Customer CRM
Your vacation rental guest database, filled by every direct booking
Every guest who books your site lands in one customer database: their real email, their phone number, their full booking history. An OTA booking hands you a masked number and an email alias, and that is all you keep. The record feeds booking-triggered guest emails, and it keeps the details you need to reach a past guest yourself, so someone who already knows your property can book it again without a platform in between.
Runs alongside every platform you list on
- No FeesDirect bookings go straight to your own Stripe account
- Unified calendarSee all your bookings and track cleaning tasks in one place
- UnlimitedConnect as many calendars to your listings as you want
What the platform hands you, and what your record keeps
The same person, booked two ways. Airbnb routes calls through temporary numbers and gives hosts an email alias, so the guest leaves with the platform when the stay ends. A direct booking leaves the guest with you.
Booked on Airbnb
- A temporary phone number that stops working after the trip
- An email alias that forwards through the platform
- A first name, a payout, and no memory of their last stay
- No way to reach them when next season opens
Booked on your Hostibly site
- Their real email address and phone number
- Every stay they have booked with you, dates and property included
- The invoices and emails already attached to those stays
- Contact details you own, so you can reach them yourself when you want them back
What lives in a guest record
- Real contact details
- The email and phone number the guest typed at checkout on your site. No alias, no expiry.
- Full booking history
- Every stay they have booked with you, with its dates, property and invoice attached.
- One record per guest
- The fifth stay stacks onto the same guest instead of arriving as a stranger with a familiar name.
- Records that write themselves
- The direct booking creates the record as part of checkout. Nobody retypes anything into a spreadsheet.
- Automated guest emails
- Confirmations, pre-arrival notes and post-stay emails send themselves from the record.
- Details you can act on
- When you want past guests back, you have their real email and phone rather than a platform inbox that expires.
How the database fills itself
There is nothing to set up beyond your direct booking site. The first guest creates the first record, and every guest after that adds to it.
- 1
Take the booking on your site
The guest checks dates and pays through your Stripe account. The record appears with the contact details they entered at checkout.
- 2
Let the record keep itself
Stay history, invoices and emails attach to the same guest each time they return. There is no retyping and no filing.
- 3
Reach them when you want them back
You hold their real email and phone, so you can contact past guests directly. When they rebook on your site they pay your Stripe rate, not the platform fee.
Where the record comes from, and where it goes
The CRM sits between two features and is the quiet one of the three. Your direct booking site writes the records; the guest email automation reads them.
Hosts who keep their guests
Hostibly has made running my business a lot easier. The cleaner scheduling especially saves me a ton of time. Direct bookings have also helped me keep more repeat customers. It's nice not losing money to fees.
Daniel KingmaSuper HostWe've booked over $50k directly through our website in eight months with Hostibly. Unsurprisingly, local businesses love booking directly because our prices are better, and we offer discounts for longer stays.
BrandonProperty Manager and CohostI was a bit skeptical at first, but the setup service from Hostibly really delivered. All 14 listings were live in less than a month, and now my site genuinely reflects my brand and style.
Amy MorrisCohost
Guest database questions
Need help? Contact us here
- What does an Airbnb or Vrbo booking actually put in the database?
- The reservation lands in your calendar with its dates and reference, and that is where it stops. The contact details belong to the platform: Airbnb routes calls through temporary phone numbers and gives hosts an email alias instead of a real address, a policy it tightened through 2025. A booking on your own site writes the full record, which is the whole argument for having one.
- Is this an email marketing platform?
- No. Hostibly sends booking-triggered guest emails: confirmations, pre-arrival notes and post-stay messages. It does not send campaigns or repeat-booking offers. What the database gives you is the real contact details, which you can export or use in a dedicated email tool if you want to run marketing.
- How do repeat bookings make me more money?
- Through the fees. Airbnb’s host-only fee is 15.5%, so the fee on a $2,500 week is $387.50. The same booking on your site pays Stripe processing of about $73 and nothing else. Hold on to that guest for five return stays and you keep roughly $1,570 that would otherwise have gone to the platform.
- What does the customer CRM cost?
- It is part of your Hostibly subscription. There is no per-guest charge, no per-email charge, and Hostibly takes no commission when a guest from your database books direct. See the pricing page for what each plan includes.
- Is a guest database worth it for a single property?
- It depends on how often your guests come back. If the same families or travellers return each season, every one you move to a direct booking saves the fee on that stay and the stays after it. If your guests almost never return, the record still builds quietly behind your site, but the payoff takes longer. Industry estimates collected by Visio Lending put repeat guests at 30 to 40 percent of short term rental stays, so most markets have a base to work with.
- Can I bring guests across from a spreadsheet or another tool?
- New direct bookings create records automatically from day one, with nothing to import. If you already hold a list of past guests somewhere else, bring it to setup and our team will work out the cleanest way to move it across with you.
- Do I need Hostibly's direct booking site for the CRM to work?
- The database fills from direct bookings, so the two ship as a pair. Hosts usually arrive for the calendar sync or the cleaning schedule, then switch on the site, which is when the records start building. Everything runs on the same plan.
Stop renting your guests.
Start your 14 day free trial of the Team plan. No card required, and our team sets up your direct booking site, which starts writing guest records from the first booking.