OwnerRez Review, Pricing & Features

What is OwnerRez?

OwnerRez is a full-featured vacation rental management software that we recommend for individual rental owners with a few properties. The platform offers one of the widest feature toolboxes among competitors, with a channel manager, centralized calendar, and native rental agreement section.

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Table of Contents

• What is OwnerRez?
• OwnerRez Review Summary
• OwnerRez Pricing & Cost
• OwnerRez Features
  • Website Templates
  • Listing Management
  • Channel Manager
  • Multi-Calendar
  • Messaging
  • Rental Agreements
  • Property Management
  • Additional Features
• OwnerRez Customer Support
• OwnerRez vs. Competitors
• Is OwnerRez Right For You?

OwnerRez Review Summary

OwnerRez is a vacation rental management platform that was founded in 2009 by Paul Waldschmidt and Chris Hynes. The founders managed properties of their own and founded OwnerRez to provide an all-in-one solution. There are currently a couple thousand customers who host around 10,000 properties with OwnerRez.

OwnerRez’s biggest strength is the variety and depth of their features. They’ve built their own electronic signature and rental agreement features, to name a few. This helps confine most features within one interface, therefore streamlining the overall management process. The biggest drawback that we noticed is that, though the software works well, it took much longer to learn the interface than we experienced with other tools, and the layout was not as intuitive.

OwnerRez pricing begins at $35 per month and can range up to $800 per month depending on the number of properties and desired features. Features included in the base price include digital signatures and the channel manager, which includes API integrations with sites like Airbnb, TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and HomeAway/Vrbo. Premium features include the website templates and property management tools.

Overall, we found that while OwnerRez can be frustrating in terms of usability, it has a strong range of features that will benefit individual property owners or very small management companies. We recommend it for those who have up to three properties and are looking for a reliable one-stop solution. If you’re a large management company, we recommend checking out the options below:

OwnerRez Pricing & Cost

OwnerRez pricing begins at $35 per month for one property and can range up to $890 per month if you have 200 properties. Channel management and digital signatures are included in the base price. There are no contracts or minimum terms required, and prospective customers can test the tool with a 14-day free trial. A trial of this length is not common in the vacation rental management software space, so this is extremely beneficial for prospective customers.

Price Per Property (Basic Features)

Premium Features

These features are not included in the base price and will raise your monthly price.

OwnerRez Key Features

This review will walk through the main features that OwnerRez offers. We’ll discuss the notable strengths and weaknesses, discuss product usability, and briefly touch on customer service. To give you a sense of what it looks like to work with the tool, we also include images of the software.

To learn more about how we research and rate software tools, read about SoftwarePundit’s review methodology.

Website Templates

With OwnerRez, you’ll be able to customize your own direct booking site, install direct booking widgets onto that website, or install a direct booking widget onto a website you already have. There are three templates to choose from that can be customized to fit with your company’s branding. We found this feature to be a bit clunkier than the same feature in other tools, because you are not able to preview your website’s design as you edit it.

We briefly tested the process of creating a website and, as mentioned above, found it to be a little tedious; overall, though, the tool works very well and can be highly customized. A notable benefit is the high number of pre-embedded calls to action, which provide ample opportunities for prospective guests to make a booking.

Listing Management

You can create listings from directly within OwnerRez or import existing listings from Airbnb and HomeAway/Vrbo. Once properties are listed, you can input all information like amenities, photos, rates, and more.

Rate Management

Many rental markets have “high season”, which is the busiest time of year and therefore when rates can be highest. The rate management tool within OwnerRez will allow you to create seasons, where rates can be altered higher or lower depending on the time of year. You can also choose to upcharge for weekends or holidays, and decrease the rates when you’re looking for more bookings. We tested this tool and found that seasonal rates were applied promptly to the listing calendar, which will give owners peace of mind that the proper rates are being charged for any given time of year.

Channel Manager

A channel manager allows property owners to synchronize with property hosting sites to manage all listings from one interface. When there are API integrations, changes that are made within the OwnerRez dashboard will be pushed to applicable channels. OwnerRez offers API integrations with the following channels:

With this tool, you can adjust rates, available dates, and more across channels. This tool is crucial for saving time and effort.

Multi-Calendar

A multi-calendar feature displays all properties, bookings, and channels the bookings were made through. The OwnerRez unified calendar will display all of this information and is particularly helpful since you can drill down into each booking for more information. Below is an example of what the multi-calendar looks like with just one property:

Bookings will indicate the channel the booking came from so you know if the booking came from Airbnb, Booking.com, or from your direct booking website. Additional actions that can be taken from this calendar include:

Messaging

Keeping consistent communication with guests is imperative. We found the messaging section within OwnerRez to be particularly advantageous as many triggered email messages are already enabled when you open your account for the first time. While it’ll likely be best to update these messages to fit your properties and company style, much of the work has already been done. Airbnb messages will also be automatically sent through the Airbnb messaging system.

Message Templates

Message templates concerning the following topics are pre-filled:

When we created test bookings, all emails were sent to guests quickly and accurately.

Creating Messages

To create your own templates or update existing templates, you’ll do so from within an email editor. Another helpful detail, which also saves time, is that attributes can be automatically inserted into the email. The renter’s name, booking dates, booking details, and more will auto-fill into the template.

Rental Agreements

A fairly unique feature offered by OwnerRez is the rental agreement and electronic signature section. Rental agreements, much like the message templates, are populated automatically with guest and rental attributes. While it’s always beneficial to have a lawyer ensure that the agreements are legally binding, presenting these to your guests protects both parties should a negative situation arise.

A benefit of this section is that there’s no need to integrate and manage an external electronic signature tool, like you have to do with most competitors.

Property Management

If you’re a property management company rather than a property owner, you can manage properties for many owners and give each owner access to seeing their properties. You can create owner payouts for individuals and create specialized reports.

Report options include:

Additional Features

OwnerRez offers additional features, like a CRM system and owner statements and payouts, that make property management easier.

OwnerRez Customer Support

OwnerRez customer support can be contacted through email and by phone between the hours of 9AM and 5PM Pacific time. We found them to be very responsive, responding to our email inquiries in a little over an hour. They also have social media channels and resources like forums and a blog.

OwnerRez Alternatives & Competitors

OwnerRez primarily competes with other vacation rental management tools that are similarly geared towards owners with a smaller number of properties. Some alternatives are listed below.

Is OwnerRez Right For You?

OwnerRez is a full-featured and detail-rich vacation rental management software. There are API integrations with big channels, many pre-filled message templates, and a responsive customer support team that are quick to answer questions.

Overall, the tool is reliable and we found no software issues. However, it was one of the most difficult to navigate of the tools we tested. Because of this, we recommend OwnerRez for those with only a few properties. If you’re a rental management company with more properties, we recommend choosing a tool that will take less effort to manage. For alternatives, check out our other reviews below:

If you’re interested in trying OwnerRez, sign up for a 14-day free trial.