Comparison · Verified 2026-09-21
Santara AI vs Guesty
Guesty is the deeper platform. We are the one with a price on every tier, no cut of your bookings, and a system that runs the morning rather than recording it.
Choose Santara AI if…
- You run 2–40 doors with people on the ground — cleaners, drivers, a villa manager.
- You want to know what a portfolio of fifteen costs without booking a call.
- Your day starts with working out who is arriving, who is leaving and which room is not ready.
- You sell in dong or rupiah and your staff coordinate on WhatsApp.
Choose Guesty if…
- You need 60+ channels rather than our 54, or you want every one of them behind a single first-party flow.
- Full trust accounting decides the purchase. Both of us produce owner statements; theirs goes deeper into handling client funds.
- You are past 200 doors and want an enterprise contract with an SLA and a named team.
- You want a large partner marketplace to plug third-party tools into.
The money questions
| Capability | Santara AI | Guesty |
|---|---|---|
0% commission on bookingsEvery channel you sell on, and direct — no revenue share at any tier Why?Guesty Lite charges per reservation on top of the per-listing price, so a good month costs more than a quiet one. We take 0% on every booking, at every tier, at any portfolio size, and nothing comes out of your payout. | Yes | No |
No per-reservation or booking feeA flat fee taken out of every stay Why?Guesty Lite charges per reservation on top of the per-listing price. We take 0% commission on bookings and upsells, with no revenue share, and nothing comes out of your payout. | Partial | No |
| No commission on guest upsellsLate checkout, transfers, breakfast | Yes | Yes |
No onboarding or setup feeNothing to pay, for anyone Why?Migration, property setup and staff training are included in the plan. This row read partial until 2026-08-23, when our $299 standard fee was removed for everyone — the mark moved because the charge went. | Yes | Partial |
| No annual contract or lock-inLeave any month and take your data | Yes | Partial |
Published price at every tierNo “contact sales” to find out what you pay Why?Guesty publishes Lite, for one to three listings, and quotes everything above it. Every Santara AI tier has a number on the page, including the Enterprise floor at $794. You can work out what fifteen doors cost you here, now, without talking to anyone. | Yes | Quote only |
| Dynamic pricing without a per-property surchargeSeasonal and day-of-week rate plans included; ours stands down if you run PriceLabs | Yes | Partial |
How it actually runs
| Capability | Santara AI | Guesty |
|---|---|---|
Proactive daily operations briefEvery arrival, departure, clean, upsell and problem — emailed to you before you ask Why?Nobody in this category ships a proactive daily brief, Guesty included. You can build the same picture from their dashboard — it just does not arrive before you ask for it. | Yes | No |
One-tap WhatsApp and Zalo staff plansEach cleaner's day, pre-written and shared to the app they already use in one tap, no new login Why?Guesty can assign tasks inside Guesty. That works when your team logs into Guesty. Ours writes your housekeeper's day for them and shares it to WhatsApp or Zalo in one tap — or emails it to them automatically. | Yes | No |
| Built for on-site teams, not solo desk hostsDesigned around housekeepers, drivers and villa managers | Yes | Partial |
| Maintenance tickets with photo evidenceRaised, assigned, chased and closed per property | Yes | Yes |
| AI guest messaging with human approvalDrafted in your voice; nothing sends until you say so | Yes | Yes |
Owner-ready statementsReports your villa owners can actually read Why?Both ship. The month statement — gross, minus fees, minus expenses, exportable — is in the product. Guesty's accounting module is deeper and has been through more audits than ours; if trust accounting specifically is the purchase, theirs is the more developed one. | Yes | Yes |
| White-label for management companiesYour brand in front of your owners | No | Yes |
Multi-currency and SE Asia operating realityLocal staff workflows, and prices and statements in IDR and VND Why?Guesty operates globally and handles multiple currencies. What it does not do is assume your cleaner reads Vietnamese, your guest pays in dong and your day runs on WhatsApp — or carry Traveloka, Tiket.com and Klook in the same catalogue as Airbnb, which ours does. | Yes | Partial |
| Direct booking site, no cut of your payoutSeven templates built from listings you already imported, selling from the same synced calendar. No commission on what it sells. | Yes | Yes |
What it costs at your size
| Portfolio | Santara AI | Guesty |
|---|---|---|
| 1 door | $29 /mo | $20 /mo |
| 6 doors | $154 /mo | Quote only |
| 15 doors | $344 /mo | Quote only |
| 40 doors | $794 /mo | Quote only |
| Commission on bookingsOn $20,000 of bookings a month | None | $200 /mo |
Software subscription only. Channel commission, payment processing and any optional add-ons are excluded on both sides.
