Maximising Your Income: The Ultimate Guide to Rate Management and Promotions in Homhero

In the fast-paced world of short-term rentals, setting a static price and forgetting about it is a recipe for missed revenue. Whether it’s low-season lulls or high-demand events, your pricing strategy needs to be as dynamic as the market.

In our latest webinar masterclass, we explored the powerful tools available within the Homhero ecosystem to help you automate your rates, incentivise longer stays, and tap into new OTA features.

Here is a breakdown of how you can master rate management to maximise your property’s income.

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1. Understanding the PMS Rate Logic

Before diving into the tools, it is essential to understand how Homhero calculates the final price a guest sees. Unlike some systems that work backwards, Homhero builds the price from the ground up:

• Base Rate (Owner Income): This is the core accommodation charge. Your management fee is deducted from this amount.
• Packages: These are additional fees added on top (e.g., cleaning fees, booking fees, or damage waivers).
• Rate Uplift: This is applied last to cover commissions charged by OTAs such as Airbnb or Booking.com.

Pro Tip: Most Homhero specials only impact the base rate. This ensures your fixed costs, like cleaning, are never accidentally discounted.

2. The Power of ‘Manage Defaults’ Settings

One of the most common mistakes is leaving future availability at $0 or a low base rate. We recommend setting your Default Rate to your highest peak-season price.

Why? Because when Homhero opens up new dates two years in advance, you want them to open at a safe high price. You can always lower them later, but you can’t always recover revenue lost to an accidental low-season booking made 18 months early!

3. Automating with Seasons and Multipliers (BRM)

Manually updating a calendar every day is exhausting. Instead, use Base Rate Multipliers (BRM) within your Seasons.

• How it works: Set your winter season to a 50% multiplier. If your default rate is $500, Homhero automatically displays $250 for those dates.
• Global Updates: If a season is performing better than expected, change the multiplier from 50% to 60%, and it will update every listing attached to that season instantly.

4. Advanced Strategy: Seasonal Length of Stay (LOS)

If you want to get “crafty” with your revenue, Seasonal LOS is a game-changer. It allows you to charge different percentages based on how long a guest stays.

• The Short Stay Premium: You can set a 1-night stay to charge 300% of the nightly rate. This allows you to appear in search results for 1-night stays (increasing occupancy) while ensuring the owner receives the same income as a 3-night booking.
• Long Stay Discounts: Conversely, you can offer a 10% discount automatically to guests who stay 5+ nights during the low season.

5. Direct Booking Incentives: Promo Codes

To drive more traffic to your own website, use Promotional Codes. These allow for unique perks that OTAs can’t match:

• Deposit Overrides: Offer return guests a lower deposit (e.g., 25% instead of 50%) to build loyalty.
• Use Limits: Create urgency in your newsletters by offering a code that only works for the first 10 bookings.

6. NEW FEATURE: Airbnb & Booking.com Promotions

We are excited to announce that you can now manage Airbnb New Listing Promotions directly within Homhero!

• New Listing 20% Off: For your first three bookings on a new listing, you can trigger the “strike-through” pricing directly from the Homhero dashboard.
• A Word of Caution: Unlike Homhero specials, OTA-side promotions apply to the entire booking total (including cleaning fees). Make sure your owners are aware that the discount will be slightly deeper than a standard base-rate-only discount.

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Want to See Your Rates in Action?

The best way to test these settings is the Rate Query Tool at the top of your Homhero screen. It provides a full breakdown of how every discount, scale, and package is calculated in real-time, so you can check your rates as soon as you make any changes.

Ready to level up your pricing? Check out the full webinar recording or reach out to our friendly support team for help setting up your seasonal scales.