What Smoobu's price rules do — and don't do
Under Pricing, Smoobu offers a built-in rules engine that automatically adjusts a property's base price by season, weekday, length of stay, and booking lead time. You set the rules up once and they then apply automatically across every connected channel — Airbnb, Booking.com, your own direct booking site, and any other platform synced through the channel manager.
The key difference from a dynamic pricing tool like PriceLabs or Beyond Pricing: Smoobu's price rules don't automatically react to market demand, competitor pricing, or occupancy forecasts. You set the rules yourself and adjust them manually as the market shifts. For hosts with one or a few properties and fairly stable seasonal patterns, that's often enough — if you want more automated demand-responsive pricing, most hosts pair price rules with an external tool (see the link at the bottom of this page).
Step 1 — Set a base price and season periods
Before any rule can apply, every property needs a nightly base price as a starting point.
- In Smoobu: go to Pricing → Calendar Pricing and select the property.
- Set the base price: Enter the default nightly rate that applies whenever no other rule or season period overrides it.
- Create season periods: Under Seasonal Pricing, define date ranges with a different rate, e.g. peak summer season or around holidays and local events. Each period has its own start and end date and its own price or surcharge.
- Check for overlaps: If two season periods have overlapping date ranges, Smoobu typically applies the most recently saved or more specific rule — visually double-check the calendar after adding several periods to avoid mispriced dates.
Season periods can be set up years in advance, but should be reviewed at least once a year — public holidays and school breaks shift dates from year to year.
Step 2 — Set weekday surcharges
Friday and Saturday nights command a premium in almost every market — Smoobu handles this through a separate rule type.
- Under Price Rules (sometimes grouped with Calendar Pricing), create a new weekday surcharge.
- Select the affected weekdays — usually Friday and Saturday, and sometimes the Sunday before a public holiday in tourist-heavy locations.
- Set the surcharge as a percentage of the base price or as a fixed amount per night.
- Save. The surcharge is applied automatically on top of whichever base or season price is active for that date.
A weekend surcharge set too high can make short weekend stays unattractive if guests compare the two-night total against weekday rates — test different surcharge levels and watch the weekend booking rate over a few weeks.
Step 3 — Length-of-stay discounts
Longer stays mean fewer cleanings and guest turnovers per night rented — a discount past a minimum stay threshold is a reasonable trade for both guest and host.
- Create a discount tier: Under Price Rules → Long-Stay Discount (label may vary by account language), define a new tier with a minimum number of nights.
- Common tiers: Typical setups use a tier starting at 7 nights (e.g. 5–10% off) and one starting at 28 nights (e.g. 15–25% off) — exact figures depend on your target guest and low-season occupancy.
- Combine multiple tiers: You can set up several tiers in parallel so the discount increases with the length of stay.
- The discount is applied automatically at pricing time for bookings meeting the length-of-stay threshold, on every channel that supports the rule.
Step 4 — Last-minute and early-bird rules
These two rule types target opposite situations: filling an empty near-term date versus motivating guests to book early.
- Last-minute discount: An automatic price reduction for bookings made within a set window before arrival (e.g. 3 or 7 days). Useful for filling short-notice vacancies instead of letting them sit empty.
- Early-bird discount: A price reduction for bookings made well in advance (e.g. more than 60 or 90 days before arrival). Provides earlier planning certainty, but lowers the achievable rate for dates that would likely have been booked later anyway.
- Both rules are configured under Price Rules with a time window (days before arrival) and a discount amount (percentage).
Last-minute and seasonal-surcharge rules can effectively cancel each other out if a short-notice date falls inside a peak-season period — for overlapping rules, check the order in which Smoobu applies them and verify the result against a concrete date in the calendar.
Troubleshooting common issues
The price shown on Airbnb doesn't match Smoobu
Channels don't always sync price changes instantly — depending on the channel, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for a new rule to show up. First confirm the rule is actually active in Smoobu for the affected date range and property, and if the mismatch persists, trigger a manual price sync for that channel.
Two rules conflict — which one wins?
For overlapping rules (e.g. a seasonal surcharge and a last-minute discount on the same date), Smoobu generally applies a fixed internal priority, usually favoring the more specific rule over the more general one. For dates that matter, don't rely on assumption — check the actual computed price for a concrete date in the calendar.
Is a price rule enough, or do I need a dynamic pricing tool?
For one or a few properties with a reasonably stable seasonal pattern, manually maintained price rules are often enough. With multiple properties, volatile demand, or a desire for automatic adjustment to competitor pricing and market occupancy, an additional tool like PriceLabs — which recalculates prices automatically every day instead of relying on static rules — is usually worth it.
Can I only set price rules for a single property?
Yes — price rules are configured per property. With multiple listings that follow a similar pricing pattern, you can't directly duplicate the setup, but in practice it's usually quick to repeat for each property since the rule structure barely changes.