Competitor figures are the vendor's published rates at that portfolio size. Where a vendor does not publish one, the cell says Quote only rather than an estimate.
Our figures come from the published ladder on the pricing page. Prices shown in USD; readers in a local price book see their own currency there.
The quote wall starts at four listings
Guesty Lite is published and priced for one to three listings. At four you are in Pro, and Pro is a conversation with a salesperson. That is a legitimate way to sell software to a 200-door manager; it is a strange way to sell to someone with six villas who wants to know what next month costs.
The practical effect is that the operators we build for — four to forty doors — cannot find out what they would pay without booking a call. Our whole ladder is on the pricing page, from the first door to the fortieth and beyond, and the table above prices both products at your size.
A per-reservation fee is a tax on a good season
Guesty Lite adds a fee per reservation on top of the monthly per-listing price. It is small per booking and it scales with exactly the thing you are trying to grow: a busy December costs more than a quiet one, and a portfolio that doubles its occupancy pays twice as much for the same software.
We charge per door, per month. Fill every night of the year and the bill does not move.
Where the morning actually goes
Both systems hold your calendar, your rates and your guest messages. The difference is what happens at 6am. Guesty waits for you to open it and gives you an excellent view of your portfolio. Santara AI sends the brief before you ask: every arrival and departure, which cleans are due and unassigned, which upsells are worth offering, which room has an open ticket, and what needs a decision.
Then it writes each cleaner's day for you to share to WhatsApp or Zalo in one tap, where your housekeeper already is. No new login, no app to teach, no training day for someone who cleans three villas and drives for Grab in the afternoon.
Where Guesty is stronger
Every comparison page on this site carries this section. If one of these decides it for you, buy theirs.
- Channel breadth. Guesty connects 60+ to our 54.
- Trust accounting. Ours produces owner statements; theirs does full trust accounting, which is a deeper thing and the reason managers with client funds choose it.
- Ecosystem. A large partner marketplace and API, with years of third-party tools built against it.
- Scale. Past a couple of hundred doors, Guesty has been doing this longer and the enterprise tier shows it.
Switching from Guesty
- Migration is free and we do it for you — properties, rooms, rates, availability, reservations and guest history.
- Most portfolios are live in under 24 hours. A large one with unusual rate plans takes longer and we will say so before you start, not after.
- Your Airbnb and Booking.com connections are re-established here; nothing is cancelled until you confirm the calendars match.
- No annual contract and no exit fee. If it does not suit you, your data exports in full.
Questions people actually ask
Is Santara AI cheaper than Guesty?
At small portfolios Guesty Lite can be cheaper on the sticker, before its per-reservation fee. Above three listings Guesty is quote-only, so nobody can answer this honestly for you — including us. What we can say is that every one of our tiers has a number on the pricing page, and that we take 0% of your bookings at all of them. The table above works both out at your door count.
Does Santara AI connect as many channels as Guesty?
Close. Guesty connects 60+; we connect 54, and all 54 sync rates, availability and bookings the same way. Airbnb and Booking.com have a guided connect flow; Agoda, Expedia, Traveloka, Trip.com and the rest connect from the channel list in Settings, one property at a time. Guest messaging is the real limit: replies work on Airbnb and Booking.com, and other channels' threads arrive readable but not repliable.
Can I keep PriceLabs if I move?
Yes. Connect your PriceLabs account and our own rate rules stand down — PriceLabs keeps pricing, and you keep paying it directly. There is no per-property dynamic-pricing surcharge either way.
What happens to my owner reporting?
Owner statements ship here — the month, gross minus fees minus expenses, with a CSV export. What Guesty has beyond that is full trust accounting, which matters if you hold client funds. For a manager producing a monthly statement per owner, ours does the job.
Do you take a cut of upsells like a late checkout?
No. Late checkout, early check-in, transfers, breakfast — upsells are included in your plan and the whole amount is yours. Guesty does not take a cut of these either; Hospitable processes them at 10%.
How long does moving from Guesty take?
Under 24 hours for most portfolios, done by us, at no cost. We import properties, rooms, rates, availability, reservations and guest history, then reconnect Airbnb and Booking.com. Nothing is switched off on the Guesty side until you have checked the calendars line up.
Sources
Verified 2026-09-21
All product and company names are the property of their respective owners and are used here for identification only. Competitor information is summarised in good faith from the sources listed above; confirm current terms with each provider before relying on it.