# How hotel software is priced, and who's honest about it

> After pricing two dozen hotel tools across PMS, housekeeping and guest messaging, the same patterns turn up everywhere. Here are the pricing models you'll meet, the costs that hide off the page, and which vendors will actually show you a number.

**Source:** https://6hoteliers.com/insights/hotel-software-pricing/
**Author:** sophie (Six Hoteliers)
**Published:** 2026-05-31
**Licence:** CC BY-SA 4.0 — attribution required

## Body

I keep a spreadsheet for every category of software we review, and the first column is always the same: what does this actually cost me, all in, per month. It is the hardest column to fill in, and not because the maths is difficult. It is hard because the number on the vendor's page, when there is a number at all, is almost never the number you end up paying.

We have now priced roughly two dozen tools across property management, housekeeping and guest messaging. The products could not be more different. The pricing tricks are identical. So before you look at any single tool, here is the shape of the whole thing: how these products are priced, the costs that never make the headline figure, and which vendors are honest enough to print a price you can plan around.

## The pricing models you will meet

There are really only a handful of models in hotel software, and knowing which one you are looking at tells you most of what you need.

**Per room, per month.** The default for property management systems and some messaging tools. [Mews](/property-management/mews-review/) starts around €300 a month and scales with rooms; askng.it charges €4.50 a room. It is the easiest model to compare *if* you know your room count, and the easiest to underestimate, because the monthly figure looks small until you multiply.

**Flat monthly tiers.** A fixed price per band, regardless of size. chatlyn runs Light, Plus and Advanced from about €61 to €311. Good for a large property (the fee is capped), poor value for a small one (you pay for headroom you do not use).

**Per-property bands, unpublished.** The most common model among the premium tools, and the most opaque. You are quoted a band based on your size and feature set, after a sales call. Most of the guest-messaging market and a good part of the PMS market sits here.

**Usage-based: credits, conversations, AI sessions, messages.** You pay per unit of activity. It sounds fair and is usually the model that scales most aggressively against a property like yours, because the vendor has chosen the unit. WhatsApp messaging is the clearest example, and I have written separately about [what guest communication tools really cost](/insights/what-hotel-whatsapp-tools-really-cost/) once you count the messages.

**Percentage of revenue, or commission.** Booking engines and channel managers often take a cut rather than a fee. [Amenitiz](/property-management/amenitiz-review/) makes a selling point of charging 0% commission precisely because the rest of the market does not.

**Freemium.** A free tier that is really a trial. askng.it offers one; the catch, as always, is in what the free tier cannot do.

**The bundled suite.** The newest and most consequential. One vendor sells you the PMS, payments, messaging, revenue management and analytics on a single bill. [Cloudbeds](/property-management/cloudbeds-review/) has done this for years, and Mews is pushing hard in the same direction. The pitch is one invoice and no integration headaches. The trade is that you have concentrated your spending, your data and your leverage in one company. Convenient, until you want to leave.

## The costs that are not on the pricing page

This is where the all-in number actually gets built, and where vendors are quietest.

**Payment processing.** The biggest hidden cost in property management. When a PMS bundles payments, you are not just paying the software fee; you are paying a processing rate on every transaction that flows through.  dug into this for the [Mews review](/property-management/mews-review/): the software fee is the small part, the payment volume is where the real money moves.

**WhatsApp and message costs.** In guest messaging, the platform fee is half the bill. The other half is what Meta charges per message, passed through to you, sometimes with a markup. A tool can look cheap on the tier and cost more than a dearer rival once the messages are counted.

**Onboarding, migration and setup.** Rarely quoted, often four figures, especially for a PMS migration. Ask before you sign, not after.

**Integrations and marketplace add-ons.** The marketplace that makes a platform flexible also makes it easy to bolt on another monthly fee you forgot you were paying.

**Contract lock-in.** Not a line item, but a cost. Mews defaults to a two-year commitment; [RoomRaccoon](/property-management/roomraccoon-review/) bills monthly and lets you leave. A two-year contract is a price, paid in lost flexibility.

## The transparency spectrum, and what it tells you

Here is the pattern that holds across every category we have reviewed: roughly half of these vendors publish a price you can find without talking to anyone, and half hide it behind a sales call. The half that hide it are not the half with the better products.

Amenitiz prints its tiers. chatlyn and askng.it show you numbers. Quicktext is mostly transparent. At the other end, a long list of well-funded tools will not show you a figure until you have given a salesperson your room count and your email. Sometimes that turns out to be a vendor that is simply bad at marketing a fair price. More often, the gate is there because the price flexes to what they think you will pay, and a published number would cost them that flexibility.

My rule has not changed: if I need a demo to see your price, I have already learned something about your price.

## How to get to your own all-in number

When a vendor quotes me, I translate everything into one figure: cost per month, all in, on my room count and my real usage. Four questions get me there, and I would push you to ask the same of any tool in any category.

Is the fee per room, flat, per property, or a percentage of revenue? Put your own numbers in before you compare anything to anything.

What is not included? Payments, messages, onboarding, integrations. Add them.

What is the billable unit, and did they choose it to scale against you? Credits, conversations and active users are rarely in your favour.

Is the price published? A vendor confident in its pricing prints it.

## Where the detail lives

This is the map, not the territory. The specific numbers, and the worked comparisons on a real hotel, live in the category pages: [guest communication](/guest-communication/), [property management](/property-management/), and [housekeeping](/housekeeping/), with the guest-messaging maths set out in full in [what those tools really cost](/insights/what-hotel-whatsapp-tools-really-cost/). The category pricing pieces for PMS and housekeeping are coming.

The summary is the same as it is for any one tool. The sticker price tells you almost nothing. The all-in on your own hotel is the only number that matters, and you will usually have to build it yourself, because the people selling to you are not in a hurry to do it for you.

*Sophie, with input from ,  and *