How to set up your base price?

Setting your base price

Base price is the average rate you would charge across the year. It serves as a starting point, with market factors, demand patterns, and customizations applied on top. The base price also reflects the quality of your listing—for example, a luxury two-bedroom will have a higher base price than a basic two-bedroom.

Base Price Help

The Base Price Help tool analyzes nearby listings and provides a suggested starting point for your base price. It considers properties with similar bedroom counts to help match your competition.

To use this tool, click "Help me choose a base price" from the Review Prices page in your Pricing Dashboard.

đź’ˇ Pro-tip: You can also access this tool from the Multi Calendar under the More Actions column!

Options When Setting a Base Price

1. Imported Base Price

  • If a listing is newly imported, PriceLabs does not recommend a base price immediately. Instead, Imported Base Price which reflects the prices synced when the listing was connected is an available option.

  • If the listing has been performing well with these prices, you can adopt the Imported Base Price as a starting point.
  • If the listing is new and it’s unclear if the imported prices are competitive, consider using a Market-Based Price instead.

2. Market-Based Price

  • This option sets the base price based on local market data.
  • Factors considered:
    • Property Category: Economy (25th percentile), Midscale (50th percentile), or Upscale (75th percentile).
      • Midscale is often a good starting point, but other factors might justify a higher or lower price. For example, if your listing is new and has no reviews yet, it might make sense to set your price below the median to attract more guests. On the other hand, if your listing is very high-end, it could be safely priced above the median.

    • Bedroom Categories: Choose which bedroom sizes to compare against to refine market data.
      • Select the size of the listings that you consider your competitors. In some cases, even though a listing has 2 bedrooms, it might still compete with 1-3 bedroom listings in its area.
      • Selecting a set of bedroom categories with a good number of listings (at least 30) is recommended. Otherwise, there isn't enough data to draw a reasonable conclusion about the market trends. Experiment with different bedroom categories to understand how the price distribution changes!
      • Listings considered for this compsets are listing that are active for the last 6 months and next 6 months. If a listing is new or is no longer active, it is not included in the data used for this section 
    • Market Map: Displays active listings considered in the analysis, showing pricing trends.
      • The square shows your listing. Hovering over a listing will show the average price, the bedroom count, and the listing ID. The listings are colored based on the price. 
      • The price averages are based on the mean prices observed for any listing in the past 6 months and the upcoming 6 months, leading to an average price across the year. Note that any listing that has not been around for at least six months will not show up for comparison.
      • You can fine-tune the market area considered to calculate the market-based values and percentile calculator by selecting an area on the map.

3. Recommended Base Price

  1. If a listing has been syncing prices consistently, a Recommended Base Price is generated after 14-21 days.
  2. This is based on the performance of the listing with regards to the market, the listing's occupancy, and its current base prices observed for a maximum of 60 days. Note that a higher weight is given to more recent trends. 
  3. Because the recommendations are based on your listing's performance with the current Base Price, the Recommended Price may appear blank and should be able to generate a new recommendation within a few days if the base price is recently updated.
Seasonal Base Price
  1. If the listing uses a seasonal base price or has used it recently, we recommend a percentage change to the base price instead of giving an absolute value. To implement the Recommended Base Price Change it should be applied to each Seasonal Base Price
  2. Once the Seasonal Base Price has been turned off, it takes 14-21 days for the algorithm to start recommending an absolute base price again.
     
How was this price calculated?
Below the recommended base price, we give reasons and show how these reasons impact the price (on a scale of 1 to 3). For example – if we suggest increasing the price for any given reason, we show it by green upwards pyramids (1 to 3 pyramids, depending on how much we grow it). For a decrease, we use red downward pyramids.

Recommendation in the presence of blocks
  1. Blocked dates are treated as booked when calculating a listing’s occupancy, except for certain PMS/Channel Managers where only actual booked nights are considered.
  2. For integrations that support block tracking:
    1. Occupancy calculations include blocked dates from the past 60 days and the next 30 days at the time of generating recommendations.
    2. If too many dates are blocked, occupancy comparisons with the neighborhood become difficult, making a recommendation unavailable.
    3. As blocked dates clear up, the algorithm will resume generating recommendations.

4. Custom Base Price

  • Select the Custom button to enter a base price manually.

Percentile Indicators

This indicator shows in what percentile of the selected market the newly selected base price will be. The percentile can be determined based on both bedroom category selection and map selection:                 

 
  • Market-based percentile: Always displays the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles.
  • Recommended and custom base prices: Show the exact percentile in which the selected price falls.
Percentile Score vs. Percentile Rank

When selecting the Market Base Price, we use Percentile Score. However, for Custom Base Price, we use Percentile Rank.

