Wheelhouse is the only Airbnb software providing dynamic base price recommendations, and it just got even better.
Introduction
We’ve listened to your feedback this year and, among many things, have been working on some exciting updates to the foundation of Wheelhouse Pricing: the base price model. In order to understand what has changed, let’s quickly review how the base price works.
As you may already know, Wheelhouse is the only dynamic pricing software that generates a dynamic, performance-driven base price recommendation upon connecting a listing, which takes into account factors like:
- number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and guests
- location
- unique amenities
- booking history
- and much more
Wheelhouse customers can also choose from 1 of 3 base price strategies: from the conservative approach — which optimizes for more occupancy at a lower average daily rate or ADR — to the aggressive approach — which optimizes for a higher ADR at a lower occupancy. The approach that we recommend for anyone getting started is the moderate approach in the middle, which is geared towards optimizing both occupancy and ADR. Or, you can set your own custom base price!
As a reminder, the base price is the primary lever of Wheelhouse Pricing. It is the foundational price before all of our demand-driven models are applied to each individual stay date. In other words, lower the base price by 10% and all of your dynamic rates will also be lowered by 10% across the board. Changing the base price is, therefore, the most efficient way of remaining in control of your overall pricing strategy.
The New Base Price Model
So what exactly did we change with this new base price model? In the older model, your base price weighed heavily on overall average booking prices. This weight was beneficial to producing stable pricing recommendations, but could occasionally skew rates based on one-off high- or low-priced bookings. It can also lead to some pricing bias, since customers are more likely to book high demand days further into the future.
Here are the adjustments we’ve made in the new version of the base price:
- The base price model now includes several factors (incl. median historical booking rates) designed to reduce bias when historical booking data is limited. As a result, base price recommendations are now more robust to outliers and mispriced listings.
- The base price model is now informed by a richer set of listing attributes. Prices will be more accurately calibrated to each listing’s geographic location and available amenities.
- Finally, the new base price model leverages occupancy more directly, allowing us to make base price predictions that are more deeply tied with competitive occupancy rates across your market.
Conclusion
The new base price settings will go into effect on Tuesday, December 18th.
To protect your current base price settings, we will migrate your existing base price to be a custom base price. This custom base price will be used for your pricing recommendations — with no action required — unless and until you opt into using the new base price settings. In other words, you won’t actually notice any base price changes unless you opt into them.
To opt into using the new base price settings and benefit from the improvements outlined above, log into your Wheelhouse account and select the base price recommendation you’d like to use: conservative, recommended and aggressive.
What do you think of the new base price recommendations? Drop us a line at hello@usewheelhouse.com or leave a comment below. We’d love to hear from you!
Want to try us out? Sign up with Wheelhouse and price your listings today for 30-days free!
