Houfy update
Houfy is growing and growing. Our program is getting better and better with less errors every day. Our mission is the same: NO % FEES on BOOKINGS! It’s your place with your rules!
Howdy Houfies,
I hope you are all doing well!
Houfy is a platform created by hosts for hosts and the platform will remain host friendly at all times. Without hosts there would be no platform.
Like most of you, I have a real problem with percentages! Why charge 12-15+% on $100 and on $1000 and on $5000 for the same work/system? To me this logic seems an indirect way of stealing and borderline illegal. These percentages are fixed and set by the big 4. Have you seen how much these companies earn? Just google it.. Where does all of it go? It’s a vicious brainwashed circle.. hosts promote these companies and pay or their guests pay to fill up the pockets of the company owners (stockholders)..
I want to change this system together with all of you!
How can we do this and how can we grow Houfy?
We are a tiny community with potentially a huge amount of power. We need your help!
We have reached a point where we can say OK: now we have a fairly good product, many of you are using the full potential of Houfy and connected to stripe/square, created your own Houfy website and found your marketing niches resulting in bookings. Thank you for promoting Houfy and look what has been achieved:
Why has Houfy been free all this time? Houfy has been free to make Houfy to where it is now, we listened to your requests and programmed these requests into our system. We went from 1 listing to 50, 100, 1000, 10000 and now 58K. We need 20X this number!
We now need more traffic, more guests, more bookings and more hosts to create the change needed to disrupt the vacation rental market. I think we can do this otherwise I would have stopped on this mission a long time ago!
This means we need to start marketing Houfy and hire additional programmers to help Swapnil which in turn will increase the costs of running Houfy.
I have looked at several options to pay for these extra costs:
- Raise funds - sell part of Houfy - get a professional team and grow.
- Think about charging hosts a low flat monthly fee and grow in a focused way together with our community.
- Do nothing - continue on the same course and try to sell ads to cover some of the costs.
I believe option 2 makes most sense at this stage and I want to discuss with all of you how we can best proceed?
I’m thinking about grandfathered rates (Valid for 2024-2025) for anyone adding listings before month X(oct 2023) ($10-12 p/m per listing for basic listings & $16-18 p/m per listing for Premium listings = website builder/widgets)- This will be a scaled pricing model (More listings = less per listing)
Please let me know your concerns and what questions you might have.
Thanks Thijs (Tice)
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I very much appreciate what you are doing and I understand the need to recoup some expenses and have money to expand. I’m wouldn’t pay a monthly fee as I don’t get enough bookings but I could see paying a flat fee per booking. A flat fee would cost me more because it’s a greater percent of my profit but maybe there’s a scale based on minimum days in the setting — those with 2 day minimum pay less than week minimum, for example.
I agree. A monthly fee is too much and we would just switch to Hospitables direct site for less since we are already using them. We do not get enough direct from Houfy. However we would be amenable to a percentage of the booking. Where is Houfy at with google?
I purchased my VR property last year (April 2022). I was able to re-book all existing OTA reservations through Houfy after closing. This year, since I had no "inherited" bookings, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm listed on Houfy, Airbnb & Vrbo, and I have my own website, but I am limited to renting my property a maximum of 100 days a year.
Last year, I had 25 total bookings and 15 of those were through Houfy (66 of 99 days booked on Houfy).
So far this year I have 18 bookings and 8 are through Houfy (44 of 91 days booked on Houfy - YAY!!) Only one is a returning guest and one is a friend, but the rest were organic bookings.
While I understand the value of scaled pricing, it also means owners with one property bear a bigger share of the burden with relation to how much the use or rely on the platform. One idea I had was a fee based on number of days booked. For example, if Houfy charges a flat $1 (or whatever number makes sense) per-day fee on each booking, that's a potential of $365 per year for every listing (or for me, potentially $100/yr.) This would make the fee equitable for all users based on how much they use the platform and not "penalize" owners who may only have one property or like me, only book part of the year. Just my $.02 :O)
Thanks for all you do!! I'm so thankful for Houfy!
I agree with Britiney - charge us based on results! You also need to sell Ads to cover the costs because you would need to charge us a lot to cover expenses and most of us would not be happy with that,
Hello everyone
my listing is not generating any organic bookings despite my promotion on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram plus flyers with QR codes. I keep my site up to date & any have only had a couple of inquiries since listing. 12745 so I have been on for quite a while. While I do understand the need to charge a flat fee per month -I am not sure that I would continue as our property manager generates most of the reservations & others come from the bigger companies
I appreciate all that has been done thus far.
Thijs, I would be willing to pay a fee for Houfy because it's a critical component to my success. The Houfy widget on my website directs people to Houfy for a quote, inquiry, or booking. In each of these instances, I have the opportunity to tell them about Houfy. They are naturally curious or concerned, but once they learn about it, they are eager to use it again. THAT'S HOW WE GROW!!
Would "Wonderful Houfies" have a different price?