets you create per-property checklists. The Ratings & Bonuses tab shows per-staff-member guest ratings and bonuses in one table. When guests submit review forms with staff ratings, those scores automatically appear here. You can filter by staff member to see individual performance, and manually add bonuses via the "Add Bonus" button. Stat cards show average guest rating, total bonuses paid, and unpaid bonuses. Staff members can be given a portal link to view and complete their assigned cleanings, or invited to HostMoat for full app access.

You can configure 13+ notification types per staff member: digest emails, pre-arrival form submitted, review form submitted, guest inquiry received, new booking created, booking cancellation, turnover assigned to them, turnover reminder (day before), low inventory alert, upsell request submitted, upsell approved, upsell paid, portal message, inbox message, invoice created/sent, invoice paid, invoice voided, contract sent to guest, and contract signed by guest. Notifications are managed per-staff from the Staff page, no longer from form settings.

When a booking is cancelled, HostMoat releases its dates, sends the configured cancellation confirmation to the guest when an email is on file, notifies opted-in staff, and lists the stay on Cancellations. Cancelling alone does not promise or automatically issue a refund. For a direct booking paid through HostMoat Stripe, open Cancellations and choose Refund to send a confirmed full or partial refund. When Stripe confirms it, HostMoat emails the guest the exact amount returned to the original payment method and updates finance and tax totals. Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, cash, and other external payments must be refunded where they were collected and can be recorded in the manual cancellation log.

Staff members with a portal link can access a no-login page showing their upcoming cleanings, including the cleaning type (turnover, daily, or deep clean). Turnover cleans include guest checkout/checkin details and guest counts. The same context now also shows on your own Cleanings tab, so you can see which booking each cleaning belongs to. Staff can complete checklist items and upload photos from their phone. Assign the portal link from the Staff page. The Cleanings tab on the Staff page is where you create and manage all cleaning assignments, including the per-property toggle that auto-creates a cleaning for every checkout with your default checklist.

Digest emails are customizable summary emails you can receive on any combination of days: daily, specific weekdays, or just once a week. Each digest includes upcoming check-ins and departures, calendar gaps in the next 30 days, this week's cleaning schedule with assignment status (unassigned cleanings are flagged so you can fix them before checkout day), maintenance tasks coming due or overdue, unread guest messages in your inbox, a 7-day occupancy rate with a visual progress bar, and week-over-week revenue trends with percentage change. You choose your schedule using day-of-week checkboxes (M T W T F S S) in Settings. Digests arrive at 9 AM in your timezone. Pick your timezone from Settings → Alerts & Health → Email Preferences (auto-detected on first visit). Property members also receive digests, not just the property owner.

Yes. Pro includes automatic emails for booking confirmations, pre-arrival details, checkout reminders, and post-stay review requests. Onboarding seeds sensible templates but pauses delivery until you review the settings and explicitly enable it.

Yes. When HostMoat syncs bookings from Airbnb, VRBO, or Booking.com, it parses the iCal DESCRIPTION field to extract guest phone numbers, email addresses, guest counts, and confirmation codes. It then automatically creates or updates guest profiles in your Guest CRM and links them to the corresponding bookings. Guests are deduplicated by email first, then by name, so existing records are updated rather than duplicated. Manual edits you make to guest profiles are preserved on re-sync.

The Guest CRM automatically assigns tags to guests based on their booking behavior: Champion (top-tier repeat guests), High Value (high total spend), Repeat (multiple stays), Long Stay (extended bookings), Direct Booker (booked outside platforms), Big Group (large party bookings), Recent (stayed recently), and Lapsed (haven't returned in a while). Tags help you identify your best guests and re-engage past ones.

Yes. Go to Settings and scroll to Guest Tag Thresholds. You can adjust the criteria for each tag per property: for example, how many stays count as "Repeat," how much spend qualifies as "High Value," or how many months define "Lapsed." This lets you tune the CRM to match your property's booking patterns.

