Setting pricing customizations in PriceLabs

Pricing Customizations

PriceLabs provides data-driven pricing recommendations for vacation rentals and Airbnb listings to optimize bookings and revenue. However, we understand that hosts and property managers may want to customize pricing based on their preferences and listing observations. This guide explores the available pricing customizations.

Price customizations allow you to adjust various aspects of your pricing strategy, including last-minute discounts, orphan day pricing, weekend pricing, and occupancy-based adjustments. These customizations can be set at the listing, group, or account level.

Benefits of Pricing Customizations

  • Personalize pricing strategies to align with your business model.
  • Improve revenue management by optimizing last-minute and orphan day bookings.
  • Adjust weekend and far-out pricing to reflect demand patterns.
  • Fine-tune occupancy-based adjustments for better control over price fluctuations.

Available Customizations

Last-Minute Prices 

By default, PriceLabs applies a gradual 30% last-minute discount over the next 15 days. However, you do have the option to customize last-minute prices. For more information, please check: 

  1. Last Minute Prices (Article)
  2. Last Minute Prices (Video)

Orphan Day Prices 

With the Orphan Day Prices customization, you can adjust your rates to attract bookings and fill the gaps in your calendar. PriceLabs automatically applies a 20% discount to orphan days of 1-2 open days between bookings. You can modify this by:

  1. Setting Different Pricing for Weekdays and Weekends.
  2. Applying Up to 5 Orphan Gap Ranges.
  3. Choosing Between Fixed Price or % Discount/Premium Adjustments.
  4. Turning Off Default Orphan Day Adjustments if Needed.

Orphan days refer to gaps of 1-2 nights between existing bookings, which can be difficult to fill. PriceLabs automatically applies a 20% discount to orphan days by default, but you can customize this to better match your strategy.

You have two options for applying pricing adjustments:

  • Fixed Pricing: If a gap falls within a defined range, a set price applies. For example, if you set a rule for gaps of 1-2 nights within the next 7 days, you could specify a fixed price of $200 on weekdays and $250 on weekends.
  • Percentage-Based Adjustments: You can apply either a Discount or Premium as a percentage. For example, you could set a 20% discount on weekdays and 15% discount on weekends for gaps of 3-4 nights.

  • Disabling Orphan Day Adjustments: If you want to completely turn off orphan day pricing adjustments, select "No Orphan Day Adjustment" from the dropdown.

Reminders

  • Multiple Rules for the Same Gap Nights: You can apply the same number of orphan gap nights to multiple rules for different date ranges.
  • Ascending Order Rule Application: The number of nights should be set in ascending order. (E.g., a rule for 1-2 night gaps must be applied before a rule for 3-4 night gaps).
  • Multiple Rules for the Same Day Range: The same "apply only within" date range can be assigned to different rules.

How Orphan Day Pricing Interacts with Other Discounts

If an Orphan Day is also a Last-Minute Day or an Adjacent Day, and multiple discounts or premiums apply, PriceLabs follows these prioritization rules:

  1. If all are discounts, the largest discount applies (to prevent excessive discounts).
  2. If all are premiums, all premiums apply.
  3. If two rules are discounts and one is a premium, the largest discount + the premium will apply.
  4. If one rule is a discount and two are premiums, both premiums and the discount apply.

Examples of How Price Adjustments Are Applied

Example 1:

  • Orphan Day Discount: 40%
  • Last-Minute Discount: 30%
  • Adjacent Day Discount: 20%
  • Applied Discount: 40% (Largest Discount)

Example 2:

  • Orphan Day Discount: 40%
  • Last-Minute Discount: 30%
  • Adjacent Day Premium: 20%
  • Applied Adjustments: 40% Discount (Orphan Day) + 20% Premium (Adjacent Day)

Example 3:

  • Orphan Day Premium: 40%
  • Last-Minute Premium: 30%
  • Adjacent Day Discount: 20
  • Applied Adjustments: All three apply (Orphan Premium 40%, Last-Minute Premium 30%, Adjacent Day Discount 20%)

Note: If multiple discounts/premiums apply, the system follows a prioritization rule where the largest discount or all premiums are applied.

