StayFi Review: From Our Team of Superhosts

In today’s day and age, marketing materials are all around us. At this point, any free space is already considered wasted potential for marketing your business. StayFi came up with the idea of using the WiFi you already offer on your rental as a way to market and upsell your customers. It’s honestly a pretty smart solution that helps you create a better internet experience for your guests while also marketing your rental. It’s a win-win for both sides, right?

StayFi works with your already existing WiFi solution, while also providing an upgrade to your connection’s security and features. Everything can be controlled from the Cloud and you can monitor all WiFi networks that use StayFi, regardless of location. It also allows you to create a personalized splash page and collect information for guests who use your WiFi. From there, you can start marketing using the built-in email and text tools found within the StayFi suite.

So, is StayFi worth it? That’s the question we answer today as we discuss the platform’s features, pricing, and overall user experience in our complete StayFi review.

Best StayFi Features and How Hosts Can Use Them for Their Airbnb

While StayFi has a pretty simple and straightforward purpose, it still has some solid features and benefits for your vacation rentals. These are the ones we’ve come to like during our testing.

Guest Data Collection: StayFi enables short-term rental companies to collect emails and other marketing data from 80%+ of all guests. Having this information readily available empowers your future marketing strategies and is a valuable piece of information that you may not have had access to without StayFi. Don’t worry, all of the data is collected with the consent of the guests and is done when they first use the WiFi at your rental. It’s a fairly straightforward process that collects a guest’s name, email, phone number, birthday, and most importantly consent through the Splash Page.

Custom Branded WiFi: Speaking of Splash Pages, one of StayFi’s core features is the ability to personalize and brand their WiFi experience. StayFi offers numerous templates, along with a drag-and-drop customization functionality that allows users to create their preferred look that matches their brand identity. This can be done to both Splash Pages and Home Pages, completely transforming a guest’s WiFi experience, without being intrusive or annoying. As a result, guests can log into a WiFi network branded to your rental business itself, helping you stand out and creating a memory of the brand, not just where they booked the stay. It’s a bit harder to put numbers on the effect of these custom brandings, but we definitely do see the value in having a more uniform experience, throughout a guest’s stay.

Email & SMS Marketing: StayFi provides tools for automated email and text marketing, allowing vacation rental owners or property managers to engage guests before, during, and after their stay. This includes upsells, discounts, promotions, and personalized messages and content to promote your rental. StayFi also offers numerous pre-built templates that you can use to craft custom emails using a user-friendly drag-and-drop system. We’ve found it easy to import guest data from our PMS and integrate them directly into your marketing campaigns. You can also track how each campaign performs and see the effectiveness of each. It’s one of the more valuable features that StayFi offers, mainly because of how easy they make it to create marketing campaigns and send them out through texts or emails.

WiFi Splash Page Builder: We’ve already briefly mentioned StayFi's Guest HomePage feature and how it presents all the property's links and rental information on one dynamic page, increasing guest satisfaction and providing upsell opportunities. The Splash Page and HomePage builder features an easy drag-and-drop interface along with customizable content like brand colors, headlines, body, and a background image. This makes it easy to create a catered WiFi experience, similar to those you’d typically see in traditional luxury hotels.

WiFi Monitoring & Management: The platform offers enterprise-grade WiFi networks that can be easily monitored and managed from StayFi's cloud dashboard, reducing WiFi issues for guests. It also enhances your overall WiFi security which helps you protect your rental from potential threats. It also enables you to create a consistent WiFi access across your rentals, allowing you, your staff, and your other team members to seamlessly connect to the internet, without the need to enter the credentials. You can control who gains access and even give admin rights to selected users. This solution is also very scalable and can grow as your business grows.

StayFi Pricing: How Much Does StayFi Cost?

StayFi offers a pretty flexible pricing plan that revolves around the number of access points you need and the number of email contacts you require. Here are a few examples of scenarios and their respective prices.

• 1 Access Point and 200 Email Contacts: $15 per month
• 5 Access Points and 200 Email Contacts: $50 per month
• 5 Access Points and 1,000 Email Contacts: $70 per month
• 30 Access Points and 1,000 Email Contacts: $245 per month
• 30 Access Points and 2,500 Email Contacts: $275 per month
• 100 Access Points and 5,000 Email Contacts: $670 per month

StayFi offers up to 500+ access points and up to 200,000+ email contacts and can provide more for larger enterprise-level clients upon request. All WiFi plans feature unlimited guest data collection, branded and personalized Splash Pages, outage and occupancy alerts, and PMS integrations. On the other hand, Email Marketing includes unlimited emails, automated campaigns, drag-and-drop email builders and custom templates, advanced analytics, and PMS integrations.