In the Guest CRM, select two or more guest entries you want to combine, then click "Merge." HostMoat consolidates their stay history, revenue, tags, and contact information into a single profile. This is useful when the same guest has booked through different platforms or with slightly different names.

Yes. The Guest CRM includes a search bar to find guests by name or email, and a CSV export button to download your full guest list with tags, stay counts, total revenue, and contact details.

The Inventory & Supplies page lets you track cleaning supplies, toiletries, kitchen items, linens, and outdoor supplies with quantities, reorder levels, unit costs, and preferred brands. Items are flagged for reorder only when a reorder level is set and the quantity drops to or below it. Items without a reorder level are never falsely flagged. The Furnishings tab tracks larger assets with purchase cost, depreciation, condition, and lifespan tracking. The Damage Log tab lets you file damage reports with cost estimates, insurance claim tracking, and resolution notes. All three tabs support full add, edit, and delete operations with CSV export.

Pro separates actionable Work Orders from Recurring Items. Owners and managers create, prioritize, schedule, start, complete, cancel, and filter repair jobs. A completed job can create one maintenance expense that flows to Schedule E line 14. Recurring items create prefilled linked jobs; completing the job advances the next due date and updates service count and spend. Active staff can receive assignment email, start a job, upload photos, add resolution notes, and complete it through a secure staff-portal link.

Yes. Accounting → Transactions shows the invoice total, net collected, refunded, and outstanding amounts with a link to Invoices, which is also available directly in the sidebar. Successful HostMoat Stripe payments and refunds also create locked ledger entries automatically; refunds reduce rental income rather than being counted as an operating expense. Profit & Loss and Tax Center are separate sidebar destinations.

Yes. Accounting → Transactions includes a period selector that lets you filter by month, quarter, or full year. The stat cards update to show recorded income, recorded expenses, and ledger net for the selected period. You can also export the filtered results as a CSV file for your accountant or tax prep.

Yes. Accounting → Transactions shows a "Sync Bookings" button when you have bookings with revenue that aren't yet linked to income transactions. Click it to auto-create income entries for each unsynced booking, linked to the booking record with the check-in date and Schedule E line 3 (Rents received). This eliminates manual double-entry of booking revenue.

Yes. When adding or editing a transaction, check the "Recurring" box and select a frequency (monthly, quarterly, every 6 months, or yearly). HostMoat tracks the next due date and shows a notification banner when recurring expenses are due. Click "Generate Now" to create the next occurrence and advance the due date automatically. This is useful for mortgage payments, utilities, insurance premiums, and other regular costs.

Yes. Staff bonuses display with their actual currency (e.g., MXN for Mexican Pesos). The Ratings & Bonuses tab on the Staff page shows the currency code alongside amounts so you always know the denomination. Totals are grouped by currency in the stat cards. You can filter by staff member to see individual bonus totals.

The Compliance page tracks your STR permits, business licenses, insurance policies, fire inspections, and occupancy tax registrations with expiry dates and renewal costs. Upload document files (PDFs, images, Word, Excel) directly to each item for safekeeping. Set a custom reminder window per document, and HostMoat sends automatic email alerts when documents are approaching expiry. Use bulk actions to renew multiple items at once, delete in batch, or export your compliance records as CSV. The Deadlines tab shows a unified timeline of all upcoming expirations. Common US federal tax dates appear only when the property country is the United States; confirm all filing obligations with the relevant jurisdiction.

Yes. Whenever a booking is created (manually or via iCal sync), a turnover event is recorded for the checkout date and a cleaning task is automatically created from the property's default turnover template. If two bookings are back-to-back, they merge into a single turnover. You can set a default cleaner and customize cleaning templates in the Templates tab.

The linked turnover is automatically marked as 'skipped' and the linked cleaning task is also marked as skipped, so neither appears in your upcoming lists. This works for both manual cancellations and when iCal sync detects a booking was removed on Airbnb or VRBO.