You can watch the video guide here: Orphan Gap

Day of Week Pricing Adjustments

Day of Week Pricing Adjustments allows you to add a premium or discount on specific days on the week. Here are a few important details about this:
  1. Our dynamic pricing recommendations already factor in day-of-week trends. So, this customization is generally not needed for most users.
  2. Unlike Last-Minute Adjustments and Orphan Day Prices, any adjustments made here will be applied on top of our default recommendations, not replace them.

When Should You Use This?

  • If you observe consistent trends that differ from our defaults.
  • Example:
    • Corporate housing may see higher demand on weekdays due to business travelers.
    • Vacation rentals may see higher demand on weekends from leisure travelers.

How to Apply Adjustments

  • Enter a percentage-based adjustment to modify pricing for specific days of the week.
  • Ranges: Adjustments can be set between -75% and 500%.
  • Blank fields: Leaving a box blank means no adjustment for that day.
  • Can be applied at listing, group, or account level.
You can watch the video guide here: Day of Week Pricing Adjustments

Occupancy-Based Adjustments 

Occupancy Based Adjustment applies discount or premium to your rates depending on your listing's occupancy percentage. By default, the discount and premium is based on the table below.

However, you do have the option to customize this. For more information, please check: 

  1. Occupancy Based Adjustments (Article)
  2. Occupancy Based Adjustments (Video)

Minimum Weekend Prices

Set a separate minimum price for weekends, using one of these methods:

  • Fixed Price: Set a specific minimum weekend rate.
  • % Change on Base Price: Adjust based on the base price.
  • % Change on Minimum Price: Adjust based on the set minimum price.

Please note that if you use both the Minimum Far Out Pricing and the Minimum Weekend Pricing, if you use the % based option, then both adjustments will be used for far-out weekends. 

Weekend Days

Our algorithms use Friday and Saturday nights as the default weekend days for various customizations, like minimum weekend price and dynamic minimum stay. With this customization, you can change that! This can be very useful if:
  1. You're in destination locations where people come for longer stays (so you might want to define the weekend as Thu-Fri-Sat, or Fri-Sat-Sun, or Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun)!
  2. You're in a location where weekends are shifted, like Thu-Fri in the Middle East.
You can watch the video guide for Minimum Weekend Prices and Weekend Days here : Weekend Adjustments

Minimum Far-Out Price

If the Far-Out Min Price is lower than the listing’s Minimum Price, it will have no effect (since prices won’t drop below the Minimum Price).
  1. This allows two levels of minimum price settings:
  2. Example: Set an overall Minimum Price of $120, but a Far-Out Minimum Price of $160 beyond 15 days.
    1. In this case, prices will only go below $160 for last-minute bookings.
  3. If you click the drop-down here, you'll see three options: 
    1. Fixed Price: Set a flat minimum for far-out dates.
    2. % Change on Base Price: Adjust based on the base price.
    3. % Change on Minimum Price: Adjust based on the minimum price.
  4. Please note that if you enter discounts using the % change options, your rates will not drop below your listing's set minimum price. 

You can watch the video guide here : Far Out Prices

Custom Seasonal Prices 

By default, PriceLabs already account for the seasonality for your prices. However, there may be instances where the market cannot properly show your listing's seasonality. This customization can be used to set seasonal minimum, base, and maximum prices for your listings throughout the year. If you leave any price field blank, the system will take the listing's default prices.

For more information, please check: 

  1. Seasonal Pricing Settings (Article)
  2. Custom Seasonal Prices (Video)

Applying Customizations

From the Pricing Dashboard, "Review Prices" then click "Edit" on the Customizations panel. Once the Customization Window appears, click All Customization and set up the customization you with to apply.

Verifying That the Customization Is Applied

  1. ​Customization Panel: You can find the list of all customizations applied to the listing on the left side of the calendar.
  2. ToolTip: You can hover your mouse on the prices on the calendar and you will see the breakdown of the price. You will also find the customizations applied.

Account and Group-Level Customizations 

And that's not all! If you want to apply certain customization for all listings in your account or groups of listings, you can use the Customization page. The group/account level settings will be ignored for listings with their own specific customization. The account level settings can be set for each PMS/channel you use. This page also lets you quickly review and update customizations on each listing individually. You can read more about bulk updating using account and group-level customizations here. 

Advanced Customizations

We have added some more advanced customizations that may be helpful for you:

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