Managing rate strategies

A rate strategy enables you to manage your listings’ occupancy and maximize revenue by adjusting your pricing and availability throughout the year. You can tailor these settings for different seasons, holidays, events, weekdays, and more. 

When creating a rate strategy, group listings to adjust their pricing, minimum nights, and check-in/check-out restrictions in bulk according to specific rules. You can assign a listing to only one rate strategy. However, a rate strategy can include multiple rules that can override one another or be combined. 

Once a rate strategy rule is applied, the adjusted price and availability restrictions will be reflected in the listing’s calendar. The calendar prices will be pushed to your connected booking channels. 

Rate strategy rules can be combined with manual adjustments made via the calendar. By default, rate strategy rules do not apply to dates where prices and minimum nights have been manually adjusted. However, you can choose to override manual updates.  Avoid combining rate strategy rules with 3rd party pricing tools, as these tools may override each other. Also, if you’re using Guesty PrizeOptimizer, it will override rate strategy adjustments once every 24 hours. Learn more about using multiple pricing tools and availability tools in Guesty.

Follow the instructions to create a rate strategy, set rate strategy rules, add a rate range or enable optimized occupancy (optional), and assign listings to the rate strategy. 

Create, edit, or delete a rate strategy

Follow the instructions below to create a rate strategy or watch our video. Then, proceed to create rate strategy rules.

 

Step by step:

1. Sign in to your Guesty account.
2. In the top navigation bar, click the mode selector and select Growth mode.
3. Click Revenue management and select Rate strategy.
4. In the top-right corner, click New rate strategy.
5. Add a rate strategy name and description.
6. Click Save.

The new rate strategy will be added to your rate strategies page. To edit an existing rate strategy or delete it, hover over the relevant row, and click   . 

Rate strategy rules: categories

Read below the types of rate strategy rules you can add to your rate strategy.

Holidays and events 

Set rules for a specific date range. In the example below, we added a fixed amount of 10$ for the Christmas period.

Seasons

Add rules for different periods of the year, such as high or low seasons. Select specific days of the week for the rule to occur within the set date range. 

In the example below, we created a 25% increase for the autumn season (repeating every year), with no recurring days restrictions. In this case, the rule will apply to all days of the week.

Recurring days 

Create a rule to adjust pricing and minimum nights, or restrict check-ins and check-outs on certain days of the week. 

For example, we added a fixed amount of 10$ to Fridays and Saturdays and restricted check-in on Mondays and Sundays.

Upcoming availability

Adjust the pricing and minimum nights for available dates within the defined start/end range.

For example, we added a rule to start 7 nights ahead of today and end 14 nights ahead of today, applying to all days except Sunday (the day is grayed out), increasing the base price by 10%.

Customized gaps

Adjust prices for available days between specific dates. 

For example, encourage increased occupancy by reducing the base price by a fixed amount of 15$ when there is a two-day gap in the calendar.

Short stays

Charge a higher price for short stays. 

Click Short stays and define the percentage or price increase and the number of nights based on your needs. Click + Add to add additional short stay rules.

Short stays rules don’t sync with booking channels, and will not override your default minimum nights setup.

Create, edit, delete, or import rate strategy rules

After creating a rate strategy, add rules that automatically set rate restrictions based on your needs. For example, you can adjust the assigned listings’ pricing based on holidays, events, and seasons. 

Pricing rules directly adjust the listing’s default base price, not the nightly rate. Learn how multiple rate strategy rules work in conjunction. Also, pricing rules’ adjustments cannot result in a price per night of less than 10 USD or the equivalent value in other currencies. An adjustment to the base price won’t be applied, if it lowers the price per night below 10 USD.

Create a new rate strategy rule

To create a new rule, access the relevant rate strategy. Then, click the relevant category, and select Add rule. Fill in the relevant information as detailed below, then click Save.

Rule fields:

• Define the rule’s period by selecting or excluding dates and/or days. To exclude a day, click it, and it becomes grayed-out. 
• (Optional) Under “Minimum nights”, add a minimum number of nights per stay for the selected period.
• (Optional) To set a base price adjustment, select Increase by or Decrease by and add the relevant value (percentage/fixed value).
• (Optional) Tick the Annual rule checkbox to apply the rule every year (including this year). 
• (Optional) Toggle on Restrict check-in & out to block check-in or check-out on certain days of the week.

  If adding an annual rule and a check-in/check-out restriction, the rule will only apply when the combination of days and dates exists. For example, if you choose Jan 20 and Wednesday, the rule will only apply when Jan 20 is a Wednesday.

• Add additional information according to the type of category you selected. Learn more about each rule category below. 

Import an existing rule

Click the relevant category and click Copy from. Select the relevant rule(s) or search for them. You will only see rules of the type you are currently creating - if you are in "Seasons", for example, you will only be able to copy other "Seasons" rules. Click next to each rule you want to copy. The copied rules will appear immediately, with their original names. It can take up to 1 hour for the copied rules to sync with your booking channels.

Edit or delete a rule

To edit a rate strategy rule, click the name of the rate strategy and select the relevant rule category. Then, click  (or Edit/Edit rules) to edit an existing rule, or  to delete it.

Set rate range and optimize occupancy

You can refine your rate strategy using a rate range to establish a minimum and maximum percentage by which your rates can fluctuate. Also, you can optimize the listings’ occupancy by automatically adjusting the minimum nights to fill gaps in the calendar.

Define a rate range

Set a minimum and maximum percentage range by which the price per night can change. 

The minimum nightly rate for a rate strategy is $10, even after all discounts have been applied.

Step by step:

1. Select the relevant rate strategy.
2. Above the list of categories, hover over “Rate range”.
3. Click  to the right.
4. In the pop-up, enter the relevant percentages.
5. Click Save.

Enable optimizing occupancy

Increase occupancy by automatically reducing the minimum nights to the shortest length you can afford. The number of minimum nights will be applied to the first night in the listing’s calendar gap. Follow the instructions below.

1. Follow steps 1-3 above.
2. In the pop-up, toggle on Optimize occupancy.
3. Under “Minimum nights can't be shorter than”, enter the number of nights.
4. Click Save.

Assign or unassign listings from a rate strategy

A listing can be assigned to only one rate strategy at a time. To change a rate strategy, first unassign the listing from its current rate strategy.  

To override manual adjustments to the listing's price or minimum nights via the calendar, reassign the unassigned listing to a rate strategy. When assigning a multi-unit to a rate strategy, select only the main unit. The rules will automatically apply to all sub-units.

Follow the instructions below.

Step by step:

1. Select the relevant rate strategy.
2. In the top-right corner, click Assign listings.
3. In the “Unassigned” tab,  select the listings you want to assign.
4. (Optional) Tick the Override checkbox to override price/minimum night adjustments made to these listings. In the pop-up, select whether to override price adjustments, minimum nights, or both. Then, click Yes, override.

   

5. Click Assign.

To unassign listings from a rate strategy, click the “Assigned” tab, and tick the checkboxes of the relevant listings. Then, click Unassign. In the pop-up, click Yes, unassign.