Same-day turnovers (where one guest checks out and another checks in on the same day) are highlighted in red with warning icons. They can be created in HostMoat only when Turnover Days Between Bookings is 0. If an external platform sends an imported same-day reservation, HostMoat preserves the platform dates and shows the warning so you can coordinate the tight cleaning window.

Analytics & Reports → Channels shows where your bookings come from across platforms like Airbnb, VRBO, and direct bookings. The current year's source breakdown is displayed at the top with progress bars. The year-over-year trends table shows all years sorted newest-first so the most relevant data is always visible. Recent years are computed automatically from your booking data, while historical years can be manually added with year, source name, and booking count.

A direct booking website is a property page you control where guests can book directly with you, without going through Airbnb, VRBO, or any other platform. You keep 100% of the booking revenue with no platform commission. HostMoat's Booking Site feature (Pro) gives you a branded page at yourslug.hostmoat.com with photos, amenities, real-time availability, and a booking form.

Start in Property → Property Profile: add the description, capacity, rooms, amenities, photos, location, and house rules once. Then open Direct Booking → Booking Website near the top of the Main navigation, enable the site, choose its slug and booking mode, and use Content and Design for visible sections, a curated theme, accent, logo, hero crop, featured amenities, and exact, approximate, or hidden public location. Property Profile remains the source for facts and photos. Save changes, then use Preview before sharing.

Yes. Pro subscribers can connect a guest-facing address such as booking.yourproperty.com. Enter that full address under Booking Site → Setup → Custom Domain. In your registrar, create a CNAME with Host/Name "booking" and Points to/Target "sites.hostmoat.com". Do not enter sites.hostmoat.com as your custom domain: it is only the DNS target. Save the setup, click "Provision Domain," then use "Check Status" until verification and SSL are ready.

Yes. Choose from six curated themes (including a dark Lodge theme), four heading font pairings, an accent color, logo, hero controls, and featured highlights. You can also write up to six custom content sections (such as "Things to do nearby" or "Our story") and reorder the main sections. Customization stays curated: there is no raw CSS or HTML editing, which keeps every site fast, mobile-friendly, and safe on a payment page.

HostMoat gives every booking site the technical foundation search engines look for: a crawlable page title and description you control, structured data describing your rental, a canonical address for your custom domain, and a per-site sitemap and robots file. Your page content is indexed when Google renders the page. Search rankings depend on many factors HostMoat cannot control, so we cannot promise a specific position or traffic.

Inquiry Only collects guest details and a message without a card or date hold. Request to Book authorizes the guest's card and holds the dates for up to 24 hours while you approve or decline; approval captures payment, while decline or expiry releases the authorization and dates. Instant Book charges the guest and reserves the dates immediately. Request to Book is card-only and is unavailable when cards are disabled.

The guest selects dates, agrees to any visible house rules, and authorizes the amount due on a card. HostMoat shows you the exact amount and deadline in the booking. Approve captures that amount and then sends the rental agreement if configured; the booking is confirmed after the guest signs. Decline or expiry releases the authorization and dates. Banks can take a few days to remove a released pending amount.

Instant Book holds the dates and verifies the Stripe payment without waiting for host approval. Automatic contracts are on by default and use the property's default template: HostMoat emails the agreement and opens the signing page after payment, then confirms the booking and sends its confirmation email only after the guest signs. If you explicitly turn automatic contracts off, verified payment confirms the booking immediately.

Yes. On Pro, open Direct Booking → Widgets, then select Booking Checkout. Once the Website is enabled in Request to Book or Instant Book mode and Stripe is connected, copy the generated widget code into a custom HTML or code block on your website. Guests can select dates, review pricing, enter their details, complete the configured checkout, and sign the property's rental agreement when required. The widget uses the property's permanent ID, so changing your booking-site slug or custom domain does not break it.

The Booking Site feature (Pro) lets you create a branded, commission-free booking website for your property at yourslug.hostmoat.com. Guests can browse photos, amenities, and availability, then send an inquiry, request approval with a card authorization, or book instantly according to the mode you choose. Every property includes a default rental-agreement template; paid checkout modes use it after successful payment unless you turn contract automation off. Change the property default in Contracts > Templates when you want the site to use a different agreement.

