Manual pricing on Airbnb is one of the biggest revenue leaks for short-term rental hosts. Most hosts set a rate and leave it — or make occasional adjustments when they remember. Dynamic pricing tools like PriceLabs adjust your rates automatically based on real demand data, local events, competitor pricing and seasonality. Done right, most hosts see a 20-40% revenue increase within the first few months.
Here’s how to set it up properly.
Step 1: Connect PriceLabs to Your Listing
PriceLabs integrates directly with Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, and most channel managers including Smoobu, Lodgify and Hostaway. After creating your account, connect your property management system or OTA accounts. PriceLabs will pull in your existing calendar and start analysing your market.
Give it 24-48 hours to gather data before you start making adjustments. The initial recommendations are based on your market averages and will become more refined as it learns your property’s performance.
Step 2: Set Your Base Price Correctly
Your base price is the starting point PriceLabs adjusts from. Setting it too high means you’ll be overpriced even after downward adjustments on slow nights. Setting it too low means you leave money on the table on high-demand dates.
A good starting point is your average nightly rate from the past 12 months, or the median rate of comparable listings in your area. PriceLabs provides a “Market Dashboard” showing what similar properties charge — use this as your reference, not Airbnb’s smart pricing suggestion which tends to be conservative.
Step 3: Set Your Minimum and Maximum Prices
Your minimum price is the floor below which PriceLabs will never go, even for last-minute availability. Set this at a level that covers your variable costs (cleaning, utilities, supplies) with a small margin. For most hosts this is 50-60% of their base price.
Your maximum price caps how high PriceLabs will push rates. Don’t set this too low — during peak events like festivals, major conferences or school holidays, demand spikes can justify rates 3-4x your base. Let PriceLabs capture that value.
Step 4: Configure Your Last-Minute and Far-Future Discounts
Two settings most hosts ignore that significantly impact revenue:
Last-minute discounts: For nights within 3-7 days of the current date that are still vacant, PriceLabs can automatically reduce the price to fill them. An empty night earns nothing — a discounted booking covers your fixed costs. Set a last-minute discount of 10-20% for nights 1-3 days out.
Far-future pricing: Guests booking 6+ months in advance are often more price-sensitive and looking for the best deal. You can set a modest discount for bookings more than 90 days out to encourage early commits that fill your calendar and give you certainty.
Step 5: Add Local Events to Your Calendar
PriceLabs automatically detects many local events, but it doesn’t catch everything — especially smaller local festivals, sporting events or school holidays in your specific area. Manually add these to your PriceLabs calendar as “custom date overrides” and set a higher minimum price for those dates.
This is where significant money is made. A single weekend festival near your property could justify doubling your rate if demand is high — and PriceLabs won’t know unless you tell it.
Step 6: Set Minimum Stay Requirements Strategically
PriceLabs also manages minimum stay settings. A common mistake is setting a blanket 2-night minimum across all dates. During peak periods this makes sense. But for shoulder season and weekday availability, a 1-night minimum often fills gaps that would otherwise stay empty.
Use PriceLabs’ “Minimum Stay Automation” to set shorter minimums for dates within 7 days that have low occupancy — this automatically opens up last-minute single-night stays when the calendar is struggling to fill.
How Long Until You See Results?
Most hosts see measurable improvement within 30-60 days of proper PriceLabs setup. The tool works best with 2-3 months of data — it gets smarter over time as it learns which price points convert in your specific market.
If you want the setup done properly from day one without spending weeks figuring it out, get in touch — PriceLabs configuration is part of my Growth and Full Setup packages.