Direct Bookings, Channel Sync and AI Guest Care for Short-Term Rentals

Take bookings direct. Never double book.

HostAgent builds you a booking site and keeps its calendar in step with Airbnb and Vrbo in both directions. A direct booking takes those nights off every channel within seconds. A decline puts them back. And no platform fee touches a booking taken on your own site. See what that is worth.

It answers your guests around the clock on every channel, and sends your arrival and checkout messages on the stay's own schedule. Emergencies reach you in seconds. Everything routine stops reaching you at all.

See a real booking siteHow it works
A real quote, priced live. Change the dates. Tested on live Airbnb and Vrbo calendars
Beach House Retreat
Santa Rosa Beach, FL · Sleeps 10
Live quote
Checking those nights…
See the whole listing

Our demo property, priced by the same engine a paying host runs. No platform fee is in that total, because there is not one.

Tested, not claimed

Every number below is a test we ran against two live listings, on real Airbnb and Vrbo calendars

21/21
Calendar checks passed, both channels, both directions
20/20
Guest questions answered correctly, with no invented amenities
29/29
Isolation checks passed, including 9 attempts to make the agent leak
0
Double bookings possible, refused by the database itself

We ran this on our own properties before offering it to anyone else, because a calendar that is wrong once costs a host a guest, a refund and a review. See exactly what was tested.

Your own booking site

On your own site there is no platform fee at all.

Airbnb now keeps 15.5 percent of every booking's subtotal, and since late 2025 it takes that from you, the host, not from your guest. It comes out before you are paid, and it buys you nothing on a repeat stay. Booked direct, it is simply not there.

What you do with that 15.5 percent is your decision, not ours and not a platform's. Price your own site a little under your Airbnb rate and your guest pays less while you still keep more, which is how most hosts win a repeat booking. Or add a booking fee of your own, at whatever number and under whatever name you like, and keep every cent of it. HostAgent takes no cut of your bookings either way.

Four nights at $200, booked on Airbnb

Nightly subtotal
$800
Host service fee, 15.5%
$124
Guest pays
$800
You keep
$676

The $124 between those two numbers is the platform's, not yours.

The same four nights, booked direct

Your price
$760
Platform fee
None
Card processing, Stripe standard
$22
Guest pays
$760
You keep
$738

The guest saves $40 and you keep $62 more, on one booking, at a price you set.

Illustration using Airbnb's host-only service fee, 15.5 percent of the booking subtotal, which most hosts have paid since late 2025. That fee already covers Airbnb's own card processing. A direct booking is charged to the guest's card through your own Stripe account, so Stripe's processing still applies to it, shown here at Stripe's standard 2.9 percent plus 30 cents. Local taxes are left out of both. Your own numbers depend on your rate and market.

The reason most hosts never bother is the calendar.

Two places to book one property is two places to double book it. One missed update and you are cancelling on someone, eating the penalty, and watching your ranking fall. So the second site never gets built.

HostAgent runs the calendar in both directions, so the two are never telling different stories about the same night.

IN

Airbnb into your site

We read your listing's calendar every hour. A platform booking closes those nights on your own site before anyone can ask for them.

OUT

Your site into Airbnb

Your site publishes a calendar of its own that Airbnb subscribes to. A direct booking closes those nights on the platform at its next read.

LOCK

The database has the last word

Two guests reaching for the same night is settled in the database, not in application code. The second one is refused outright, so a race between two clicks cannot sell the room twice.

The same agent answers on your site.

A direct site only earns its keep if someone is there when the question comes in at eleven at night. Your concierge is on the page, grounded in that property's real details, and it will say it does not know rather than invent an amenity you do not have.

  • Your branding, your domain, your guest relationship
  • Every property you own on one site
  • Live availability, quoted the moment dates are picked
  • Same escalation rules as every other channel

How It Works

Your own booking site, live this afternoon

You do all of this yourself, in the dashboard, without waiting on anybody. Nothing is bookable until you say so.

Bright coastal vacation rental living room with ocean view
1

Build the listing

Photos, description, amenities and house rules. Your nightly rate, cleaning fee, extra guest charge and pet fee. A different price for a peak week, and any dates you are keeping for yourself.

2

Connect Airbnb and Vrbo

Paste in their calendar links so their bookings close your dates. Give them yours so your bookings close theirs. Both directions, or the same night can still be sold twice.

3

Go live and get paid

A guest picks dates, sees every fee and tax itemised, and their card is authorised. You approve or decline from one email. On approval the card is charged and the nights close on every channel.

4

Ava takes the questions

Your concierge answers from your property details only, on your site and every channel, around the clock. The emergencies reach you. Nothing else does.

Look around the host dashboard →

No signup. This is the side you would work in.

Smart Escalation

The 2am plumbing leak reaches you.
The 2am WiFi question doesn't.