Yes. Booking sites, the Booking Checkout widget, guest invoices, and the guest portal show an approximate price in the guest's currency next to your real price, based on daily exchange rates. Guests are always charged in your property's currency, and you can turn estimates off in Booking Site settings.

Pre-Arrival Forms are customizable questionnaires you can send to guests before their check-in. Guests receive a link via email, fill out the form on any device, and their responses are automatically sent to your staff as a formatted report. You can collect guest information, food preferences, flight details, special requests, and even have guests agree to property rules.

Open Settings → Property Access, enter the person's email, and choose Manager or Viewer. They'll receive a link and can create an account while accepting it. You can change roles, remove access, and resend or revoke pending invitations there. Invitations expire after 30 days. Cleaner portal links on the Staff page are separate and do not grant access to the main HostMoat app.

Yes! The builder is fully WYSIWYG: you build the form on the form itself, so the canvas always shows exactly what your guest will see. Click any question or section to edit it in a side panel: change the label, field type (text, dropdown, checkbox, guest list, and more), required toggle, and more. Add conditional show/hide rules and they appear inline on the canvas as badges, with a read-only Logic overview summarizing every rule. Drag to reorder, and changes auto-save as you go. Ready-made templates for common vacation rental scenarios get you going fast.

You can configure forms to auto-send a set number of days before check-in (default is 14 days). You can also manually send or resend at any time. Guests can save their progress and return to edit their answers before or after submitting.

Yes. Guests edit the tokenized `/pre-arrival/{response_token}` link for that response, not the generic property link. Booking-specific send emails already use that real form link, and general-link submissions switch the guest onto it after submit. The guest confirmation email also includes that edit link. If the booking already has a guest email on file, that email stays canonical and the main guest email field on the booking-linked form is locked.

Yes. When a guest submits their pre-arrival form, they automatically receive a confirmation email with a summary of all their answers and a link to edit their responses anytime before their stay.

When a guest submits a form via the general property link (not tied to a specific booking), it appears as "Unassigned" in the Responses tab. If the guest entered check-in and checkout dates that exactly match one booking on your property, HostMoat automatically links the response to that booking. Otherwise, click the Assign button next to the response and select the booking from the dropdown to link them manually. Either way, when a response is linked to a booking, guest email, name, and phone from the form are backfilled to the booking only if those booking fields are empty. HostMoat does not overwrite an existing booking email automatically.

Airbnb intentionally hides guest email addresses: they are not included in iCal feeds or booking confirmation emails. The best way to collect them is through Pre-Arrival Forms. When a guest fills out a pre-arrival form (via a booking-specific link or the general property link), their email address from the form response is automatically backfilled to the booking record if the booking does not already have an email. If the guest uses the general link and enters their check-in/checkout dates, HostMoat auto-matches the response to the correct booking and reuses the existing form response if that booking already had one. If the booking already has an email on file, HostMoat keeps that booking email as the canonical address instead of replacing it automatically.

Yes. Bookings → All Bookings shows a Form column with the current status of each booking's arrival form (Sent, Viewed, In Progress, or Completed). You can also see the form status and submission date inside each booking's detail modal when you click on it from the register or calendar.

The Digital Guidebook is a mobile-friendly property guide guests open from a shareable link or QR code, no app download needed. Its Essentials area shows Contact Info, WiFi & Access, Check-in/Checkout, Bedrooms, and House Rules synced from Property Profile, with links back to edit those shared facts. Guidebook still owns its welcome copy, published state, link and QR code, preview, visibility and ordering, plus Extra Info topics such as transit, appliance instructions, or neighborhood favorites. Custom topics support rich text, drag-and-drop and pasted images, and Gallery blocks.

