The Best AI Messaging Software for Airbnbs in 2024

We know firsthand how frustrating it can be to try, and keep up with guest messages and be able to respond in a timely manner. So, to help other hosts and property managers out there, we’ve created a list of the best AI messaging software that can handle your day-to-day communication needs.

These platforms take advantage of the recent rise in AI technology to fully understand and respond to guest inquiries in a meaningful way. This takes the burdens off of your and your team’s shoulders and allows you to make time for other important tasks within your vacation rental business. So, join us as we discuss the top AI messaging platforms to use for your Airbnbs.

Guest Guru

Guest Guru has been in the guest messaging game for a relatively long time now. It’s one of the pioneers in automating a rental’s guest communication process and empowering hosts to increase response times while freeing up more of their personal time.

It’s one of the few platforms that offer multilingual support, enabling non-English speaking hosts to still enjoy the full capabilities of their AI. This support can also allow hosts to cater to a wider audience, and respond to international travelers with ease. Overall, this added flexibility partnered with a personalized touch are among the major reasons why we think Guest Guru belongs as one of the top AI messaging platforms.

Guest Guru Key Features

• Autohost: AI-powered messaging feature that independently answers guest queries outside work hours. Capable of handling common questions and maintaining conversations based on provided knowledge base. Offers manual approval option when turned off, ensuring communication control.
• SMS Mode: Notification system sending text messages or emails for every Guest Guru response. Allows quick monitoring of conversations without active typing, providing an easy way to stay informed about guest interactions with a simple on/off toggle.
• Escalations: Intelligent notification system that alerts hosts only about critical messages requiring human intervention. Identifies complex queries, special requests, or unique rental issues that the AI cannot independently resolve, ensuring timely human attention.
• Customizable Guru Tones: Enables personalized AI messaging styles with preset (Formal, Casual, Curious) and custom tone options. Hosts can input specific instructions and sentences to create a unique communication personality matching each rental's character.
• Multi-language Support: Guest Guru is one of the few AI messaging platforms that can understand and respond to messages written in non-English languages. This makes it a unique tool that’s particularly helpful for rentals who often encounter international tourists. It understands more than 150 languages, allowing for a smooth conversation with foreigners, without the need for translators.
• Booking Site Embed: Extends guest communication management to direct booking websites by embedding a chatbot using HTML or JavaScript. Provides comprehensive query handling across different booking platforms with minimal technical setup.
• Unified Inbox: Centralized message management system that organizes conversations from multiple booking platforms by property. Simplifies monitoring and prevents confusion by creating a structured, property-specific communication overview.

Guest Guru Pricing Plans

Guest Guru only has two main plans, these are:

• Superhost - this plan only costs $5.9 per listing per month or $3.9 per listing per month when billed yearly. This easily makes it one of the cheaper AI messaging software for Airbnb hosts. Subscribing to the Superhost plan already provides access to all of Guest Guru’s premium features like custom tones, unified inbox, automated SMS messaging, and more.
• Bespoke - The Bespoke plan is basically Guest Guru’s enterprise plan. It caters to hosts and property managers with larger portfolios, providing discounts for those with hundreds of rentals. At its core, it essentially offers the same features as the Superhost plan, but with support for unlimited properties. Unfortunately, Guest Guru doesn’t display rates for this plan since it’s more of a case-to-case basis, depending on the number of your rentals.

Guest Guru offers fantastic pricing, making it an ideal choice for new hosts or property managers, trying to save up on their costs but are still looking to automate their rentals.

Who We Recommend Guest Guru For

Because of Guest Guru’s unique features, specifically its multilingual support and customizable tones function, we can easily recommend it to a long list of hosts and property managers. The affordable monthly plans and user-friendly interface solidifies it as a valuable addition to any short-term rental business.

HostBuddy AI

HostBuddy AI can be your best buddy when it comes to managing your guest communication. It’s currently one of the leaders in AI-messaging technology, creating valuable opportunities for your business, and keeping your lines open 24/7.

In terms of responses, HostBuddy AI's genuine messaging tone helps it stand out from others. It breathes life into guest interactions, making them feel personal, not pre-programmed. Match this with a sleek and visually stunning interface that's easy on the eyes and smartly organizes messages by property, and it’s without a doubt one of the top AI messaging software out there.

