TL;DR
Guesty is the full-spectrum PMS that functions as an “invisible manager” for growing portfolios. For hosts with 1-3 listings, Guesty Lite™ automates the essentials (inbox, calendar) starting at $27/mo. For scaling operators (4–200+ units), Guesty Pro™ delivers enterprise-grade conditional workflows automating complex dependencies between payments, tasks, and guest screening – so you never hit an operational ceiling.
The “90% invisible” problem
In 2025, the guest sees only 10% of your work: the listing photos and the keyless entry. The other 90%—payment reconciliation, cleaning coordination, fraud screening, and gap-night pricing—happens in the dark.
For a host with two units, handling this “invisible 90%” manually is a chore. For a property manager with 50 units, it’s impossible.
Most operational failures happen not because a host forgot a task, but because their software lacked the logic to handle an exception. Basic PMS platforms operate on linear triggers: “When booking confirmed -> Send email.”
But when payments fail, high-risk guests book, and stays exceed 28 days, a basic platform leaves you scrambling.
Guesty Pro™ solves this by replacing linear “to-do lists” with conditional workflows — intelligent, multi-step automations that act as a 24/7 operations manager, so you only have to intervene when human judgment is actually required.
Linear vs. conditional messaging: Where basic tools hit a ceiling
Most PMS platforms automate in straight lines: booking confirmed → send message. That works until your operations get layered.
Basic tools offer linear automation:
- Trigger: New booking
- Action: Send check-in message
- Limitation: You can add conditions, but you’re building each rule from scratch — and the system won’t wait, watch, or escalate if conditions aren’t met in time
Guesty Pro™ uses conditional, stateful automation — meaning workflows can wait for multiple conditions to become true, then act, then expire if the window passes.
Example:
- Trigger: New booking
- Condition 1: Balance paid? (yes/no)
- Condition 2: Rental agreement signed? (yes/no)
- Condition 3: Check-in within 48 hours? (yes/no)
- Action: When all conditions are true, send door code via WhatsApp and email
- Expiration: If conditions aren’t met within 2 hours of check-in, escalate to staff
The difference isn’t whether competitors can send a check-in message. It’s whether their system can hold, watch, and act on multiple dependencies — then fail gracefully when something breaks. That’s the gap between “automation” and an actual operations layer.
Payments that chase themselves
Set your collection logic once: 50% at booking, balance two days before check-in. Guesty handles the charges, the reminders, and the retry attempts. When exceptions happen — a guest sends a bank transfer instead of paying through the platform, or adds a late checkout fee mid-stay — you edit the payment line, and the system adjusts.
You’re not reconciling spreadsheets at month-end; you’re approving a schedule that’s already correct.
Tasks that create themselves
Every checkout needs a cleaning. Every check-in needs an inspection. Instead of building these manually per reservation, you define the logic once: “clean property after checkout, assign to [team], allow 3 hours before next arrival.”
Guesty generates the task automatically when the booking confirms — and if the guest extends their stay, the task shifts with it. For recurring work that isn’t tied to guests (pool inspections, HVAC filter swaps, seasonal decor), schedule it on the calendar and let the system spin up instances six months out. Your ops coordinator sees one task queue, not two systems to reconcile.
Rates that adjust while you sleep
Set your pricing logic once: weekends at +15%, Fourth of July at +25%, drop minimum nights when a 2-night gap appears. Guesty applies the rules automatically — stacking them intelligently so your holiday weekend doesn’t accidentally get the weekday rate.
Want to capture risk-free revenue? Create a non-refundable rate plan at 10% off and let guests self-select. The ones who are certain about their dates pay less; you get guaranteed income with zero cancellation exposure.
For operators who want the system watching market data — local events, competitor pricing, booking pace — Guesty PriceOptimizerTM layers on top and adjusts rates dynamically. You stop finding out about the sold-out weekend after it’s already gone.
Beyond messages, payments, tasks, and rates: Automating the revenue
Guesty’s automation also handles the most sensitive part of the business: trust accounting.
Scaling past 20 units often introduces complex owner structures. You might manage:
- Unit A: 15% commission, owner pays for cleaning
- Unit B: 20% commission, you pay for cleaning
- Unit C: Fixed rent model
Most PMS platforms generate owner statements. The gap is upstream: can the system handle multiple fee structures, split costs correctly per booking, and flow the results into trust accounting without a spreadsheet in between?
Guesty Pro™ automates this via “business model”. You define the logic once per property, and the system automatically splits every booking dollar into the correct trust account buckets, generates the owner statement, pays the owner with ACH payments, and generates your 1099 forms.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Guesty offers GuestVerifyTM (automated guest verification) using conditional logic. You can set rules that automatically flag reservations based on risk factors while automatically approving low-risk travelers, so you only have to review the exceptions.
No. While Guesty is powerful enough for enterprise users, 10 units is often the breaking point where manual work overwhelms a solo operator. By implementing Guesty Pro™ at 10 units, you build the infrastructure to scale to 50 without needing to hire an operations manager.
Linear automation is a simple sequence (A happens → do B). Conditional automation adds a “check” step (A happens → check if X is true → if yes, do B; if no, do C). This prevents errors, such as sending entry codes to guests who haven’t yet signed their rental agreement.
Double bookings often occur when a reservation on Booking.com doesn’t sync to Airbnb fast enough. Guesty’s high API rate limit (~15 calls/second) allows data to flow instantly between channels, minimizing the “sync lag” window that slower competitors (capped at ~1.5 calls/second) suffer from.
Conclusion: Invest in logic
A common misconception is that you need to hire an operations manager once you hit 20 or 30 units. The reality is that you often just need software that acts like one.
By offloading the conditional logic of messages, payments, access, and tasks to Guesty Pro™, you reduce hours of manual effort — saving time for the work that actually grows your business. This operational leverage is why Guesty users see a 16.4% increase in revenue per listing after switching from a more limited platform.
Guesty’s talented marketing team is comprised of passionate professionals who share insightful industry knowledge and shape brand narratives. By bringing a diverse blend of expertise to the table, we are the visionary architects behind the Guesty brand and innovative campaigns that help people understand our product.
