Our Experience with Hostfully’s Property Management Software

After a thorough demo review of Guesty—one that left us impressed by the software but unsure about the fit with Homevy—we decided to explore other options like Hostfully.

From the start, Hostfully felt more aligned with where we (Homevy) are today: “growing quickly,” but still focused on staying lean, efficient, and well-supported.

We’ll walk you through our demo experience with Hostfully—what we liked and how it differed from Guesty. We hope it helps you in choosing a good short term rental management software for your business.

First Impressions of Hostfully’s Vacation Rental Management Software

Photo by Hostfully

Hostfully’s dashboard was laid out clearly—bookings, revenue, tasks, guest messages—all in one place using neat little widgets.

The design felt professional and had a lot of information packed in. At first, it was a bit overwhelming, but it also gave us the feeling that this software was built for solid operations. And for a team like ours, planning to grow in Dubai, this was a good sign.

When compared to Guesty, Hostfully felt more like a full-on control center—less pretty, but more packed with tools.

A 90 Minute Demo of Hostfully – What Did It Entail?

We had a 90-minute walkthrough with the Hostfully team, where they showed us how the platform works day to day. We noticed how easy it was to get things done and how well everything connected.

Hostfully could handle pretty much everything—reservations, channel syncing, guest messages, task scheduling, owner reporting—you name it. It was impressive.

But what stood out the most was how customizable everything was. You could tweak almost every detail: custom fields, email templates, task flows. That’s something Guesty doesn’t offer easily (unless you have a deep tech knowledge to customize settings yourself).

However, as great as Hostfully’s flexibility was, it came with a price. The setup would take too much time, and there was a huge learning curve.

What Key Features of Hostfully Make Sense?

After the demo, these features of Hostfully’s property management software impressed us the most:

1. Detailed Owner Reports

The owner portal was one of the best we’d seen. It gave clear breakdowns of earnings, bookings, and trends. Owners could even customize what they wanted to see. For us, especially with high-end short term rentals in Dubai, this kind of transparency was (and still is) necessary.

2. Advanced Guest Messaging

Like Guesty, Hostfully automated guest messages, but it took things a bit further. You could customize emails down to individual properties and even include local tips. The unified inbox also meant we didn’t have to jump between platforms. All of our messaging was in one place.

3. Multi Channel Syncing

Listings synced nicely across Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and more. Updates to pricing or availability was automatic, fast, and reliable. The two-way synchronization was reliable, prevented double bookings, and would help us maintain consistent property information across all channels.

4. Direct Booking

We liked that we could design our own direct booking website with our own branding. It was super clean and had a built in payment processing platform. This would reduce our reliance on third-party platforms and their associated fees. Now this is not something every platform does well, but Hostfully nailed it. 

5. Task Management

Hostfully handled cleaning and maintenance automatically. Tasks were created when bookings came in, then assigned to the right people, and tracked through to the end. It gave us real confidence that nothing would fall through the cracks.

Our Experience Using Hostfully’s Property Management Software

Hostfully wasn’t the easiest platform. Our team figured it’d take about two weeks to get used to it and even longer to use all the advanced features properly. Guesty was a bit more beginner-friendly in terms of layout. But Hostfully had better support materials, more helpful videos, a stronger knowledge base, and a support team that actually replied fast. So that helped balance things out.

1. Hostfully’s Pricing Structure

Hostfully’s pricing was easy to understand. You pay based on the number of properties you manage, starting at $117/month. It’s not the cheapest, but the features you get—especially reporting and task management—give solid value.

Photo by Hostfully

Unlike Guesty, which charged extra for some integrations, Hostfully was more upfront about what’s included. No hidden surprises. However, we had to factor in the team training time and for a business that’s growing fast, that kind of delay matters.

2. What are the Limitations of Hostfully’s Software?

Two main downsides in Hostfully stood out:

1. It’s Complex

Hostfully gives you a lot of control, but that also means it takes time to learn. Some tasks that felt simple in other platforms took more steps here.

2. Menus are Difficult to Navigate

Some settings and tools were hidden in menus that didn’t feel super intuitive. For a fast-moving team like ours, that could slow things down, especially during onboarding.

Hostfully’s Property Management Software Review: Should You Use It?

Hostfully gave us a lot to like—the owner reporting, smart guest messages, and powerful task management. It’s clearly built for teams who want to be hands-on and extremely detailed.

But that also means you have to be ready to put in the time to set it up and train your team.

Compared to Guesty, Hostfully offered more control and better reporting, while Guesty was more intuitive out of the box and had stronger automation features. Guesty felt more polished, but Hostfully felt more powerful—just with more effort required.

If you’ve got a team ready to dig in, Hostfully could be the right move. But for us, we’re unsure if the time investment fits our current growth pace.

With this in mind, we moved on to the next property management software on our list—Uplisting.