HostBuddy AI Key Features

• Smart Inbox: An advanced communication management system that automatically analyzes conversations, identifies critical issues, and provides real-time insights. Hosts can generate AI responses quickly, manage guest issues efficiently, and gain valuable communication intelligence with minimal manual intervention.
• Templated Messages: Streamlines guest communication by allowing hosts to create customized message templates for various scenarios. Automatically sends consistent, branded messages based on predefined rules, saving time and maintaining a professional communication style across all guest interactions.
• Customizable Scheduling: Provides a "set-it-and-forget-it" communication solution with 24/7 responsiveness. Hosts can program AI to handle guest communications during specific hours, ensuring prompt professional responses even when they're unavailable or managing multiple properties.
• Issue Tracking: Intelligently detects and categorizes guest problems, creating actionable items for immediate resolution. Offers real-time notifications, task delegation, and proactive issue management to prevent escalations and improve guest satisfaction.
• Cleaning Management Integrations: Synchronizes cleaning data with guest communication, optimizing property turnover processes. Enables smart decisions about early check-ins, reduces downtime, and provides more flexible scheduling options for hosts.
• Seamless PMS Integrations: Connects directly with popular Property Management Systems, providing one-click integrations and comprehensive operational support. Synchronizes booking information, automates responses, and ensures accurate, contextual guest communications across different platforms.

HostBuddy AI Pricing Plans

HostBuddy AI has two main plans; HostBuddy Pro and HostBuddy Elite. Here are the prices and feature inclusions for both:

• HostBuddy Pro - Costs $5 per property per month for those with 51-99 listings, $6 per property per month for those with 11-50 listings, and $7 per property per month for those with 1-10 listings. It provides unlimited access to HostBuddy AI’s core automation and AI messaging services. It also allows users to use smart templating, automated upselling, and automatic review removal.
• HostBuddy Elite - Costs $6 per property per month for those with 51-99 listings, $8 per property per month for those with 11-50 listings, and $10 per property per month for those with 1-10 listings. It gives hosts and property managers unfiltered access to all of HostBuddy AI’s features including those in the Pro plan, with added Smart Inbox functionality and AI-driven analytics support.

Overall, both plans offer great value at their prices and are right around industry standard. We’d say that Pro is likely better for those looking for automation features and an AI messaging bot. But Elite is for power users who like to dive into the statistics, to squeeze out every drop of value within their guest communication process.

Who We Recommend HostBuddy AI For

We feel like HostBuddy AI is an all-around great fit for small to large vacation rental business owners. It houses all of the core tools you’d need to improve your guest communication and can even provide advance AI-powered analytics for power users. While it may not be the cheapest platform on our list, even its most expensive plan still offers great value for the features you are getting.

Besty AI

Besty AI might be the simplest platform on our list of the best guest messaging software but it doesn’t lag too far behind from the competition. Despite being fairly simple, it does the job and it does the job well. Guest messaging on autopilot, anyone?

It’s a relatively new entrant to the guest messaging industry but is already making waves with its custom tones, instant responses, and smart notifications. It’s also competitively priced, making it a worthy consideration when looking for a new guest messaging platform.

Besty AI Key Features

• Instant Responses (Autopilot): Besty AI autonomously responds to guest inquiries using data from listings, guidebooks, SOPs, and past conversations. It continuously learns from interactions and allows customization of response times and schedules.
• Custom Tones: Besty AI matches your tone and brand voice based on custom rules, instructions, and studying past conversations, providing a personalized experience for guests.
• Smart Notifications: When Besty AI lacks confidence in answering complex questions, it automatically notifies you or a designated team member, ensuring quality responses while saving time on repetitive inquiries.
• Auto Upsell: Besty AI offers discounts and upsells to fill gap nights based on set rules and templates. It can also reach out to previous guests with personalized, discounted stay offers.
• Live Metrics Dashboard: Displays real-time listing metrics for booking boosters, early check-in offers, and inquiry winback. Allows configuration of individual settings and shows revenue gained from activating features.
• AI Review Responder: Automatically creates personalized thank-you messages for guests who leave reviews, matching the tone and sentiment of the guest's feedback.
• Guest Sentiment Dashboard: Monitors overall guest satisfaction using Besty's scoring system, categorizing sentiments as upset, neutral, or happy. Provides conversation summaries to identify and address problems quickly.