StayFi also offers a handful of extra services that all have their individual costs. Text marketing is one of those which costs:

• 100 - 499 credits: $0.0425 per credit
• 500 - 999 credits: $0.04 per credit
• 1,000 - 2,499 credits: $0.0375 per credit
• 2,500 - 4,999 credits: $0.035 per credit
• 5,000 - 9,999 credits: $0.03 per credit
• 10,000 - 14,999 credits: $0.0275 per credit
• 15,000 - 24,999 credits: $0.025 per credit
• 25,000 - 49,999 credits: $0.0225 per credit
• 50,000 - 99,999 credits: $0.02 per credit
• 100,000+ credits: $0.0175 per credit

Each text sent to US and Canada numbers costs 1 credit, while those sent to the UK, Australia, South Africa, South Korea, China, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Portugal cost 2 credits. Texts sent to countries that aren’t listed cost 3 credits each.

Finally, StayFi also offers Hardware purchases since their marketing service requires a UniFi Access Point to work. You can use your own Ruckus-based hardware, but StayFi does recommend using one of their pre-programmed ones for plug-and-play functionality.

• UniFi WiFi 5 Indoor/Outdoor Meshable Access Point - $99.00
• UniFi WiFi 6 Plus Access Point - $155.00
• UniFi WiFi 6 Long Range Access Point - $205.00
• UniFi Wifi 6 Indoor/Outdoor Meshable Access Point - $195.00

Users will need at least 1 supported access point to fully utilize all of StayFi’s features.

StayFi User Experience

StayFi offers a seamless and user-friendly experience for everyone involved, hosts, property managers, and their guests. We’ve found that it had a very seamless design with a straightforward setup process, especially if your property already has the needed hardware. StayFi works with Ruckus hardware but we do recommend getting one of their hardware UniFi offerings since these come with plug-and-play functionality. We especially recommend going this route for users who aren’t that tech-savvy.

Their dashboard is very neatly laid out and allows users to find what they need immediately. It allows for easy monitoring across your rentals and provides you with information like the number of guests and devices used within your properties. Splash Pages and Home Pages can easily be created and edited through the dashboard as well. We’ve found their drag-and-drop functionality to be very easy to use, allowing almost anyone to configure the pages according to their brand.

We also like how they set up the email and text marketing features since it was fairly easy to create custom campaigns and even personalized messages that you can send to specific guests. StayFi can also import data directly from your current property management software, your WiFi, and your direct website, combining them into a single platform for guest marketing. Their built-in templates make it easy and quick to create emails, while their automatic personalizer can create messages tailored for each customer. While we appreciate the ability to send unlimited emails, the extra fees for sending messages can quickly add up. So, that’s something we recommend that you monitor. Each campaign you create also comes with its own analytics, making it effortless to track which ones work or don’t.

StayFi Reviews From Across the Web

Now, it’s time to take a wider view of the StayFi platform and see what the general public says about it. This will help us check out the individual experiences of various people which will be more representative of what a new user can expect when using StayFi.

• Igor B. left this comment: “Simple implementation and huge value. Quick roll out.”
• Mike Wesling says this: “We have been using StayFi and are absolutely thrilled with its ease of use and the robust functionality of the portal. The ability to collect email addresses from our guests has significantly boosted our ROI, allowing for effective remarketing and customer engagement. The customer service is excellent, always responsive and helpful. Additionally, the regular release of new features keeps us excited about future possibilities. StayFi has truly been a game-changer for our property management business in South Haven. Highly recommended!”
• Tony Bruess claims this: “StayFi has done an amazing job at increasing my direct bookings. We're just a few months in and I am thrilled with the results we're seeing already. I recommend them to all of my STR friends and colleagues!”
• Mason R. has this to say: “I don’t like the recurring costs (monthly subscription) and initial upfront costs for the hardware. It’s difficult to know if the product will even work and it’s very expensive to try it out”

It seems that people are generally satisfied when they use StayFi. This is reflected by the 5/5 star rating on Capterra, and 3.8/5 star rating on TrustPilot. Most users praise StayFi’s quick and easy setup, along with helpful marketing software. However, others complained about the high upfront costs, per message charges, and some minor issues with disconnections.

Final Thoughts

Overall, we can easily recommend StayFi to any host or property manager even if they aren’t tech-savvy. Their platform is easy to navigate and their support was pretty active and helpful for questions that you might have. We do recommend watching the demo found on their site as it clearly explains most of the features that you’ll encounter. Additionally, you can also schedule a demo with them if you want to learn more about the platform.

However, we do think that StayFi isn’t a platform for everyone. It definitely has its uses, but not every host or property manager can find value in branding their WiFi, especially if they need to order additional hardware to do so. While their email and text marketing features are great, there are other companies that offer similar services just without the WiFi integration.

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.