Lodgify vs BNBForms Vacation Rental Booking Software Comparison

Lodgify and BNBForms are some of the highly useful and feature-rich options for vacation rental management software. Many short-term rental businesses rely on such solutions. As a result their business often depends on how well these platforms meet the needs of STRs. In today’s post, we’ll compare various features of the Lodgify website builder and BNBForms and analyze their differences. However, before we start, let’s learn more about these platforms.

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Lodgify Website Builder vs BNBForms: Prices and Functionality

Like many similar online services, both BNBForms and Lodgify are oriented toward providing all-in-one property management and online scheduling services. Lodgify meets the needs of both small and well-established vacation rental businesses. Even companies managing a rapidly increasing number of rental properties can benefit from using it due to the scalable nature of Lodgify pricing plans starting from $13 per month for one property.

BNBForms, on the other hand, provides a one-size-fits-all solution focusing on various aspects of property management. While it allows you to manage diverse accommodation types and automate the booking process with widgets, this platform is the best choice for single-property vacation rental businesses that already have an established website as it helps to:

• Accept and manage direct bookings;
• Receive and track payments online;
• Synchronize your booking calendar with popular OTAs;
• Analyze your rental property’s performance etc.

The difference in features and provided tools is perfectly reflected in the pricing packages of both platforms as shown in the tables below. For example, while BNBForms offers a single option offering all its features for $16/month, Lodgify pricing provides three plans that include different features and meet the purposes of various STRs.

What are the Main Features of Lodgify and BNBForms?

Now that we explored the main differences between Lodgify and BNBForms, let’s look at the features provided by both of these software solutions. As a well-developed platform for the management of vacation rental properties, the Lodgify website builder provides a full set of features available online. They can be accessed from anywhere using an account of the registered user.

While BNBForms offers a less widespread set of tools, the platform makes up for it by delivering flexible solutions for accommodation planning and bookings. Moreover, it allows you to add online payment support to your website without extra fees. You can also add diverse services with the help of this online software. As a result, BNBForms delivers features requested by both STR and hotel owners.

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Top 5 Features of BNBForms & Lodgify for your Short-term Rental Business

As you see, Lodgify and BNBForms both offer easy-to-use and highly effective vacation rental software options. However, they do it in slightly different ways. For example, 5 main benefits perfectly describe the differences between these platforms as well as their features:

• Property management tools;
• Channel manager;
• Website builder;
• Booking system;
• Online payment gateway.

If you have worked with Lodgify before, you may have noticed that some of the abovementioned advantages are related to the core functionality of the platform. Below we’ll analyze each of them and compare various advantages and disadvantages with those of BNBForms.

1. Property Management

The property management solution supplied with Lodgify is one of the main selling points of this SaaS-based tool. It allows you to efficiently add bookings & manage them on various properties, view reservations for different properties separately, and edit them in just a few clicks. The built-in accounting and statistics modules of this vacation rental booking software help manage your STR business’s finances and analyze your properties’ success. Additionally, you can set tasks for your employees with the help of Lodgify and even manage properties on the go using a dedicated Lodgify guest app.

Such a wide set of features within just one part of Lodgify already seems impressive.

However, BNBForms has similar advantages with a slight difference – its features are initially designed to fit multi-property STR businesses of a single owner, for example, a hotel with multiple rooms or many vacation rentals operated by one owner.

With its two major modules being devoted to managing bookings and accommodation types, this platform allows for taking care of every aspect that is crucial for the success of modern short-term rentals. For example, you can easily manage existing accommodation types (rooms), create & edit rates and services, and much more.

2. Channel Manager

Connecting external OTAs to your chosen property management system is important in a way that allows you to manage your bookings from various sources in one place. Lodgify has a specific feature that helps with connecting online travel agencies such as Airbnb, Booking.com, or Expedia with simple yet effective integrations to avoid double bookings. Additionally, for owners of Professional and Ultimate plans, this platform offers synchronization with Google vacation rentals to reach even more potential guests and get more direct bookings. This helps to:

• Get more bookings;
• Connect your STR business to Google;
• Increase exposure via search results;
• Improve your online reputation.