Words like emergency, leak, refund, or complaint trigger an instant escalation. The guest gets an empathetic hand-off, you get an SMS with the full context, and your personal number is never shared. Everything else, the agent resolves on its own.

Try it in the demo above! Tell the agent something is broken.

There's water leaking under the kitchen sink!
⚡Escalated immediately by keyword match, before any model is called
I'm so sorry about that. I'm connecting you with Sarah right now, she'll reach out shortly.
S

SMS to Sarah (host)

⚠ Beach House Retreat: guest reports kitchen sink leak. Full conversation attached.

Guest care

The same agent answers on your own site

A direct site only earns its keep if somebody is there when the question comes in at eleven at night. Ask it anything about the stay. It answers from that property's real details, and says it does not know rather than inventing an amenity the listing does not have.

Live AI
Beach House Retreat

Beach House Retreat

Hosted by Sarah · Superhost

Responds in seconds

You're the guest. Ask anything about the stay and a real AI answers live.

Airbnb-style guest inbox · same agent, same conversation on every channel

See it answer on Airbnb, Vrbo and SMS →

Features

Everything between the enquiry and the payout

Your own booking site

[ ]
A listing guests actually book from

Photos, description, amenities, house rules and live availability, on your branding and your domain. Every property you own on one site.

~
Rates that follow the season

Set a different price for a peak week, a holiday or a quiet month, straight on a calendar. A stay crossing two rates prices each night at its own.

$
Fees you set, and keep

Cleaning, extra guests, pets, and a booking fee at whatever number you pick under whatever name you like. Or no fee at all, so your guest simply pays less. We take no cut either way.

%
Lodging tax, handled

Airbnb remits it for you and going direct hands that back. Enter your rate and it is collected and named on its own line. A rate you have not confirmed is saved and not charged.

Never double book

⇄
Two way channel sync

We read Airbnb and Vrbo every hour so their bookings close your dates, and publish a calendar they subscribe to so your bookings close theirs.

!
The database has the last word

Two guests reaching for the same night is settled by a constraint, not by application code. The second is refused outright.

→
Take the money properly

The card is authorised when the guest requests, charged only when you approve, and released in full if you decline. Comped stays and discount codes work the same way.

Guest care, around the clock

A
One agent, every channel

Airbnb inboxes, Vrbo threads, SMS, email, or the widget on your own site. The same agent with the same knowledge, and it says it does not know rather than inventing an amenity.

!!
Smart escalation

Emergencies, damage, refunds and complaints are flagged and forwarded to you before the model even replies. Your personal number stays private.

⏱
Scheduled guest messages

Arrival details, door code, settling in check, checkout reminder. Each on the stay's own clock in the property's timezone. A cancelled booking drops its whole queue.

//
One dashboard

Every conversation, every booking and every payment in one place, with the full searchable history on every channel.

Aerial view of a beachfront vacation home at golden hour

From check-in to check-out

Every guest question answered while you're at dinner, asleep, or on the beach yourself.

Proof

No customer quotes yet. Here is the test log instead.

HostAgent is new, so inventing a wall of five star reviews would tell you nothing. We ran it on our own two listings first, against live Airbnb and Vrbo calendars. This is what we checked and what happened.

A direct booking takes the nights off Airbnb and Vrbo
Confirmed on both calendars, both properties.
Declining a request puts those nights straight back on sale
Confirmed on both channels, with the guest told automatically.
Two guests cannot book the same night
Refused by the database itself, not by a retry. A same day changeover still books normally.
The agent answers from your property, and only your property
20 of 20 answered correctly. It declines to invent an amenity the listing does not have.
One host's agent can never reach another host's data
29 of 29 checks passed, including 9 deliberate attempts to make it leak.
A guest pays on your site and you still approve the booking
Card authorised at request, charged only when you approve, released in full if you decline. A fully comped stay works too.
An abandoned checkout does not hold your calendar hostage
The dates released on their own, 30 minutes later, with no one watching.
Lodging tax is collected on a direct booking, at your own rate
Each tax named on its own line to the guest, never rolled into taxes and fees. A rate you have typed but not yet confirmed is saved and not charged.
A peak week can be priced differently to a quiet one
Rates and owner blocks set per date. A stay crossing both prices each night at its own rate.
Every line on the guest's receipt adds up to what they paid
Cleaning, extra guests, pets, your booking fee and each tax are itemised on the confirmation, and reconciled against every booking in the system.
Guest messages arrive on the stay's clock, not the server's
Arrival and checkout messages land at the right local hour, verified across a daylight saving change.

Those two listings are ours and they are no longer taking guests. They exist to break this software before a paying host has to.

Two ways to do this

We run it for you, or we hand you the whole thing

Same system either way. The difference is whose hands it is in.