Bookings → All Bookings is a comprehensive table view of all your bookings with every detail in one place: guest name, dates, nights, revenue, nightly rate, source platform, confirmation code, guest count, form status, and more. You can search by guest name, filter by source or status, sort by any column, and export the full register as a CSV. Click any row to open the booking detail modal where you can edit details, view the guest's pre-arrival form status, and access linked invoices and contracts.

These are Autopilot and recommendation preferences. Conservative favors occupancy, Balanced balances rate and occupancy, and Aggressive favors nightly rate. Change the saved preview setting under Autopilot safeguards, or the default recommendation preference under Advanced insights. A saved preview changes only after you rebuild it.

Revenue projections use your actual year-to-date bookings and available seasonal history. They are planning estimates, not guarantees. The displayed range communicates uncertainty and generally narrows as the year progresses and more actual booking data becomes available.

In the Market Comparables table on the Competitors tab, listings with Airbnb's "Guest Favorite" badge are highlighted with a gold tag next to their name. This badge is awarded by Airbnb to top-rated, highly-booked properties. It's a strong competitive signal. The Check-in/out column shows each competitor's check-in and checkout times (e.g., "4:00 PM / 11:00 AM"), so you can see how your flexibility compares to the local market. Both fields come from AirROI and refresh quarterly alongside other market data.

Booking curves show how far in advance your property typically gets booked, based on your historical booking patterns. If you are booking ahead of your historical pace, it means demand is strong and you may want to raise rates. If you are behind pace, consider offering discounts or promotions to fill gaps. Booking curve analysis requires at least 12 months of booking data to generate reliable alerts. You will see pace alerts in the Market Intelligence tab when your current booking rate deviates significantly from historical norms.

Email Blasts let you send targeted marketing emails to your past guests and imported subscribers. You can segment your audience by guest type (champions, repeat guests, lapsed guests, high-value guests, imported leads, etc.) and use pre-built or custom email templates. You can send immediately or schedule campaigns for later.

HostMoat provides 13 pre-built segments including Champions (top guests), Lapsed Champions (top guests who haven't booked in 2+ years), High Value, Repeat Guests, Direct Bookers, Recent Guests, Imported Leads (subscribers from contact imports who have no booking history yet), and All Contacts (past guests + imported subscribers). You can also create custom segments with your own criteria for minimum stays, revenue, and recency.

Yes! When composing an email blast, you can choose to send immediately or schedule it for a specific date and time. Scheduled campaigns are automatically dispatched by our system.

To protect email deliverability for all hosts, paid accounts can send up to 500 marketing emails per day and free or trial accounts up to 50 per day. Email Blasts also unlock 24 hours after account creation. If a campaign reaches the daily limit, the remaining recipients stay queued. Just re-send the campaign the next day to continue where it left off. Transactional emails like booking confirmations and guest replies are not affected by these limits.

Yes. On the Email Blasts page, click the Templates tab next to All / Drafts / Scheduled / Sent / Failed. From there you can create new templates, edit your custom templates, duplicate any template (including built-ins), or delete templates you've created. Built-in templates are read-only. To customize one, click Duplicate and then Edit the copy. Each template stores a name, subject line, body HTML, and an optional suggested segment that's surfaced when you reach for it from the campaign composer.

The Seasonal Performance Heatmap is a visual tool that shows your booking patterns across the year. Each cell represents one week, colored by occupancy percentage. Hover to see revenue, average nightly rate, and booked nights. Use it to identify seasonal trends, spot dead periods, and optimize your pricing strategy.

Review forms are post-stay surveys you can send to guests after checkout. Create a form with the built-in form builder, configure it to auto-send a set number of days after checkout, and collect guest feedback with ratings, comments, and staff performance scores. When guests rate individual staff members, those ratings automatically feed into the Ratings & Bonuses tab on the Staff page for performance tracking. Responses are tracked with analytics so you can monitor satisfaction trends over time.

