Deciding what property management software (PMS) to use for your vacation rental business? This is an incredibly important decision given the impact your software can have on your success, and the sheer number of PMS options available only complicates the choice further.
Recently adding to this number is Boom, a new PMS on the market. Starting out as an add-on AI tool that integrated with property managers’ existing tech stacks, Boom rolled out a booking engine, channel manager, and other AI-powered operational tools in September of 2024, rebranding itself as a fully functioning PMS.
But is this new kid on the block right for your business, or would you be better off going with a tried-and-tested option?
To help you answer these options, we’re comparing Boom with Lodgify, a PMS that’s built a solid reputation over the past 11 years. We’ll explore what kind of businesses benefit most from these two PMSs, how much they cost, and which features they offer to help you make an informed decision that will drive your success.
Who is it for?
Lodgify
Lodgify is a comprehensive solution that meets the needs of diverse vacation rental businesses, whether you manage a single property or oversee a portfolio of more than 30 rentals. It’s designed to provide both vacation rental owners and property managers with an intuitive and user-friendly experience, enabling them to streamline their operations with ease.
Boom
Boom offers solutions for vacation rentals as well as apartment hotels and boutique hotels.
While Boom’s Get Started form allows you to choose whether you manage 1-25, 26-100, or 100+ properties, its marketing materials address “property managers” (PMs) exclusively, suggesting that it may not be the best choice for owners who manage their own properties. The fact that their platform includes an owner portal so PMs can provide owners with detailed insights into their investments further reinforces a focus on property managers, specifically.
How much does it cost?
Lodgify
Lodgify offers three cost-effective pricing plans to meet the budgets of all property owners and managers:
- The Starter plan is Lodgify’s most affordable offering, starting at just $16/month for a yearly subscription. This includes all the essential features needed to effectively and efficiently run your business, such as a channel manager, a customizable and bookable website, a reservation and payment system, and a property management system.
- The Professional plan provides access to more advanced property management features as well as integration with Google Vacation Rentals and a 0% booking fee. This plan starts at $40/month for a yearly subscription.
- The most popular choice among our users, the Ultimate plan offers all the Starter and Professional features plus advanced capabilities such as reporting, cleaning, and task management tools. You can take advantage of this complete suite for just $59/month.
Businesses with ambition to grow will be glad to hear that Lodgify’s pricing and plan options scale with you, so you never have to stress about switching solutions.
Lodgify’s subscription plans can be charged in U.S. Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), or British Pounds (GBP).
Boom
Boom does not provide any information regarding pricing on its site. However, its Get Started form requires you to select whether you manage 1-25, 26-100, or 100+ properties, suggesting that its pricing increases based on your portfolio size.
Lodgify vs. Boom: What are the main differences?
Onboarding
Lodgify
Every Lodgify customer receives a free, personalized onboarding experience. A Lodgify expert will speak with you to understand your unique business needs, and then help you set up your account, sync your listings, and understand all the features available.
Expect a thorough—but efficient and straightforward—process, consisting of 1-4 calls depending on your number of properties and plan.
What Heidi C. says about Lodgify’s onboarding:
Boom
Boom’s onboarding process takes three weeks and includes comprehensive support. As Boom doesn’t provide pricing details on its site, it’s unclear how much its onboarding costs.
Website builder and booking widget
Lodgify
Lodgify offers the most powerful website builder on the market, known for its:
- User-friendly design: Build your own direct booking website with a unique domain (e.g., www.yourwebsite.com) in no time, without requiring technical skills.
- SEO optimization: All Lodgify websites are designed with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, helping drive direct bookings.
- Flexible customization: Lodgify’s website builder offers a range of templates that can be fully customized. You can add widgets and create unlimited pages to boost your site’s visibility in search results further.
If you already have an existing vacation rental website, but no way of accepting direct bookings, you can also take advantage of Lodgify’s embeddable booking widget instead. Lodgify’s booking widget is compatible with any content management system (CMS)—including WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix—and is incredibly easy to use. Simply copy and paste the code generated into your site to turn it into a direct booking engine and start accepting credit card payments instantly.
Boom
Boom does not offer a website builder or booking widget, so you’ll have to find an additional tool or hire someone to build you a direct booking site.
Channel manager
Lodgify
Lodgify’s channel manager enables you to connect and synchronize your listings, calendars, rates, and booking details across all third-party booking platforms (often referred to as online travel agents, or OTAs).
For Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Expedia, this is via a two-way API connection, meaning that any changes in one site are automatically updated in real time across the other platforms. Lodgify also offers an iCal integration for those who want to sync with additional or alternative channels.
Boom
Like Lodgify, Boom offers a channel manager so you can sync your listings, calendars, and more. However, Boom’s site does not specify which channels it integrates with, whether this connection is via API, or how long it takes for updates to be synchronized.
Unified inbox & AI-powered communications
Lodgify
Lodgify’s unified inbox allows you to consolidate guest communication by integrating with major booking platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, and your direct booking site. This feature ensures you can manage all conversations in one convenient location. Lodgify even supports direct messaging with guests through WhatsApp for added flexibility.
Looking to streamline even further? Utilize saved replies, automated messaging, and Lodgify’s AI Assistant. This advanced tool enhances guest communication by crafting personalized, intelligent responses to inquiries using a comprehensive database and reservation-specific information. Of course, the power remains in your hands: You’ll always have the opportunity to review and revise messages before sending to ensure you keep the human touch.
Boom
Like Lodgify, Boom offers a centralized inbox so you can manage guest inquiries and messages across all platforms from one place. And also like Lodgify, Boom even has an AI-powered chat tool to streamline responses to guest inquiries.