  • Percentile Score: Sets a benchmark based on the market. If $250 is the 75th percentile, it means that $250 is the price point that separates the top 25% of listings from the bottom 75%. This serves as a standard for the market.
  • Percentile Rank: Looks at how your specific price compares to all other listings. If $250 is at the 75th percentile, it means your price is higher than 75% of listings but lower than the top 26%.

đź“Ś Key Difference: The Percentile Score focuses on where a price stands relative to the market as a whole, while the Percentile Rank measures how your set price compares to other listings. The same price can represent different positions depending on which metric you are using.

Seasonality Graph

Before confirming your selected base price, you can review the average monthly prices across the year to understand its potential impact.


🔹 Important Notes:

  • These averages serve as a reference only.
  • Actual recommended prices for high and low seasons may differ significantly due to:
    • Customizations (e.g., Far-out Premium)
    • Market effects (e.g., Demand Factor)

Base Price Nudges

We continuously monitor your base price and notify you if we detect a difference of more than 5% from our recommended base price using the Base Price Nudges. These timely updates help ensure that your base price remains optimized, allowing you to maximize earnings and stay competitive in the market.

Please note that these nudges do not automatically change your base price—you have the option to accept or reject them. Additionally, you can click the "See recommendation in Base Price Help Tool" link to access the tool, review our suggestion, and make adjustments as needed.

To learn more about nudges, check our guide here.

Base Price Override

  • To override your base price for specific dates, use the Date-Specific Override option in the Price Settings section.
  • This feature must be requested—contact support@pricelabs.co if you do not see it in your account.

Other Things to Consider

  • Don’t overthink your initial base price. Instead, refine and improve it over time. PriceLabs’ algorithm automatically adjusts rates based on your listing’s performance.
  • Review your base price regularly. Check it every couple of weeks at first, then every few months, to ensure it remains competitive in your market.
  • Make incremental adjustments. If you’ve used the same base price for more than a few weeks, adjust it gradually (5-10%) rather than making large, one-time changes to safely gauge the impact on revenue.
  • Factor in occupancy. If your occupancy is low, increasing your base price may not be ideal. Conversely, if occupancy is already high, decreasing the base price may be unnecessary.
  • Compare your prices with the market. After setting your base price, click “Save & Refresh,” go to the Neighborhood Data tab, filter by bedroom size, and check how your prices compare to similar listings. Adjust as needed within the 25th-75th percentile range.
  • Consider platform fees. If you’re not adding a separate markup for Airbnb host fees or OTA service fees, your base price already includes these costs—meaning your net payout will be slightly lower.
  • Exclude taxes from the base price. Taxes are typically charged on top of your nightly rate, so don’t include them in your base price calculation.
  • Set minimum and maximum prices. While daily rates are based on your base price, setting min/max limits ensures your prices don’t drop too low or spike too high.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How often should I change my base price?
A: Your base price should be a stable average that works year-round. Seasonal demand fluctuations are already factored into PriceLabs’ pricing. The Base Price Help tool evaluates occupancy trends from the past two months, giving more weight to recent data. If an adjustment is needed, you’ll receive a Base Price Nudge.

Q: Why does the recommendation say "low historical occupancy" even though my current occupancy is higher than the market?
A: The recommendation is based on your listing’s 30-day occupancy trend over the last 60 days, not just recent performance. Since recommendations update weekly and apply for seven days, there may be a lag before recent changes are reflected.

Q: Why isn’t my base price recommendation changing?
A: If your listing’s occupancy trends are stable and aligned with the market, the algorithm may determine that no change is needed.

Q: Why does the recommended base price seem to follow my manual changes?
A: When you manually change your base price, the algorithm temporarily reinforces that price while gathering new occupancy data. Frequent changes make it harder for the system to recalibrate, so we recommend keeping your base price unchanged for 2-3 weeks to allow the algorithm to adjust properly.

Q: Why is my recommended base price so high (or low)?
A: The Base Price Help tool nudges you toward an optimal price based on occupancy trends. If your recommended price seems off, start with a market-based or custom base price. After 2-3 weeks, the algorithm will adjust based on this new starting point.

Q: My base price is slightly below the median market price, but I’m not getting bookings. Should I increase it?
A: Generally, no. The Base Price Help tool focuses on market prices, but actual demand matters more. During low-demand periods, pricing below the market median may be necessary to attract bookings.

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