Yes. The form builder lets you create sections with multiple field types including star ratings, text areas, dropdowns, and checkboxes. You can add staff auto-populate fields so guests can rate individual team members, use conditional logic to show follow-up questions based on answers, and customize the thank-you message guests see after submitting.

Configure external review links for Google, Airbnb, Vrbo, or other supported platforms. Every guest who submits your post-stay form sees the same optional links regardless of the rating they gave. Their private form answers remain available to your team so you can follow up on concerns without selectively soliciting only positive public reviews.

You can configure review form notifications per staff member on the Staff page. Staff members with the appropriate notification preference enabled will receive an email when a guest submits a review form response. The property owner is always notified. You can also view all responses and analytics directly in the Reviews section.

Yes. On the Reviews page, turn on "Send reminders" and enter a comma-separated cadence like 3, 7, 14, and the system will automatically send up to three reminders at those day offsets after the initial review email. You can also manually send a reminder to any individual response from the Responses tab, even if the automatic cadence is exhausted. Expired or already-submitted responses cannot be reminded.

Every booking gets a unique Guest Portal link where your guest can view trip details, sign contracts, complete pre-arrival forms, pay invoices, browse add-ons, and message you, all in one place. The portal can also show the property address, canonical room details, contact information, arrival and checkout instructions, house rules, and Extra Info topics from the guidebook. Those facts stay synced from Property Profile and Guidebook; Guest Portal settings decide when and whether each section is displayed. A "View Full Property Guidebook" button links to the complete guidebook.

The guest portal can display the address and room details from Property Profile; contact, arrival/departure, access, and house-rule projections from the shared property and guidebook records; and Extra Info custom topics from Guidebook. Guest Portal → Settings → Portal Sections controls whether bedrooms, check-in & checkout instructions, contact information, house rules, and custom guidebook sections appear inline. The property header and full-guidebook link are not controlled by those five toggles.

Yes. If a review form has been sent for the booking, a "Leave Review" button (or "View" if already submitted) appears in the portal. Pre-arrival forms are always accessible from the portal even after the guest has submitted. They can revisit and update their answers at any time.

Yes. The guest portal includes a messaging feature where guests can send messages directly to you. Messages appear in the Guest Portal page under the Requests tab, and you also receive an email notification. Staff members with the "Portal message" notification preference enabled on the Staff page are also notified.

Create add-on options like early check-in, late checkout, welcome packages, or local experiences. When guests visit their portal, they can browse and request add-ons. You and your staff members with the upsell notification preference enabled will receive email notifications. Approve or reject from the Guest Portal page → Requests tab. When you approve, an invoice is automatically created and sent to the guest. Pending upsell requests are also included in your weekly digest emails.

You can set each upsell to charge a flat fee, per person, or per night, OR mark it as "Request Only" if the price varies (private chef dinner, equipment rental, custom experiences). For flat/per-person/per-night, guests see the price upfront and the total is calculated automatically. For Request Only, guests see "Quote on request" and submit a request without seeing a number. You enter the quoted price when you approve, and that becomes the invoice amount the guest receives.

Every property automatically comes with two built-in upsells: Early Check-in and Late Checkout. These appear at the top of your upsell catalog with a "Built-in" badge. You can set custom times and prices for each, or leave them inactive. When a guest requests one and you approve it, the adjusted check-in or checkout time automatically appears in the guest portal and booking emails. Built-in upsells can be toggled active or inactive and priced however you like, but they cannot be deleted from your catalog.

Yes. You can set an accent color, upload your property logo, write a custom welcome message, control when check-in details are revealed, require a signed contract or completed pre-arrival form before releasing them, toggle upsells, and choose which synced property/guidebook sections appear inline. Configure presentation and release gates from Guest Portal → Settings; edit the underlying rooms, credentials, times, contacts, or rules in Property Profile.

Yes. In Guest Portal → Settings, the Portal Sections group has five display toggles: bedrooms, check-in & checkout instructions, contact information, house rules, and custom guidebook sections. Each defaults to on. Turning one off only hides that portal card; it does not change the underlying Property Profile or Guidebook content, and guests may still access published content through the full-guidebook link.

