askng.it vs Canary Technologies
The facts side by side, what each one costs tier by tier, and which of the two we'd pick. Both have been paid for and run at a working European hotel.
The short version
On our hands-on ratings, askng.it takes it overall, 8/10 against 5/10.
askng.it is built for small and mid-size hotels wanting WhatsApp-led guest messaging with named PMS and door-lock integrations. Canary Technologies is built for large US hotel chains wanting a full guest management suite.
Which we'd pick
askng.it for any European property; Canary only makes sense at US chain scale.
This is the widest gap in the category on our ratings, 8 against 5, and almost all of it is jurisdiction and focus. askng.it is Dutch, runs on Mistral rather than a US model, publishes per-room rates with a calculator and no sales call, and bundles two to four proactive touchpoints per reservation so everyday messaging cost stays predictable. Canary names three tiers, prices none of them, and has since dropped even the rough $99 a month entry reference we once recorded.
Canary's advantages are real but narrow for this audience: 20,000 properties, a check-in flow guests complete without hesitating, and a dashboard Marc found well organised. Its messaging, which is the whole point of askng.it, is the weakest part of the product. Digital tipping is a flagship feature with little meaning in European hospitality, and the ID photo capture produces blurry images, which is an awkward failure in a platform built around identity documents. The honest caution on askng.it is the opposite one: Sophie is still the only hotelier we know running it, and the customer numbers are vendor-supplied.
Drawn from our individual hands-on reviews rather than a fresh head-to-head test. Where a finding belongs to one of us, we've said whose it is.
| askng.it | Canary Technologies | |
|---|---|---|
| Our rating | 8/10 | 5/10 |
| Pricing | Free tier; Standard €4.50/room/month (min €80); Premium €7.50/room/month (min €120) | Quote only. Core, Advanced and Pro tiers, all of them get-quote buttons; the former ~$99/month entry reference is no longer published |
| Best for | Small and mid-size hotels wanting WhatsApp-led guest messaging with named PMS and door-lock integrations | Large US hotel chains wanting a full guest management suite |
| HQ | Netherlands | United States (San Francisco, CA) |
| Founded | 2019 | 2016 |
| Reviewed by | sophie | marc |
What each one costs
askng.it pricing
- Free €0
- A real free tier rather than a trial with a countdown on it, which is rare enough in this category to be worth stating plainly.
- Standard €4.50/room/month, €80 minimum
- The tier most properties will land on. At my 80 rooms that's €360 a month, and the minimum only bites below about 18 rooms.
- Premium €7.50/room/month, €120 minimum
- €600 a month at my size. The step up needs to earn that €240 difference against your own numbers, not against the feature grid.
Published per-room rates with the minimums stated, which is what I want from a vendor and don't often get. Do the arithmetic at your own room count before you look at the tier comparison, because per-room pricing rewards small properties and punishes larger ones: the same product costs my 80-room hotel €4,320 a year on Standard. Then add WhatsApp conversation costs, which sit outside the subscription and depend on your volume and markets.
Canary Technologies pricing
- Core Quote only
- Mobile check-in, guest messaging and the digital compendium. Get quote.
- Advanced Quote only
- Adds AI messaging responses, tablet registration, dynamic upsells at 0% commission, digital tipping and smart checkout.
- Pro Quote only
- Adds AI webchat. Unlimited users, data and support are stated as included on every subscription, which is the one commercial detail Canary does publish.
Canary has never published a price and still does not. What has changed since our review is that the roughly $99 a month entry reference we recorded is no longer anywhere on the pricing page, so even the rough starting figure has gone. The three tiers are clearly described and every one of them ends in a get quote button. For a company of Canary's size, with over 20,000 properties and $175M raised, declining to state a single number is a choice rather than a constraint.
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 askng.it pricing and Canary Technologies pricing.
Common questions
Which is better, askng.it or Canary Technologies?
On our ratings askng.it scores 8/10 against Canary Technologies at 5/10. But the better tool is the one that fits your property, so read both reviews before you decide.
How much do askng.it and Canary Technologies cost?
askng.it: Free tier; Standard €4.50/room/month (min €80); Premium €7.50/room/month (min €120)
Canary Technologies: Quote only. Core, Advanced and Pro tiers, all of them get-quote buttons; the former ~$99/month entry reference is no longer published
Read the full reviews
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askng.it
askng.it is, for all practical purposes, a new product: the February 2026 rebuild of Lacoly, which I ran for a year and rated a 4. I tested the new one in March at my 80-room Amsterdam hotel. It is a different animal, and it earns an 8.
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Canary Technologies
Canary Technologies has raised $175 million, built a strong guest management platform, and is now eyeing Europe. The product is good. The question is whether European hotels should care.