Apaleo vs Clock PMS+
Factual side-by-side, not editorial. Both tools have been tested at a working European hotel. For opinions, read the individual reviews linked below.
The short version
On our hands-on ratings, Apaleo takes it overall, 8/10 against 7/10.
Apaleo is built for tech-forward hotel groups wanting a headless PMS with best-of-breed integrations. Clock PMS+ is built for independent hotels wanting an all-in-one platform from a bootstrapped European company.
| Apaleo | Clock PMS+ | |
|---|---|---|
| Our rating | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | Quote-based, no setup or licensing fees, open API included | ~€250–810/month depending on revenue and rooms |
| Best for | Tech-forward hotel groups wanting a headless PMS with best-of-breed integrations | Independent hotels wanting an all-in-one platform from a bootstrapped European company |
| HQ | Germany (Munich) | UK (London) / Bulgaria (Varna) |
| Founded | 2017 | 1994 |
| Reviewed by | thomas | marc |
What each one costs
Apaleo pricing
- Core platform Quote only
- Apaleo markets no setup fees, no licensing fees, no maintenance fees and no integration fees. All technically true, and none of it tells you what they do charge. The rate comes out of a sales call, which means the hotel down the street may well be paying something different for the same product.
- The rest of the stack Not included in that quote
- This is the part that matters with a headless PMS. You will also be paying for a front desk app, a channel manager connector, a housekeeping tool, payment processing, and in most cases an integrator to wire it together. Each has its own subscription and its own contract.
The pricing opacity bothers me more here than it would elsewhere, because this is a company that positions itself as open. The API is open, the documentation is open, the marketplace is open. The pricing is not. And the quoted figure is only half the picture: a colleague running three hotels in Austria told me his annual Apaleo spend, once he added the front desk app, the channel manager connector, a reporting tool and the integrator who set it all up, came in considerably higher than the number on his initial call. Budget for the ecosystem, not the platform. If your product is good, publish the price.
Clock PMS+ pricing
- Scaled subscription ~€250–810/month
- One model, scaled by room count and revenue rather than split into feature tiers that withhold things you need. No per-room-per-night surcharges that climb unpredictably as your occupancy rises, and no requirement to sit through a deck before anyone will name a number.
By PMS standards this is transparent, and I don't say that often. You can find the range, you can work out roughly where your property lands, and the all-in-one bundle means the figure you see is close to the figure you pay rather than a base rate with the useful parts sold separately. Sophie would appreciate it; she keeps spreadsheets on exactly this sort of thing. Worth remembering what you're also buying: a company that has built hotel software since 1994 without taking venture capital, which means no investor clock running down toward an exit.
Prices as last verified during each review. Hotel software pricing moves, and per-room rates behave very differently at 20 rooms and at 200, so run the arithmetic at your own room count. Full detail on Apaleo pricing and Clock PMS+ pricing.
Common questions
Which is better, Apaleo or Clock PMS+?
On our ratings Apaleo scores 8/10 against Clock PMS+ at 7/10. But the better tool is the one that fits your property, so read both reviews before you decide.
How much do Apaleo and Clock PMS+ cost?
Apaleo: Quote-based, no setup or licensing fees, open API included
Clock PMS+: ~€250–810/month depending on revenue and rooms
Read the full reviews
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Apaleo
A PMS with a public API, a developer sandbox, and no proprietary UI requirement. I opened the docs before the marketing page. For once, I wasn't disappointed.
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Clock PMS+
Every subscription is a vote. Clock has been building hotel software since 1994 without taking venture capital. In a market where your PMS vendor might get acquired next quarter, that counts for something.