Watchtower creates property-specific inbox drafts from recent conversation, guidebook, booking-site, and calendar context. Inbox drafts stay in a review panel until you send them. Pro also includes an optional, clearly labeled public AI chat widget with a narrower public-safe knowledge base. See the full Watchtower feature page.

Inbox drafts never auto-send: you read or edit the draft and click Send. The separate Pro public chat widget does answer anonymous pre-booking visitors automatically, and the widget discloses that it is AI-powered.

Four options: HostMoat's built-in AI (included with Pro, no setup), OpenAI / ChatGPT (you supply an API key), Claude / Anthropic (you supply an API key), or your own Ollama server through a public HTTPS tunnel. Secrets are encrypted in Supabase Vault. Ollama authentication is isolated per property, and HostMoat never sends its internal AI token to your endpoint.

Yes. Pro includes HostMoat's built-in AI and optional public chat with no per-message HostMoat charge. Existing legacy accounts retain their recorded AI entitlements.

Inbox drafts use canonical Property Profile facts, booking-site presentation, visible guidebook sections, recent conversation history, and known booked ranges. Structured calendar inquiries also run live conflict, turnover, minimum-stay, and canonical pricing checks. Anonymous public chat uses a separate allowlist: exact address, Wi-Fi, entry codes, private contacts, parking/access instructions, and freeform guidebook fields are excluded, while hosts control which public listing facts and house rules are shared.

Yes. Open Watchtower AI from Main in the sidebar and use "Try a sample question": type any hypothetical guest message and see the AI's response without sending anything. It is useful for checking tone, comparing providers, or testing a custom prompt before turning the feature on for real guest messages.

Yes. Open any signed contract from the Contracts page or from the contracts section of a booking and click "Download PDF" (or "Download" inside the booking modal). HostMoat opens a new tab with a print-ready document. Your browser's print dialog lets you save it as a PDF or print a paper copy. Available for signed contracts only.

Lodgify emphasizes customizable booking websites and API channel management, while HostMoat emphasizes a guided owner-operator workflow across calendar, guests, expenses, Schedule E, profitability, direct bookings, and owner reports. HostMoat has one public Pro plan and no HostMoat direct-booking revenue share. Read the reviewed comparison.

Hospitable offers several public packages with strong messaging, channel, guest-portal, and team workflows. HostMoat offers one public Pro product and guides new customers through a cohesive activation path before advanced finance, tax, contracts, operations, and revenue tools. Read the reviewed comparison.

OwnerRez is a deeply configurable platform with per-property pricing and optional premium features. HostMoat uses one public Pro plan and puts expense tracking, Schedule E categorization, profitability, direct bookings, and a simpler guided workflow in the complete product. Read the reviewed comparison.

Many larger platforms prioritize API distribution, multi-owner accounting, complex role systems, or enterprise onboarding. Those capabilities are valuable for professional managers. HostMoat Pro is designed for independent owner-operators and concentrates on the workflows they handle directly: calendar risk, guests, finance and Schedule E, direct revenue, property operations, small teams, and controlled owner reporting.

HostMoat uses safeguards including encrypted HTTPS connections, row-level database access controls, scoped authentication, and server-side secret storage. Stripe processes payment details under its own security program. No online system can guarantee absolute security, so protect sign-in links, public tokens, exports, and credentials you control.

Yes. You can export bookings, expenses, guest data, and financial reports as CSV files at any time. We believe your data should always be accessible to you.

HostMoat integrates with Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com via iCal. It uses Stripe for payments and subscriptions, Resend for email delivery, and optionally Seam for supported smart locks and noise monitors such as Minut and NoiseAware.

HostMoat is a responsive web application that works on any device with a modern browser. There is no native app yet, but the interface is optimized for phone and tablet screens.

You can request account deletion by contacting support. We will delete your data within 30 days, except where we are legally required to retain records (e.g., financial data for tax purposes).