Smartbnb Review 2024 – The Good & The Bad…[plus tutorial]

FEATURE BREAKDOWN & REVIEW OF SMARTBNB

What is Smartbnb - in a nutshell

Smartbnb is an automation tool that takes care of the day to day running of your Airbnb account and all operations.

It sends out automated messages to your guests, auto reminders to your cleaner, and much more.

Smartbnb makes your job as an Airbnb host easier by automating much of the process.  

Smartbnb can automate the entire Airbnb guest journey, from start to finish, seamlessly, whether you own just the 1 property, or 100.

Used effectively, it can reduce a hosts workload by upwards of 95%...

...without looking like a robot!

It doesn't stop there though, as this is just scratching the surface of this powerful piece of kit.

In this review of Smartbnb I'll be highlighting the good, and the bad, plus I'll also be teaching you exactly how to set up an account effectively to get the software purring like a dream.

If you value your time, and you want to streamline your Airbnb business, then you're going to love this tool.

Click 'Try free for 14 days' button.

From there you'll be taken through a series of multiple choice questions.  Complete these and continue to the next step.

Enter your Airbnb login credentials and click 'Continue'.

Once your account has been activated you’ll be re-directed to the Smartbnb dashboard.

Before you can begin sending automated messages with Smartbnb, you first need to set up 'Messaging Rules'

Click the 'Heart' icon, then select 'Messaging rules'.

Smartbnb comes with a tonne of different pre-written templates that are great to get you started, but I find them a little bit lacking in personality, so you’ll want to go in and edit the messages to give them your own voice. 

They also have pre-set scheduling (this is the pre-defined timings that each message must get sent out to your guests) that doesn't quite fit my flow, so I opt to change these presets too.

The 'Messaging rules' are split into four different levels.

Before Booking - messages sent before a guest finalises a booking

As the name suggests this section is for all messages before a guest actually books.

These messages can be programmed to send out for:

• Inquiries
• Requests to book
• Checkpoints - An automated message sent to users without sufficient ID

Smartbnb allows you to go full automation on its ass here, but this is one area I choose to take a little manual control of personally.

Call me old fashioned but I like to manually engage with any new inquiries until a booking is confirmed.

For that reason I don't have any automated messages set before a booking has been made.

Before Check-in - messages sent before a guest arrival

All messages within the 'Before check-in' section can be sent from the moment a guest has booked, right up until check-in.

This is where you really begin to see how effective Smartbnb can be.

Taking the time to set this up properly right from the beginning will save you an enormous amount of time and effort down the road.

My setup looks like this:

I have 3 messages that I send to my guests at different intervals before their stay:

It's worth paying close attention to the timings of my messages here.  I've spent a long time refining it, and this particular sequence works very well.

As soon as a guest books they are entered into this sequence.

Now if you've done a good job with the copy within your messages, your guests should have everything they need to know (and more) to ensure a seamless check-in experience.

All without you lifting a finger.

Staying - messages sent during a guests stay

This section is for all messages sent during your guests stay.

This is a good chance to touch base with your guests to make sure they have everything they need.  

It's also where you should send check-out instructions too.

*I try not to bombard my guests with too many messages, especially during their stay.  For that reason, I only have one message programmed to send here.

After Check-out - messages sent once a guest has left

Ah, the old 'bum-lick' as I like to call it.

This is where you should send a thank you message to your guests.  

If you're like me and you're forever putting-off writing guest reviews, then you'll be pleased to know that Smartbnb has thought about people like me and has automated Airbnb reviews built in.

Here's how it works...

Create a set of review templates (preferably 3+) with the use of dynamic short-codes.

These reviews are then systematically rotated.  Effectively, this means that you'll never have to write reviews again.

Smartbnb now offers an AI solution for answering frequently asked questions.  

Questions about things like:

To set up 'Questions' effectively, you first need to activate a new question.

Click on the 'Questions' link, then click on a sample question eg.'Wifi' to edit.

The example questions are used to help train the AI to recognise instances where questions related to your rule occur.  Add any example questions you can think of here to help improve its accuracy.

To activate the system to auto send responses to these questions, you first need to create a template message, and add a 'new rule' with associated conditions.

To begin that process click on the 'Reply to questions about' link.

This is where you can now build a message template response to send.

Underneath the message builder there is a drop down menu to select the 'timing' of your reply. 

There are two options:

• Prepare Answer - This will prepare the answer and send you a notification to confirm whether or not to send the message.
• Send Immediately 

Select the appropriate timing for your preference.

There are two more menu options to further refine the 'question rules'

The first is 'Settings'.

There are 3 options to further refine when to send the message.  

