Apaleo vs Mews
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
Both land on 8/10 overall, so the choice comes down to fit rather than our scores. Apaleo scores higher on support. Mews scores higher on pricing & value.
Apaleo is built for tech-forward hotel groups wanting a headless PMS with best-of-breed integrations. Mews is built for mid-size independents and lifestyle hotels wanting a modern cloud PMS with integrated payments.
| Apaleo | Mews | |
|---|---|---|
| Our rating | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Pricing | Quote-based, no setup or licensing fees, open API included | From ~€300/month, tiered plans (Essentials, Advanced, Enterprise) |
| Best for | Tech-forward hotel groups wanting a headless PMS with best-of-breed integrations | Mid-size independents and lifestyle hotels wanting a modern cloud PMS with integrated payments |
| HQ | Germany (Munich) | Netherlands (Amsterdam) |
| Founded | 2017 | 2012 |
| Reviewed by | thomas | anna |
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.
Mews pricing
- Essentials From around €300/month
- The entry tier, and the one where shorter contract terms are available. Elena pays at the lower end of the range for her 30-room property and considers it reasonable value.
- Advanced Scales with rooms and features
- The mid tier. Pricing assumes a two-year agreement, which is the part I'd want you to read carefully before signing.
- Enterprise Quote only
- For larger portfolios, with pricing shaped by room count, payment processing volume and add-ons. Also assumes the two-year term.
Transparency here is mixed rather than bad. The tier structure and starting prices are on the website, which I appreciate, but the figure for your specific property still needs a sales conversation because it depends on rooms, payment volume and add-ons. My real objection is the contract. Two years is a long time to commit to a vendor before you've seen how they handle a major incident, or how support holds up once onboarding hands you to the general queue. Two-year terms are common in this category, but cloud-native competitors like RoomRaccoon bill monthly without locking you in. If Mews is confident the product retains customers on merit, the contract shouldn't need to do the retaining.
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 Mews pricing.
Score breakdown
| Apaleo | Mews | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup & onboarding | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Daily use | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Integrations | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Pricing & value | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Support | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Data & privacy | 8/10 | 8/10 |
Scores come from our individual hands-on reviews. We only line up dimensions both tools were scored on.
Common questions
Which is better, Apaleo or Mews?
Both score 8/10 on our ratings, so the right pick depends on what you are optimising for. Read both reviews.
How much do Apaleo and Mews cost?
Apaleo: Quote-based, no setup or licensing fees, open API included
Mews: From ~€300/month, tiered plans (Essentials, Advanced, Enterprise)
Read the full reviews