Comparison · Verified 2026-10-14
Santara AI vs Lodgify
Lodgify builds the best direct booking website in this comparison and now takes 0% of every booking. We are the one that runs the operation behind it, without a step up to the top plan to get it.
Choose Santara AI if…
- You have staff, cleans and maintenance to coordinate, not just a calendar to keep tidy.
- You want cleaning plans, maintenance tickets and owner statements without stepping up to the top plan to get them.
- You want AI-drafted guest replies that a person approves, in the guest's language.
- 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.
- Direct bookings are a big share of your revenue: Lodgify shows a 0% booking fee on every plan, and our booking site takes 3%.
- You run fifteen or more properties and price is the deciding line — their Professional plan costs less than our subscription there.
- You are one owner with one or two properties and a brand you want to present.
The money questions
| Capability | Santara AI | Lodgify |
|---|---|---|
No commission on channel bookingsAirbnb, Booking.com and every channel you sell on Why?Both of us take 0% on channel bookings and upsells. Lodgify's pricing page now shows a 0% booking fee on every plan, Basic to Ultimate. The difference is direct bookings: ours carry 3% through our optional booking site, theirs carry nothing — so on that line Lodgify is the cheaper one. | Yes | Yes |
No per-reservation or booking feeA flat fee taken out of every stay Why?Lodgify shows 0% on every plan. Santara AI takes 0% on channel bookings and upsells; the only commission is 3% on direct bookings through our optional booking site, and the rest is a subscription. | Partial | Yes |
| 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 Why?Dynamic pricing arrives on Lodgify's Professional and Ultimate plans. Ours — first-party rate rules — is included at every tier, and stands down if you connect 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?On Ultimate, cleaners get tasks inside Lodgify. Ours writes the housekeeper's day and shares it to the WhatsApp or Zalo already open on their phone in one tap — no login to teach. | Yes | No |
Built for on-site teams, not solo desk hostsDesigned around housekeepers, drivers and villa managers Why?Lodgify's Ultimate plan schedules cleaning and maintenance tasks from check-ins and check-outs and notifies cleaners in its app. Below Ultimate there is no task management. | Yes | Partial |
Maintenance tickets with photo evidenceRaised, assigned, chased and closed per property Why?Maintenance tasks come with task management on Ultimate. Ours are tickets with photos from Operator up, linked to the room that has the problem. | Yes | Partial |
AI guest messaging with human approvalDrafted in your voice; nothing sends until you say so Why?Automated messages on Lodgify start at Professional, so the feature you are comparing may not be in the price you are comparing. Ours is in every tier from Operator up, drafted from the thread and the booking, and nothing sends to a guest until you approve it. | Yes | Partial |
Owner-ready statementsReports your villa owners can actually read Why?Owner statements on Lodgify are an Ultimate feature. Ours ship from Operator up: the month, gross minus fees minus expenses, with a CSV export. | Yes | Partial |
| 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 siteSeven templates built from listings you already imported, selling from the same synced calendar. Direct bookings carry a 3% commission. | Yes | Yes |
What it costs at your size
| Portfolio | Santara AI | Lodgify |
|---|---|---|
| 1 door | $29 /mo | $58 /mo |
| 6 doors | $154 /mo | $177 /mo |
| 15 doors | $344 /mo | $295 /mo |
| 40 doors | $794 /mo | $590 /mo |
| Commission on channel bookingsOn $20,000 of bookings a month | None | None |
Software subscription only. Channel commission, payment processing and any optional add-ons are excluded on both sides. Our 3% commission applies only to direct bookings through our booking site and is not worked out here.
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.
On direct bookings, Lodgify is now the cheaper one
Lodgify used to take 1.9% of direct bookings on its lower plans. Its pricing page now shows a 0% booking fee on every plan, Basic through Ultimate. Our optional booking site takes 3% of direct bookings, so if direct is a large share of your revenue, that line favours them and we would rather you read it here.
On channel bookings and upsells we are level: neither of us takes a percentage. The argument for us is not commission any more. It is what happens after the booking lands.
The operations sit on the top plan
On Lodgify, automated messages and dynamic pricing start on Professional, and task management and owner statements arrive only on Ultimate. Billed monthly, Professional is about $58 for one property, $177 for six, $295 for fifteen and $590 for forty; Ultimate is more again.
From Operator up, every Santara AI tier has everything we ship: AI guest replies with approval, the daily brief, cleaning plans, tickets, owner statements, upsells, rate rules. Our ladder is $29 for the first door, $154 at six, $344 at fifteen and $794 at forty — so Lodgify Professional is cheaper from about fifteen doors, and you would be comparing it to a plan without task management or owner statements.
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.
- Direct bookings. A 0% booking fee on every plan; our booking site takes 3%.
- Price at scale. Billed monthly, their Professional plan costs less than our subscription from around fifteen doors.
- 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?
Yes, 3% on direct bookings through our optional booking site, at every tier. Lodgify now shows a 0% booking fee on every plan, so on direct bookings alone Lodgify is the cheaper of the two. Channel bookings and upsells are 0% on both.
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.
Is Lodgify cheaper than Santara AI?
It depends on the size and on the plan you would need. Billed monthly, Lodgify Professional is about $58 for one property against our $29, about $177 at six against our $154, and below ours from around fifteen — $295 against $344. But task management and owner statements are Ultimate-only on Lodgify and included from our Operator tier. The table above shows both at four sizes.
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 and shared to WhatsApp or Zalo, maintenance tickets with photos, owner statements, and — from Operator up — upsells at 0% commission and AI guest replies with approval.
Sources
- https://www.santara.ai/pricing/
- https://www.lodgify.com/pricing/
- https://www.lodgify.com/basic-plan/
- https://www.lodgify.com/starter-plan/
- https://www.lodgify.com/features/
- https://www.lodgify.com/ultimate-plan/
- https://www.lodgify.com/owner-statements/
- https://www.lodgify.com/property-managers/
Verified 2026-10-14
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.