Everywhere Guests Book — Owner FAQ

What changed at Airbnb?

Airbnb retired the old split fee — guests used to pay a service fee at checkout and hosts paid about 3%. Now there is a single 15.5% service fee taken out of the host's payout, calculated on the whole booking subtotal, cleaning fee included. If your home brings in $4,000 in a month, Airbnb keeps $620 of it — $7,440 a year. Airbnb also writes the agreement, controls cancellations and refunds, and owns the guest relationship: you never receive your guests' real contact information.

What channels will my home be on?

Four storefronts, one system:

• Airbnb — your existing listing stays live and unchanged.
• Vrbo — strong with families and longer stays, and unlike Airbnb, Vrbo shares your guests' real email addresses with us.
• Booking.com — the largest booking audience in the world, including international travelers.
• Google Vacation Rentals + your direct page on jrairbnb.com — guests searching Google for a place in your area can land straight on your own booking page.

Everything runs through OwnerRez, a professional property-management platform with direct connections to each channel — not slow calendar-file syncs. Availability, rates, and listing content update across every channel in real time, guest messages from all channels land in one inbox, and a date booked anywhere is blocked everywhere. No double bookings.

How much do I save?

Every booking made directly instead of through Airbnb skips the 15.5% fee entirely. On a $4,000 month booked direct, the full $620 stays with you. Even if only part of your bookings shift to direct, you keep 15.5% of everything that does — and the extra channels put more nights on the calendar to begin with.

What does it cost?

A one-time $750 setup, then $300/month per listing. The setup fee covers three things: the StayFi hardware for your home and its installation; setting up your platform and StayFi subscriptions and connecting your listings across Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Google; and building out your direct booking page on jrairbnb.com. A single $2,000 direct booking saves $310 in Airbnb fees, so most owners earn the setup back on their first two or three direct bookings. The $300/month covers the platform that runs all your channels, your page, StayFi guest capture, and ongoing marketing of your home to your past guests. On a $4,000 month, if even half the bookings came direct, the fee savings would roughly cover the monthly cost — and that's before counting a single extra night booked through Vrbo or Booking.com.

How do guests find my home? Don't you need ads?

No ads needed. The extra channels bring their own demand — Vrbo and Booking.com are where their guests already shop, and Google surfaces your home in vacation-rental search results. On top of that, the direct channel is a repeat-guest channel:

• Past guests — we market your home to people who have already stayed in it.
• Guests in the home right now — arrival info and in-home prompts point them to book direct next time.
• Repeat Austin trips — ACL, SXSW, F1, game weekends, and lake season bring the same guests back year after year.

Airbnb keeps doing its share of discovery. The other channels widen the net, and direct keeps the repeat business.

What is StayFi, and what does it capture?

StayFi runs your home's WiFi. For guests who book direct or through other channels, every guest in the party — not just the person who booked — signs in with their own email address and phone number to get online. That builds a real contact list for your home with every one of those stays, which we use to market future direct stays. On Airbnb, you only ever get the one booker's details, and even those are masked — and as the next answer explains, Airbnb is restricting data collection from its guests even further.

What about Airbnb's November 20 policy on guest data?

Airbnb has announced that for reservations booked on or after November 20, 2026, WiFi portals that ask guests for an email or other personal information aren't allowed on home listings, except where a law or a documented HOA/community rule requires the collection (hotels and resorts are exempt). So on Airbnb stays, we play it straight: no data gate on the WiFi, and no risk to your listing. The list-building engine of this offer is your direct channel — every direct guest's full contact details are yours, and that owned list compounds with every direct booking. Where a property genuinely falls under a legal or HOA registration requirement, we'll document it and capture can continue under that exception.

How are guests managed during their stay?

The same team, the same way — through one system instead of two. Direct guests receive the same automated messages as Airbnb guests (booking confirmation, arrival message with your door code and WiFi details, check-out instructions), they can reach us any time by email, text, or phone, and your cleaners are scheduled from the same synced calendar. The difference: we have the guest's real contact information from the start, so nothing has to go through Airbnb's messaging.

Who controls the agreement, cancellations, and refunds?

You do. Direct and Vrbo guests sign our rental agreement — your cancellation policy, your damage and deposit terms — before their stay, and we take a security deposit hold on the guest's card. Refund decisions follow your policy. There is no Airbnb case manager who can override it after the fact.

What about damage protection without Airbnb's AirCover?

Direct bookings are covered by the signed agreement plus the deposit hold on the guest's card, and per-booking damage protection can be added. In practice, a real card hold is stronger than filing a claim and hoping a platform sides with you.

Does anything change on Airbnb?

No. Your listing stays live on Airbnb and keeps bringing in new guests. Calendars sync automatically between Airbnb and your booking page, so a date booked on one is blocked on the other — no double bookings.

How do payouts work?

Guests pay by card through our payment processor when they book direct. Payouts run on our schedule rather than Airbnb's — no waiting on a platform release window, and no unilateral refunds pulled back out of your account.

How do I start?

Reply to Jonathan's email, or reach out below. We connect your listing across the channels, build your direct page, and set up StayFi in your home. Your Airbnb listing is untouched throughout.