Comparison · Verified 2026-09-21
Santara AI vs Lodgify
Lodgify builds the best direct booking website in this comparison. We take no cut of what it sells, and we run the operation behind it.
Choose Santara AI if…
- Direct bookings matter and you would rather not pay 1.9% of them.
- You need automation without stepping up to a higher tier to get it.
- You have staff, cleans and maintenance to coordinate, not just a calendar to keep tidy.
- You operate in South-East Asia with local currency and local teams.
Choose Lodgify if…
- A beautiful, highly customisable direct booking website is the main purchase.
- You are one owner with one or two properties and a brand you want to present.
- Their template library and website editing are genuinely ahead of ours.
- Their entry tier is cheaper than ours and your needs stop at a website plus a calendar.
The money questions
| Capability | Santara AI | Lodgify |
|---|---|---|
0% commission on bookingsEvery channel you sell on, and direct — no revenue share at any tier Why?Lodgify takes 1.9% of direct bookings on Starter and Professional, removed only on the top tier. So the channel you built to escape OTA commission carries a commission — smaller, but there. We take 0% commission. | Yes | No |
No per-reservation or booking feeA flat fee taken out of every stay Why?0% commission at every tier, no revenue share, and nothing deducted from your payout. | Partial | No |
| No commission on guest upsellsLate checkout, transfers, breakfast | Yes | Yes |
| No onboarding or setup feeNothing to pay, for anyone | Yes | Yes |
| No annual contract or lock-inLeave any month and take your data | Yes | Yes |
| Published price at every tierNo “contact sales” to find out what you pay | Yes | Yes |
| 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 | Lodgify |
|---|---|---|
Proactive daily operations briefEvery arrival, departure, clean, upsell and problem — emailed to you before you ask Why?Lodgify keeps an excellent calendar. It does not send you a daily brief of arrivals, departures, cleans and open problems before you open 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?No staff dispatch. Lodgify is built for an owner at a desk, not a team across six properties. | Yes | No |
| Built for on-site teams, not solo desk hostsDesigned around housekeepers, drivers and villa managers | Yes | No |
Maintenance tickets with photo evidenceRaised, assigned, chased and closed per property Why?There is no maintenance ticketing to compare. If a guest reports a broken aircon, where that goes next is your own WhatsApp thread. | Yes | No |
AI guest messaging with human approvalDrafted in your voice; nothing sends until you say so Why?Automation on Lodgify is gated to Professional and above, so the feature you are comparing may not be in the price you are comparing. Ours is in every tier from Operator up, and nothing sends to a guest until you approve it. | Yes | Partial |
| Owner-ready statementsReports your villa owners can actually read | Yes | No |
| White-label for management companiesYour brand in front of your owners | No | No |
Multi-currency and SE Asia operating realityLocal staff workflows, and prices and statements in IDR and VND Why?Lodgify sells globally and is strong in Europe. It does not model a South-East Asian operation: local staff workflows, dong and rupiah, an interface the people doing the work can read. | Yes | No |
| 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 | Lodgify |
|---|---|---|
| 1 door | $29 /mo | $16 /mo |
| 6 doors | $154 /mo | $42 /mo |
| 15 doors | $344 /mo | $103 /mo |
| 40 doors | $794 /mo | $103 /mo |
| Commission on bookingsOn $20,000 of bookings a month | None | $380 /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.
A commission on the bookings you worked hardest for
The point of a direct booking site is that nobody takes a cut. Lodgify takes 1.9% on Starter and Professional, and removes it only on the roughly $103 Ultimate tier — so you either pay the percentage or pay to stop paying it.
Our booking site takes 0% commission at every tier, with no revenue share. Your payout is your rate.
Automation behind a tier
Message automation on Lodgify arrives at Professional, around $42 a month per property. If you compared their Starter price with ours, you compared a product without the automation to a product with it.
From Operator up, every tier has everything we ship: AI guest replies with approval, the daily brief, cleaning plans, tickets, upsells, rate rules. Above that, the tiers change how many doors you have, not what the software does.
Where the comparison actually sits
Lodgify is a website builder that grew a PMS. We are an operations system that includes a website. If your bottleneck is that your brand does not have a good direct booking page, they solve that better than we do.
If your bottleneck is that at 7am you do not know which of six villas is not ready, a website does not help, and that is the whole of what we are for.
Where Lodgify is stronger
Every comparison page on this site carries this section. If one of these decides it for you, buy theirs.
- The website itself. Lodgify's template library, editor and design control for direct booking sites are ahead of our seven templates, and it is what they are known for.
- Entry price. Their Starter tier is cheaper than ours, if a website and a calendar is all you need.
- European market depth. Longer presence, more local payment and channel familiarity in that region than we have.
- Maturity. Their booking engine has been through far more real bookings than ours.
Switching from Lodgify
- Free migration, run by us: properties, rooms, rates, availability, reservations and guest history.
- Your direct booking site is rebuilt here from listings you already have — tell us the domain and we will point it, or keep the Lodgify site and use us for operations.
- Most portfolios are live inside 24 hours.
- Month to month, no exit fee, full data export.
Questions people actually ask
Do you charge a commission on direct bookings?
No. 0% at every tier — your payout is your rate. Lodgify takes 1.9% on its lower tiers and removes it on Ultimate.
Is Lodgify's website better than yours?
For design control and template choice, yes. We ship seven templates built automatically from listings you have already imported, selling from the same synced calendar. If the website is the purchase, theirs is the better one.
Do I need a higher tier for automation?
Not above Host — from Operator up every tier has the full product, and the tier only reflects how many doors you run. Host is the scheduling half on its own, without guest messaging or upsells. On Lodgify, automation starts at the Professional tier.
Can I keep my Lodgify website and still use Santara AI?
Yes. Plenty of operators keep a site they like and use us for the calendar, the channels and the operations. Our own engine is optional and off by default.
What does Santara AI add over Lodgify?
The operations layer: a daily brief emailed to you, cleaning plans written for your staff, maintenance tickets with photos, and — from Operator up — upsells with no commission and AI guest replies with approval.
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.