Besty AI Pricing Plans

Besty AI can have relatively tricky plans, mainly because of how they charge per listing once you go over ten properties. For the first ten, they charge you the full $12 per listing per month. However, every listing exceeding that will fall into their different ranges and will be charged a discounted rate. Here are their rates:

• 1-10 listings - $12 per listing per month
• 11-20 listings -$10 per listing per month
• 21-50 listings - $8 per listing per month
• 51-100 listings - $7 per listing per month
• 101-200 listings - $6 per listing per month
• 201-400 listings - $5 per listing per month
• 401-500 listings - $4 per listing per month
• 501-999 listings - $3.5 per listing per month
• 1000+ listings - $3 per listing per month

We honestly got a bit confused about their pricing at first, but their built-in pricing calculator does help with the math. They also offer a 20% discount for yearly payments, following the same rates above.

Who We Recommend Besty AI For

Despite having a relatively easy yet complicated pricing structure, Besty AI remains a solid option for hosts or property managers looking for budget solutions for their guest communication. We also like how they cater to both small and large rental businesses, but we do think it’s better suited for hosts or property managers who handle a smaller amount of listings.

Host AI

Our final entry in our list of the best AI messaging software for Airbnbs is Host AI. Host AI helps in organizing and streamlining your messages into one easy-to-use platform. It works flawlessly with a handful of different PMS, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Slack, Gmail, WhatsApp, Notion and more, makes it a more powerful tool than meets the eye. Host AI uses these various programs as a source of knowledge, learning from them, manages to transform these data into valuable responses to guest inquiries.

Instead of a unified inbox approach, they offer flexible inboxes that can be managed according to your preferences. This can make things more organized while still relying on a single platform to manage all of your communication needs. Tags and task creation are also some of the additional useful features that hosts and property managers will love from Host AI.

Host AI Key Features

• AI Messaging: Advanced AI model trained using property management data, guidebooks, and conversations. Learns specific listing details like house rules and WiFi access. Provides personalized recommendations for nearby restaurants, tourist spots, and activities, with full editing capabilities.
• Unified Inbox: Consolidates message directories into a single, accessible inbox. Enables easy guest communication across platforms. Allows hosts to approve, edit, or reject AI-generated replies, providing complete control over messaging interactions.
• Automated Upsells: Intelligent feature identifying gap periods and generating discounted extension offers for existing guests. Follows up on upsell messages based on predefined rules, maximizing revenue potential and filling unbooked time slots.
• Task Management: Identifies urgent tasks from customer messages or reviews, delegating them to appropriate teams. Offers optional notifications through platforms like Slack, ensuring timely resolution of critical guest-related issues.
• Chat Sandbox: Provides a secure testing environment for AI responses. Allows hosts to simulate guest interactions, verify answer relevance, and explore AI messaging capabilities before live implementation.
• Urgency Filters: Enables manual intervention for sensitive topics by creating custom tags for specific concerns. Helps hosts address critical issues like refunds, malfunctioning items, and customer dissatisfaction that require personal attention.
• Voice AI (Beta): Innovative feature that learns communication styles to handle phone calls autonomously. Provides call recordings and transcripts, offering a comprehensive solution for guest phone interactions with potential for future expansion.

Host AI Pricing Plans

There are only three subscription tiers for Host AI users. It follows a simple structure where all plans are given access to all the features, but differ in pricing, based on the number of listings you have enrolled on the platform.

• Superhost: The Superhost plan fits for those with 1 to 10 listings and costs $12 per rental per month.
• Property Manager: The Property Manager plan is slightly cheaper at $10 per rental per month. It’s available for users with anywhere from 11 to 50 listings.
• Enterprise: The Enterprise plan is for big-time hosts and property managers, tailored for those with more than 50 rentals enrolled on the platform. The prices for this plan will depend on the specific number of listings you have, so Host AI requires you to contact them directly for your pricing needs.

Who We Recommend Host AI For

Host AI’s all-access subscription plans make it a fit for small to medium sized hosts and property managers, looking for a simple yet organized solution for their guest communication needs. It doesn’t go over the top with thousands of features, but the ones that it does have work well, and the pricing is fairly decent compared to other alternatives.

Final Thoughts

The pain of having tgo check multiple accounts is something we’ve all gone through as hosts. However, with the help of AI guest messaging software, this can be made more streamlined and optimize, taking this once tedious and repetitive task and transforming it into a more laid-back and supervisory role instead. We don’t recommend leaving everything completely to these AI tools, but it definitely provides a great boost to your productivity and effectivity when managing your vacation rental’s guest communications.

If you’re considering starting out your own Airbnb rental or just looking for a new addition to your portfolio, we suggest checking out our BNBCalc property analysis tool to give you an insight into properties on your radar. It can help you make data-driven decisions based on what active rentals are already earning, allowing you to get an idea of not only revenue but also expenses and paint a fuller picture of your potential investment.