Review

Transparent Vacation Rental Data Review

We’ll answer all of this with a review of Transparent features, software, and pricing, and include an overview of some Transparent alternatives.

Author John Maus
By John Maus, Head of Finance and Operations

Published: Nov 10, 2022

7 minute read

Transparent Intelligence blog post

Introduction

In this day and age, information is everything. Being able to capture, analyze, and draw insights from data is invaluable. 

A perfect example is the rental data used by short-term rental analytic software. Whether it’s competitive insights or dynamic pricing, these programs help with property management, revenue management, guest management, and more. 

Transparent, a vacation rental data platform, provides insights to support property owners, hotels, enterprises, and more. But should you use Transparent to support your short-term rental business? 

We’ll answer all of this with a review of Transparent features, software, and pricing, and include an overview of some Transparent alternatives.

Transparent Review

Transparent is a start-up located in Madrid, Spain under the umbrella of OTA Insight that works to maximize revenue, optimize rates, increase occupancy, and inform investments. 

The platform’s algorithm processes millions of individual properties found on Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Homeaway, and VRBO across the globe. In one of their dashboards, you can see the distribution of all of the listed properties. 

Through the supply view, you can visualize your market of interest with the possibility of applying filters to monitor supply, occupancy, demand, and availability.

Features

  • Vacation rental data insights
  • Rental forecasting
  • Booking platform 
  • Pricing distribution charts
  • Top listing analysis
  • Competitor insights

Pros

  • Rate-shop with listing-specific, daily market and competitor rates
  • Modify property set-up and operations to meet guest expectations with review aggregation and analysis.
  • Compare Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and TripAdvisor to distribute properties effectively and maximize occupancy.
  • Refine guest payout with length of stay discount and cleaning and service fee breakdown in your market.

Cons

  • Their user interface has a bit of a learning curve.
  • Ironically, their services aren’t overly transparent and their website is unclear. 
  • There are almost no online reviews on reputable review sites, making it tough to determine true customer satisfaction 
  • It’s a relatively young company in the space 

Transparent Pricing

Transparent pricing is broken into three tiers depending on your needs.

Smart Rental Free

Transparent’s free package offers:

  • Historical ADR, occupancy & revenue
  • Booking channel supply shares
  • Visualization of properties & info

Smart Rental Pro

Smart Rental Pro costs $240.25 per month and market. It’s billed annually at $2,883,13. This option is mostly aimed at property managers in charge of more than 15 properties. This option helps users:

  • Optimize pricing with daily, forward-looking ADR, occupancy & demand on Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com & TripAdvisor
  • Refine with fee & discount breakdown
  • Prospect & invest effectively with interactive supply map with performance filters
  • Maximize occupancy using review & minimum stay analysis
  • Forecast with granular historical performance data & rental estimator
  • Compete & grow using property manager & listing performance ranking
  • Export capabilities for external manipulation & reporting
  • Personalized onboarding and customer support

Transparent BI

Transparent BI (Businesses Intelligence), the most expensive option, starts at $499 per month or is billed annually at $5,998. It’s geared towards property management businesses with more than 40 properties looking to scale. Building on the previous packages, these enterprises receive:

  • Custom & owner reporting
  • Property manager mapping, ranking & rate shopping
  • Summarized historic market performance data (ADR, occupancy and revenue)
  • Supply & OTA visualization and export
  • Forward looking rate, occupancy and demand at listing level on Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com
  • Personal support, email subscription & notifications
  • Integrate directly with your PMS

Transparent Alternatives

While Transparent might be a good option, it’s challenging to see exactly what they offer and how their current customers feel about the product. Plus, one software isn’t always a fit for every vacation property manager. 

That’s why we’ve offered some Transparent alternatives to try.

1. Wheelhouse

Wheelhouse is a rental software tool for dynamic pricing. Our algorithm tracks over 10,000,000 data points to ensure the digital accommodation of your property in the market. You can earn up to 40% more revenue and scale your portfolio with ease with the only fully transparent Pricing Engine in hospitality.

And we’ve been recognized by our supportive peers, who chose us as DARM 2021 People’s Choice Award for Innovation of the Year.

Key Features

  • Integration of top markets with top channels, including Airbnb, Tripadvisor, Guesty, Track, VRBO, iGMS, and more. 
  • Revenue management courses and tutorials
  • Quickly updating dashboards
  • Bank-standard safety with 128-bit security
  • Rule-Based Pricing
  • Data-Driven Pricing with a new UI 

Pricing

Lacking any kind of set-up fees, these are Wheelhouse packages:

Wheelhouse Pro

  • Pro Flex: this plan costs only 1% of the revenue, with a minimum monthly fee as low as $2,99. It doesn't include taxes or extra fees.
  • To get a discount for more than 100 listings, please get in contact with the team.
  • Pro Flat: this plan has a monthly starting price of $19,99 per listing.
  • Between 10 and 49 listings get you a 15% discount, lowering the price to $16,99.
  • Between 50 and 100 listings get you a 30% discount, lowering the price to $13,99.
  • To get a discount for more than 100 listings, please get in contact with the team.