Hosted

We run it for you

We build your listings, connect your Airbnb and Vrbo calendars, set up your rates, fees and tax, and keep the whole thing running on our infrastructure. You approve bookings. That is the entire job.

  • Your listings built and your photos loaded
  • Both channels connected and watched, in both directions
  • Payments, fees and lodging tax configured with you
  • Updates, monitoring and support are ours to worry about

For hosts who want the outcome, not the project.

Talk about hosting →

Blueprint

The whole system, yours to run

Not a course and not a template. The working system handed over: the codebase, the database schema, the channel sync, the payment flow and the runbook that explains why each piece is built the way it is. You stand it up under your own name, on your own infrastructure.

  • The full codebase and database schema
  • Two way channel sync, payments and the messaging engine
  • The runbook, the test suite and the reasoning behind both
  • Set up walkthrough, then it is yours with nothing owed

For agency owners and builders who want to run this as their own product, and for hosts who would rather own the thing than rent it.

Talk about the blueprint →

Neither one has a price on this page, because what you need depends on how many properties you run and how much of it you want to own. One call settles it. The build is documented in our community if you would rather read before you talk.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Taking bookings direct

How do guests actually pay me?+
By card, on your own site, through Stripe. The card is authorised when the guest requests the dates, charged only once you approve, and released in full if you decline. The money goes to your Stripe account, not ours.
Do I have to approve every booking?+
Today, yes, and most hosts want that. A request arrives by email with the dates, the guest and the full total, and you approve or decline from that one message. Approving charges the card and closes those nights on every channel. Declining releases the hold and puts the nights back on sale.
What does HostAgent take from a booking?+
Nothing. There is no platform fee on a booking taken on your own site, and we do not take a cut either. You can add a booking fee of your own at any number, under any name you like, and you keep all of it. Or charge nothing and let your guest simply pay less, which is usually what wins the repeat stay.
What about lodging tax?+
Airbnb and Vrbo collect and remit it on your behalf, and taking a booking direct hands that obligation back to you. Enter your rate and it is collected and shown to the guest on its own named line, never rolled into taxes and fees. Nothing here decides what you owe. Your accountant supplies the number, and a rate you have typed but not confirmed is saved and deliberately not charged.
Do I need a website already?+
No. The booking page is the website: photos, description, amenities, house rules, live availability and checkout, on your own branding and your own domain. If you already have a site, link to it from there.

Your calendar

How do you stop the same night being sold twice?+
Two ways, because one is not enough. We read your Airbnb and Vrbo calendars every hour so their bookings close your dates, and we publish a calendar they subscribe to so your direct bookings close theirs. Underneath that, two guests reaching for the same night is settled by a constraint in the database rather than by application code, so a race between two clicks cannot sell the room twice.
Do I have to stop using Airbnb and Vrbo?+
No, and we would not suggest it. They are how new guests find you. The direct site is for the guests who already know you, and every booking either way keeps the other calendars honest.
Can I price a peak week differently, or block dates for myself?+
Both, on a calendar in the dashboard. A stay that crosses two rates prices each night at its own rate, and dates you keep for yourself simply stop being bookable without anybody being told why.

The agent

How does the AI know about my property?+
From the details you enter: check in instructions, wifi, house rules, amenities and your own FAQs. It answers from that and nothing else, and says it does not know rather than inventing an amenity you do not have.
What happens if it cannot answer?+
It hands over to you. If the agent is not confident, or the guest uses a word like refund, emergency, leak or complaint, the conversation is flagged and forwarded to you before the model even replies. The guest gets an empathetic hand off and your personal number stays private.
Will guests know they are talking to an AI?+
It replies naturally, in the tone and under the name you choose. You can also turn on review mode, where it drafts a reply for your approval before anything sends. Most hosts start there and switch to automatic once they have read a week of its answers.

The demo, and the commitment

Is the demo on this page really live?+
Yes, and it is the part worth checking. The price at the top of this page is a real request to the same booking engine a paying host's guests use, quoted against a published listing with a real calendar. Change the dates or add a dog and watch it reprice. The chat further down is the real agent, answering in real time.
Am I locked in?+
Not in either direction. Hosted is a running service, so if you stop we stop, and your listings and calendars are yours to take with you. The Blueprint is a one time handover: once the system is in your hands it is yours, running on your own infrastructure, with nothing owed and nothing to cancel.
What is the difference between Hosted and the Blueprint?+
Who runs it. Hosted means we build your listings, connect your channels and keep the whole thing running, and you just approve bookings. The Blueprint is the working system handed over: the codebase, the schema, the channel sync, the payment flow and the runbook, stood up under your own name. Same software either way.

Want this for your properties?

Open the demo booking site and price a few nights against a live calendar. Then book a free consultation and we will work out which way round suits you: we run it for you, or we hand you the whole system to run yourself.

See a real booking site

That booking site is live, not a mockup · Your consultation is free