Where a PMS stops helping
A unified inbox is still an inbox. Every question is a notification you have to open, read, and type back into — at 2am, in a language you may not speak.
A guest asking for towels produces a thread, not a task. No owner, no deadline, no proof it happened. The follow-up lives in your head.
Per-listing pricing plus onboarding fees assumes a portfolio managing itself. A ten-villa operator pays platform prices for a spreadsheet with a calendar view.
How the swap actually works
Two-way iCal pulls Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda, Google Calendar and direct bookings onto one timeline. Forwarded confirmation emails cover anything without an iCal feed. Nothing to migrate — you are adding a subscriber, not moving a database.
Every stay gets its own guest app — no store, no account, nine languages. Wi-Fi, door code, house rules, requests and the AI all live there, so the OTA inbox stops being the place your guests talk to you.
Requests become assigned tasks with SLA timers, pushed to your staff in their own language with proof-of-done. Self check-in collects passports and assigns the room without a front desk.
If you push rates and availability to the OTAs from one place, keep it — Hostella's native connector reads reservations, calendar and guest messages straight out of Hostaway and runs on top.
The three differences, on screen
A silent screen recording of the shipping product — guest chat, the task board and the worker app. No audio.
What replaces what
Auto-send is live on WhatsApp and your guest app. Airbnb and Booking.com threads arrive through the Hostaway connector or a forwarded confirmation, and the AI writes the reply for you to send.
Every request gets an owner, a due time and a photo as proof. Your team works in a phone app in Thai, Burmese or English; you see the board.
Installs to the home screen in a tap, in the guest's language, with self check-in and ID capture built in.
$24 per villa a month, $18 from villa 101, plus $69/month for your personal assistant. No implementation fee, no per-reservation cut, no message caps.
Keeping Hostaway as your channel manager is a supported setup, not a compromise — the connector is native. Here is the honest side-by-side of what each one is for.
Hostella vs Hostaway →Questions, answered
Can Hostella fully replace Hostaway?
For guest messaging, guest experience, staff operations and one shared calendar — yes, and it does more in each. For pushing rates and availability back to Airbnb and Booking.com, no: Hostella has no direct OTA API and does not act as a channel manager. If that write-back is why you pay for Hostaway, keep it and run Hostella on top.
How do Airbnb and Booking.com reservations reach Hostella without Hostaway?
Two-way iCal, or a forwarded confirmation email. Both put the stay on your Hostella calendar with the guest's name and dates. iCal does not carry the guest's message thread, which is why operators who want OTA threads in the inbox keep the Hostaway connector.
Do I have to migrate any data?
No. Hostella subscribes to your calendars and reads from the Hostaway connector — your PMS stays the system of record. Nothing is exported, nothing is cut over, and you can run both in parallel for as long as you like.
What does it cost compared to Hostaway?
One flat price: $24 per villa a month ($18 from villa 101), plus $69/month for the personal assistant across the whole account. There is no implementation fee and no per-reservation percentage. Our Hostaway comparison page carries the current published figures for both.
How long before it is answering guests?
About 15 minutes. Sign up, connect a calendar, and the agent starts in Draft mode — it writes every reply and you approve it — until you are comfortable moving it to Assisted or Autopilot.
Last reviewed · claims checked against the shipping product
Running 10–50 villas and already past what one inbox can hold? There is a live hour on exactly that — including a segment where you message a real villa from your own phone.
See the live session →Try it beside Hostaway for two weeks.
Nothing to migrate, no card, and Draft mode on by default — the AI cannot message a guest until you say so.