Managers of short-term rentals need to monitor their business, often on a day-to-day basis. Fortunately, there are services that could dramatically reduce your legwork, optimize your business, and improve your bottom line. Beyond offers in-depth analysis to increase occupancy rates and help you make better decisions about investing money in your short-term rentals.
What is Beyond?
Beyond (formerly Beyond Pricing), was founded in 2013 when David Kelso sought to build a tool to dynamically price the listing of the spare bedroom in his San Francisco apartment. Kelso’s tool quickly attracted a growing customer base of 25 listings. After 18 months, Kelso had established Beyond’s dynamic pricing for more than a quarter of the short-term rental listings in his area.
As a result of Beyond’s data-driven approach to the short-term rental industry, the company currently boasts over 340,000 listings in 7,500 cities worldwide.
Founded | 2013 |
Cost to owner | 30-day free trial, then up to 1.49% of the nightly rate plus any fees |
Integrations |
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Services offered |
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Ease of use | Some learning curve |
Data sources | Directly from local market listings and online travel agencies |
Mobile app? | No |
Best for ... | Vacation and short-term rental operators looking to build a strategy |
Visit Beyond |
How does Beyond work?
Beyond offers a variety of services to help short-term rental property owners optimize their short-term rental revenue.
Dynamic Pricing
Dynamic pricing is a strategy businesses use to set flexible prices for products or services in response to market conditions and is popular in industries such as hospitality and tourism.
Beyond’s Dynamic Pricing algorithm identifies the top three factors that determine demand on any given day: local demand, seasonality, and the day of the week. It then applies the data to calculate the best pricing for a rental property automatically. The Dynamic Pricing tool also gives you access to a large trove of historical data to help you recognize long-term market trends and apply them to your short-term rentals.
Relay
Beyond’s Relay feature lets users manage listings and pricing across booking websites, syncing listings to Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com. Using channel management, a business owner in the short-term rental space can ensure that their pricing and services match up to their specific real estate market.
Guests can also be directed to preferred channels with listings dynamically marked up during times of high demand. Relay can boost your business efficiency by syncing dynamic prices, availability, and reservations with your property management system. Relay also lets you efficiently match your pricing in the areas in which you operate.
Signal
Signal is Beyond’s vacation rental website builder and direct booking engine. It aims to aid users in keeping more of the rent that guests pay, remove costly intermediaries, leverage repeat guests, and provide package options in the reservation process to increase profits.
The tool lets users customize their site and optimize their listings for online search engines. Users also get an easy-to-use WordPress site and booking admin tools. Other features include map search, amenity and complex packages, reviews, site analytics, and flexible stays.
Insights
Beyond also offers an Insights tool that offers real-time market data to help rental property owners optimize their pricing strategy. The tool lets users see how other rentals and hotels price their services in a given market and identify trends and issues. You can even drill down and create custom charts with a number of detailed filters, market, bedroom size, and more.
Guidance
Beyond also offers access to its team of revenue management experts. They can offer personal guidance to help you price unique properties, review individual listings, and create personalized revenue strategies for each property in your portfolio. When you start your Beyond account, you will be able to set a schedule to work with the company’s team that fits your needs and availabilty.
Pros and cons of Beyond
Pros:
- Manage rentals across Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com
- Wide range of data-driven services and strategies
- Highly accessible and user-friendly
Cons:
- Costs can add up due to the 1% to 1.49% rate charged on all bookings
FAQs about Beyond
How does Beyond make money?
Beyond makes money by charging users a small percentage of their short-term rental earnings. By default, you will be charged the “Pay on Book” rate of 1% of the nightly rate when a reservation is made. Alternatively, you can choose Pay on Stay, which is a 1.49% fee charged on the day the guest checks in.
Beyond will charge your account every month on your designated billing date and also offers a 30-day free trial, so you won’t be charged any fees during your first month.
Does Beyond work with Vrbo?
Yes, Beyond offers full integration with channels such as Vrbo, Booking.com, and Airbnb. Once your accounts are connected, you’ll have access to all of Beyond’s pricing and optimization features.
How to sign up for Beyond
To sign up for Beyond, go to the website and select the “Get Started” button to begin your free 30-day trial. You will need to provide your email address and number of listings, then create a password. After that, you will have created an account and can dig into the platform. If you’re not ready to sign up for an account, you can also request a demo to test-drive the platform first.
Other rental management platforms to consider
If you’re learning how to invest in real estate, you should know that short-term rentals could be more profitable than long-term leases. However, short-term rentals also demand a more hands-on approach. Beyond isn't the only tool, either, when it comes to finding the knowledge you need when it comes to investing money.
Pricelabs
Pricelabs is web-based revenue management and dynamic pricing software. Like Beyond, it is geared towards vacation and short-term rental operators. Pricelabs starts at $19.99 a month but doesn’t offer the kinds of features such as predictive analysis, retention management, and direct booking that Beyond boasts.
AirDNA
AirDNA is another powerful revenue management tool. It’s also very data-driven and pulls from millions of properties across Airbnb and VRBO. When it comes to data collection and analysis, AirDNA stands on its own in this space. Its MarketMinder tool, which is an interactive pricing map, could make AirDNA a better fit for real estate investors or large-scale rental managers.