Where you choose to list your property can have a big impact on your bookings and profits. In this post, we’ve included key information about the best vacation rental listing sites to help you decide.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to choose just one site. You can list on as many websites as you want, and can manage all your bookings with a vacation rental channel manager.
How to Choose a Vacation Rental Listing Site
When choosing which vacation rental website(s) to advertise your listing, here are some important factors to keep in mind:
- Booking fees – Fees can include Host fees, Guest fees, Credit Card Processing fees, and others. Be sure to take into account all the different fees to understand what it’s actually costing you to list.
- Subscription cost – Some listing sites charge a monthly fee to list on their website, while others only charge per booking.
- Insurance coverage – Airbnb and Vrbo are currently the only major listing sites that offer insurance against property damages and guest injury. Listing anywhere else means you’ll need to have your own homeshare insurance policy. We recommend having your own insurance regardless of where you’re listing.
- Website traffic – More traffic means more eyeballs on your listing. It can also mean more competition.
- Customer support – If there’s ever an issue with a guest or booking, you’ll want a responsive and helpful support team.
- Software integrations – Look into whether the listing site(s) you choose have API integrations with the channel manager (or other vacation rental software) you’re using or planning to use.
With these factors in mind, let’s take a closer look at some of the best vacation rental websites for owners.
The Most Popular Vacation Rental Listing Websites
The most popular vacation rental sites are Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Tripadvisor. These online travel agencies (OTAs) are the most common places people go to book a short-term rental. These are also the most common platforms to have API integrations with channel managers, so you can sync all your bookings across multiple sites.
Airbnb
Airbnb has transformed the short-term rental industry. While there is certainly room for improvement, this is the one of the best and most popular vacation rental listing website in the world. Plenty of businesses list exclusively on Airbnb, and are fully booked.
- Host Fee: 3-5%
- Guest Fee: 10-14%
- Credit Card Fee: 0
- Subscription Cost: 0
- Insurance: $1M Airbnb Host Guarantee and Host Protection Insurance
Airbnb is our most recommended short-term rental site. If you’re going to pick just one vacation rental website, we recommend you list on Airbnb.
Vrbo / Homeaway
- Host Fee: 0 (or 5% per booking)*
- Guest Fee: 10-11%
- Credit Card Fee: 3%
- Subscription Cost: $499 annually (or 5% per booking)*
- Insurance: $1M Vrbo Liability Insurance
*Vrbo andHomeAway allow you to choose between a subscription model or a pay-per-booking model. You either pay $499 per year for all your bookings, or pay a 5% Host Fee on every booking.
The pay-per-booking model works out in your favor if you’re doing less than $10,000/year, or if you’re booking fewer than six weeks per year. Any more than that, and the subscription plan is more cost effective.
Booking.com
- Host Fee: average 15%
- Guest Fee: 0
- Credit Card Fee: 2-3%*
- Subscription Cost: 0
- Insurance: None (available damage deposit option)
*Booking.com itself doesn’t charge a credit card processing fee, but it requires that owners have their own payment processing provider, which usually charges additional 2-3%. Read more about Booking.com payments.
Tripadvisor / Flipkey
- Host Fee: 0
- Guest Fee: 8-16%
- Credit Card Fee: 3%
- Subscription Cost: 0 (or optional annual listing fee)
- Insurance: None (available damage deposit option)
Tripadvisor is one of the largest travel platforms in the world. It includes restaurants, hotels, vacation rentals, and allows travellers to compare prices on flights, cruises, and other travel related purchases. Learn how to create a listing with Tripadvisor here.
Other Vacation Rental Listing Websites
With the popularity of sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, there are lots of similar sites these days. Here are some other websites for vacation rentals by owner you can look into:
9Flats, Abritel (Vrbo), Agoda, American Snowbird, Atraveo, BringFido, Casamundo, Clickstay, Connecting Rentals, Cottages.com, Expedia, Florida Rental By Owners, Friendly Rentals, HiChee, Homestay.com, HomeToGo, Houfy (free vacation rental listing site), Kid & Coe, Interhome, Luxury Retreats (Airbnb), Misterb&b, Novasol, OneFineStay, OwnerDirect, Plum Guide, RentABeach, Rental Escapes, Rentalia by Idealista, Snaptrip, Stayz (Vrbo), TravelStaytion, Tripping, Tripz, Turnkey, Vacasa, Veeve, WayToStay, Wimdu
Also check out this list of niche vacation rental sites to find websites based on your location or unique characteristics of your property. Niche listing sites like these cater to different guest preferences and interests like location, pet friendliness, LGBT friendly, and others.
Summary & Recommendations
If you’re going to list in just one place, we recommend listing on Airbnb or Vrbo. And it’s easy to sync your Airbnb and Vrbo calendars, so if you want to list on both, that’s also a great option.
But we recommend taking advantage of the convenience of a vacation rental channel manager. A channel manager allows you to list on multiple websites and sync all your bookings and property details across all your channels. Check out our list of the best vacation rental channel managers to find the one that’s best for your business.