When it comes to syncing OTAs to your property management account, BNBForms also has something to offer – iCalendar synchronization. To get direct bookings from popular online platforms similar to Airbnb, you just need to export your calendar in the .ics format and then import it to BNBForms using the “Sync Calendar” feature. It can be found in the “Bookings” section of the platform dashboard. However, Lodgify also has this sync feature. To access it, you need to navigate to a separate Settings menu. It may not always be convenient if you aim to gather all calendar links in one place. Besides, BNBForms allows you to upload calendar files from your device, which Lodgify doesn’t offer.

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3. Website Building & Customization

One of the most important parts of any vacation rental business is having a well-designed website that advertises your property’s advantages. The Lodgify website builder solves this task by providing a visual builder as well as multiple pre-designed templates for your STR website. With an easy-to-use customization tool, you can create a responsive website with a configurable form that allows your guests to book a room at any of your properties quickly.

Not offering a website builder of its own, BNBForms handles this task by providing a ready-made booking form widget that can be integrated into any modern website-building platform. From WordPress & HTML to Squarespace and Wix, the platform provides clear guides for integrating the widget into your website. Besides, you can embed the form by simply inserting an iframe code on a single page if necessary. Test mode is also available when you need to test the form first. Note that all this requires an already developed website on any of the supported CMS.

4. Booking Management

Booking management and tracking are some of the highly asked-for features in any vacation rental software. As for Lodgify, it provides several tools to keep track of all your bookings and edit them easily. First of all, the platform offers a Reservations section with a calendar view that allows you to quickly edit and export all your bookings and all related information. Furthermore, you can freely use the Lodgify Reviews section. It allows viewing and analyzing testimonials and opinions from your customers in one place. This vacation rental software also helps with the integration of booking functionality into popular online CMS, such as:

• WordPress;
• Squarespace;
• Wix;
• Weebly;
• Joomla;
• Drupal.

BNBForms delivers one of the most detailed vacation rental booking software for any STR business. Accessible via the “Bookings” section in the dashboard, it provides an easy-to-understand calendar view of all reservations. Moreover, in this section, you can take a look at all recent payments, create and change taxes & fees as well as set various booking rules if necessary. The platform also provides a built-in analytics module for a better understanding of how well your vacation rentals perform.

5. Online Payments

Lastly, let’s talk about receiving online payments using both platforms. When it comes to Lodgify, you can take advantage of using any of 4 integrated online payment gateways:

• Stripe;
• Braintree;
• PayPal;
• Authorize.Net

Additionally, this vacation rental booking software enables you to accept credit cards and bank transfers. However, enabling online payments includes a Lodgify website builder fee of 1% for each transaction via payment gateways.

In case you decide to choose BNBForms as your preferred platform for managing bookings, you can also accept online payments with it. Just like Lodgify, it provides a variety of payment gateways to choose from. Aside from the abovementioned ones used by Lodgify, you also get access to 2Checkout & Bambora, online services that support global payments. In contrast to Lodgify, BNBForms doesn’t have any transaction fees aside from those that are set by payment services themselves.

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Lodgify vs BNBForms: Try and Decide for Yourself

Both platforms offer great sets of features that are highly diverse while also being similar in certain aspects. The best way to decide is to try and find which vacation rental software fits you best. With Lodgify, you can request a 72-hour demo, sign up for a one-week free trial, or get a free demo call to learn if this platform is right for you.

BNBForms provides one month of free trial with full access to all features using your account. You can easily edit the provided data, add your accommodations, and integrate online payments just the way you prefer.

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Conclusion: Better Lodgify Alternative?

We hope this overview and comparison of features provided by Lodgify & BNBForms helped you understand the advantages each platform offers. With diverse benefits behind each platform, the final choice is still up to you. Each platform can provide you with a considerable boost in booking automation and property management. However, it depends on what you want to get from such booking software and what kind of hospitality business you manage.

Pros of Lodgify vs BNBForms:

• Detailed property management module with configurable guest portal;
• Visual website builder with varied templates for your properties;
• A wide choice of third-party integrations;
• Built-in module for managing customer reviews.

Pros of BNBForms vs Lodgify:

• Easy-to-use reservation calendar;
• Powerful accommodation management section with support of multiple services and amenities;
• Embeddable booking form widget that supports a vast majority of platforms and CMS;
• Easy OTA calendar sync;
• Online payment gateway without extra fees.