Both of these can increase your earnings up to 22,6% more and offer booking scores; limitless manual updates and portfolio dashboards with personalized settings, strategies, and rates. You’ll have an eye on the next 18 months for pricing, and 6 months for performance. You will have support through chat, email, and even Zoom.

Wheelhouse Enterprise

This is a data solution for large property management companies, customized to their needs. If your company has more than 100 listings, get in contact with the team for a more personalized service. You can also create an account and try out the free market report where you will be able to check listing analysis and other features.

Interested in more profits right now? Try Wheelhouse Today!

2. Mashvisor

Mashvisor is a short-term rental data tool oriented toward real estate investment optimization through automation. It can be used by real estate investment beginners interested in vacation rental data and property managers alike. Their AI helps evaluate the performance of around 450,000 properties.

Key Features

  • Rental model comparison, facing Airbnb with traditional listings.
  • Calculate revenue with their Investment Property Calculator.
  • Rate and write notes about your property.
  • Juxtapose your property with others.
  • Evaluate your neighborhood to see how your investment will fare.

Pricing

Every alternative package has a 7-day  free trial.

  • Lite: This package helps you analyze both long-term & short-term rental data for individual properties. Analyze income, occupancy, and return on investment based on actual rental comps and see an investment potential score based on various factors. The price is $24.99/month when billed annually.
  • Standard: This package is customizable and adds data that faces traditional and Airbnb rental listings in your market, and a nationwide property search, both of these actionable for +10 Excel exports per month. There is a side-by-side comparison of a maximum of 4 properties and an array of various investment parameters. Historical data exports extend over the last 12 months and have a price of $35 per export. Pricing is $74.99/month when billed annually. 
  • Professional: This option builds on the previous ones by increasing the number of comparisons for both traditional and Airbnb rentals, and relevant property searches on a national scale up to 30 monthly Excel document exports. This level of search also includes the multifamily and foreclosure filters and the price for custom data reports gets lowered to $30 per month. Pricing is $99.99/month when billed annually. 

3. AirDNA

AirDNA is a short-term rental data company that collects and processes data to offer insights into the short-term rental management market. 

It evaluates performance and informs investment and can be used to manage the availability of short-term rental properties. It is an option for large property management companies, individual property managers, and sole homeowners. Their main softwares are MarketMinder™ for individuals, and Performance Dashboard™ for enterprises and large groups.

Key Features

  • Price prediction models with MarketMinder®
  • Compare properties and make projections based on their database.
  • Use the Airbnb calculator to compare properties and also project prices.
  • Estimate short-term rental performance on any market with their Rentalizer Widget.
  • Downloadable and exportable property-related data.

Pricing

There are price variations depending on the number of short-term rental properties in a specific market and not all subscription options are available in all areas.

Individuals 

  • State: For investors & real estate professionals, it has a starting price of $179 per month 
  • City: For investors and individual hosts, it has a starting price of $12 per month 
  • Neighborhood: For hosts & owners and has a starting price of $12 per month 
  • Country: For investors & VRMs and it has a starting price of $299 per month 
  • Global: Geared towards large investors. Its starting price is $599 per month 

Enterprise

For hedge funds and large organizations, you can reach out to AirDNA directly for a custom price.

Bottom Line on Transparent Rental Analytic Software

There are many challenges when it comes to vacation rental property management. Ensuring the accommodation of your future guests; finding those guests and screening them; and setting the right price in an ever-changing market are just some of the challenges that landlords and property managers have to face. 

Whether you are managing a single-family home or trying to get a good performance for your client’s portfolio, the best way to stand out is to employ the best short-term rental data software. 

Transparent has a large database, but it’s challenging to see the actual impact this has provided its clients. For truly transparent rental data analytics, Wheelhouse comes out on top.

While you take care of your guests’ accommodation, Wheelhouse takes care of your property’s accommodation in diverse listings. The software includes an adaptable pricing tool, market insights, competition data monitoring, and ultimate customization capabilities, and customers love our intuitive interface and endless customization capabilities, including far-future predictions and risk tolerance. 

Get started with Wheelhouse today!

Contributors

Author John Maus

John Maus

Head of Finance and Operations

John's responsible for overseeing and managing all aspects of the Wheelhouse's operations. This includes developing and implementing operational strategies and processes that will allow the company to achieve its goals and objectives.

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