But unlike with Lodgify’s AI Assistant, Boom’s AI Chat takes responses completely off your hands. Guest messages are only escalated to live agents when a situation calls for human intervention. While this will certainly save you time, some worry that removing people from the picture entirely may make their communications feel impersonal, detracting from the guest experience.
Google Vacation Rentals
Lodgify
Lodgify’s Professional and Ultimate plans offer free integration with Google’s metasearch engine, Google Vacation Rentals (GVR), to drive traffic to your direct booking site. Integrating with GVR is a great way to increase your visibility, as GVR search results appear above organic searches, including the most important booking platforms.
Boom
Boom does not mention an integration with Google Vacation Rentals on its site.
Dynamic pricing
Lodgify
Dynamic pricing is an essential tool for hosts and property managers, enabling them to automatically optimize their nightly rates to maximize their occupancy and increase their revenue. To make it easier for you to take advantage of dynamic pricing, Lodgify offers an in-house dynamic pricing tool.
Lodgify Dynamic Pricing utilizes an algorithm that factors in 40+ listing attributes, market conditions, and local trends to give you perfectly optimized nightly rate recommendations for your rental. The payoff? An average revenue increase of 20%.
Boom
Boom, too, offers dynamic pricing, tracking local events, holidays, and competitor pricing to automatically set the most profitable daily rates. Like Lodgify Dynamic Pricing, Boom’s dynamic pricing strategies are designed to increase revenue and maximize occupancy.
Mobile app
Lodgify
You can manage your business on the go from the Lodgify mobile app, available for both iOS and Android. Users on the Ultimate plan can also download the Lodgify PM app to connect with cleaners, check-in agents, and rental managers.
Guests can download the Lodgify Guest app to easily access host resources, such as Wi-Fi passwords, check-in details, guidebooks, and more.
The Lodgify mobile app has over 10 thousand downloads on Google Play and is rated 4.8 stars.
Boom
While Boom doesn’t promote a mobile app on its website, it does have an app listed on Google Play. This app is designed to help you manage all your properties, automate tasks, get real-time updates, and access reporting and analytics in one place.
The Boom mobile app has over one thousand downloads on Google Play, but no ratings yet.
Customer support
Lodgify
Everyone who signs up for Lodgify—even if only for a trial—enjoys the benefits of our industry-leading customer support, including:
- 24/7 availability through phone, chat, and email
- Telephone numbers in multiple regions, including the U.S. & Canada, the U.K., Spain, and Italy
- Swift responses from our dedicated support team
What Ryan O. says about Lodgify’s customer support:
Boom
Boom does not provide information about its customer support on its site. The only contact information they provide is an email address for their sales team.
Educational resources
Lodgify
Lodgify also supports its users with an abundance of helpful resources, ranging from instructional guides on how to use their software to educational content on just about any industry-related topic you can imagine. Explore our:
- Learning Center to learn how to use Lodgify
- Knowledge Base to find answers to all your Lodgify questions
- Guides and blogs for a broad range of content on industry-related topics
- Lodgify Academy for video-based vacation rental courses that help you scale your business and direct bookings
- Vacation Rental Encyclopedia for definitions of the most popular industry terms
Boom
Boom offers a blog with a variety of helpful topics.
Preferred partner awards
Lodgify
Lodgify is proud to have been recognized as a:
Lodgify is committed to continually strengthening its relationships with the top OTAs to offer the best experience and features possible.
Boom
Boom does not mention any preferred partner awards on its site.
Customer reviews
Lodgify
Lodgify customers have consistently given us high ratings and reviews. See what our customers have to say on the following platforms:
- Trustpilot: 1,360 reviews | 4.7/5 stars
- Capterra: 990 reviews | 4.5/5 stars
- GetApp: 990 reviews | 4.5/5 stars
Boom
Boom does not have any customer reviews on Trustpilot, Capterra, or GetApp yet.
Industry recognition
Lodgify
Lodgify has received the following recognitions from top software review sites:
Boom
Boom does not mention any industry recognitions on its site.
Can I try the software before I buy?
Lodgify
You can try Lodgify at no cost before subscribing with a:
- 7-day trial, which can be extended upon request
- Personalized demo call with a knowledgeable product expert for a comprehensive overview of our features and a plan recommendation
- Preconfigured test demo account to test the software without inputting any rental or user data
Boom
It is unclear whether Boom offers a free trial. While some pages on the Boom site mention a trial, its Get Started form offers a 10-minute demo video for those with 1-25 properties and the opportunity to schedule a 30-minute call for those with 26+ properties.
Boom vs. Lodgify: Which should I choose?
So, which PMS is best for your business? That comes down to your specific needs.
For example, property managers with large portfolios may benefit from Boom’s PM-focused software and AI features to help save them time. However, individual hosts, small PMs, and anyone who wants to build their own direct booking site is better off with Lodgify.
Your choice also comes down to risk: With a PMS that’s still in its infancy, Boom has yet to gain any customer reviews, OTA partnerships, or industry recognitions. While this is to be expected given that Boom launched its PMS only months ago, it means you’d be taking a risk on a software that simply hasn’t been proven yet. And Boom’s lack of public-facing information on pricing and many features only makes that risk harder to stomach.
Meanwhile, Lodgify has earned an industry-leading reputation over the past 11 years, and it has thousands of positive customer reviews, preferred partner awards from the top OTAs, and recognitions from top software review sites to back that up.
Our recommendation? Try them each out for yourself. Lodgify’s free trial is just a click away—get started now.