They are:

You have the option to select just one, or multiple.  The nature of the question will dictate the settings you choose.

The second menu option is 'Scope'.

This is where you can further refine the rule by limiting the rule to: Specific platforms, Specific hosts, 

The 'Scope' section is mainly targeted to hosts that manage multiple listings.  If your a small time host managing a single property you can ignore this section. 

This is the section where you manage your team, and all their tasks.  

Think of this section as the 'staff area', where everything is coordinated to ensure a seamless guest experience.  

Task Rules - set it and forget it

Task rules help you to automate the workflow of your team.  They help to coordinate your team for tasks like cleaning, maintenance, laundry etc.

Each task is automatically assigned to each new reservation (once you set it up).  This task can be sent to your team automatically via notification or iCal update, or can be processed manually.

There are four different types of 'Task rules' you can use:

• Cleaning (before check-in, after check-out)
• Check-in (before check-in)
• Check-out (before check-out, after check-out)
• Maintenance (before check-in, after check-in, before check-out, after check-out)

How to add a new 'Task rule':

Click the 'Task Rules' menu item, then click '+ Add New'.

A pop-up window will appear with the four different types of 'Rules' available.  Click to make a selection.

Go through each section to construct the task as you'd like it ready for your team, and click on the toggle icon to save and activate.

I've got to admit I find these 'Task rules' to be a little confusing.

With only the label being editable, I'm not quite sure how the person receiving the task notification will know exactly what needs to be done.

I think this area could be made much more effective with a manual text area that can describe in detail the task at hand.

Team - adding team members

This is where you can enter the details for all the members of your team so that Smartbnb can automate the notification process.

To add new people to your team...

Click on 'Team' menu item then '+ Add New'

Add team member details, then select the appropriate 'Role'.

Once you've added the details, now Smartbnb can now automate the communication process between you and your team.

Click on 'Notification Rules' in the menu bar, then select '+ Add New'

A pop-up window will appear.

From here you must select the type of notification you want to create.

There are three different types of notification:

This is where you get to build up each notification you want to create.

The settings here are super flexible, and there's a lot of power packed into this feature.

This feature allows you to select:

• How you want to notify your team mate.
• Exactly when you want to notify them.
• Who to send it to.
• What message you want to send them.

I get pretty creative here and have over 20 different reminders set up to fire to different members of my team.  

Here's a couple of examples of the reminders I send to my team:

Email Reminder - 2 days before check-in

Hey %Team_Membber%.

Check-in Reminder For: %check_in%

Thanks again.

Rowan.

SMS Reminder - 7 hours before check-in

Hey %Team_Member%.

Check-in Reminder For: %check_in%

Thanks again.

Rowan.

Super quick, and super simple.

I use email for pre-reminders, and SMS for last minute reminders.

Since implementing this double reminder system (SMS + Email), I've not once had any problems with tasks getting missed.

If you’re serious about monitoring and improving your Airbnb Ranking (and you should be), then you’ll seriously dig this feature.

It's called a 'Market Report'.

In the 'Market Report' you’ll find the exact ranking position for your property for every variable for the next 30 reservation possibilities, plus a rundown of who your main competition is, their nightly rate and their number of reviews.

The Smartbnb app will send out this daily ranking report to your inbox.

Your report will look a little like this.

And this.

Having these Airbnb ranking reports delivered to you daily allows you to continually check how you’re ranking, and it makes you super nimble for any price changes or listing alterations you may need to make.

Smartbnb has integrated Airbnb's inbox into their dashboard in a super simple, and very intuitive way.  

With this integration happening within the Smartbnb app, there's no longer the need to login to Airbnb whatsoever.

The UX is great, and overall is a much better experience than Airbnb natively IMHO.

Ok, lets take a look at Smartbnb's pricing, and see how it stacks up...

Smartbnb's pricing structure is a little different from many others in the industry.  Unlike many of it's competitors it doesn't offer tiered pricing for added functionality, instead, every account comes with all features as standard.  

So, no matter how many properties you operate (even if you're a "minnow" host like me with just one listing), you get access to everything.

However, with that being said, as a single listing host I get the worst deal...

Let me explain.

Pricing starts at €15 Euros per month for up to two listings, and there is no cheaper option if you only have one property.  This seems a little strange to me, and I think a single listing price would be much more fair.

But, having said all of that, I still think it's great value for money even for small time hosts like me (which is why I use it personally).

Smartbnb Pricing Breakdown

The pricing on Smartbnb works with a sliding scale.  The more properties you manage, the cheaper the per property price becomes.

Here's how the pricing looks as it scales up: