Summertime is when tourists flock to beaches, exotic travel destinations, and scenic landscapes to take some time off from the urban chaos.
If you own a hotel, motel, condominium, RV park, or any other type of accommodation, a free hotel management app can help you make the most when tourist traffic is at peak. Features of hotel management software include customer relationship management (CRM), reservations management, accounting, employee scheduling, and maintenance management. A free version of hotel management software can help you evaluate your business needs and upgrade to a paid version, when required.
There are plenty of free hotel management software tools available on the market. Before we list them down, it's important to note the difference between free, freemium, and premium software.
Free hotel management software is free forever and literally has no monetary value attached to it. The software is free of charge with access to only some basic features.
Freemium hotel management software is also offered for free, but you may have to pay extra to access more features. The freemium pricing model is followed on App Store and Google Play.
Lastly, premium software requires you to pay for all software features through a monthly or annual subscription fee.
An integrated hotel management software suite, SiteMinder is specifically designed for hotel businesses. It displays real-time room prices, allows users to book hotel rooms without any commission, and helps create a customer-focused hotel website.
The software is available free of charge with in-app upgrades. It helps manage room pricing in real time. Apart from room pricing, SiteMinder assists with yield management to increase average daily rate (ADR) with revenue per available room (RevPAR). The software offers yield management by analyzing live minimum/maximum rates vs. market rates based on the length of stay (LOS). As a result, you get a competitive pricing based on the latest market estimates. SiteMinder also sends email notifications when there is a change in your hotel room rate based on the current market price.
The Channel Manager plan starts from $56 per month, offers a 14-day free trial, and has the following features:
Access to more than 350 top booking channels
Integration with leading PMSs, CRSs, and RMSs
Flexibility to manage rates with pooled inventory and self-mapping
The BookingButton plan starts from $37 per month, offers a 14-day free trial, and has the following features:
Commission-free bookings
Internet booking engine customized as per your brand
Multi-language and currency support
The Canvas plan starts from $56 per month, offers a 30-day free trial, and has the following features:
Website design template for smart phones
Website management
SEO-friendly websites
A user liked the real-time room pricing feature offered by the free version of SiteMinder - "We are running at total 32 Rooms distributed on 9 active OTAs. Siteminder has done a lot to assist us in managing and distributing our room rate and availability with zero failure. It gives us more time to manage other things in our hotel."
FCS CosmoPMS is hospitality operations management software designed for small hotels. The software features a centralized platform for small businesses to manage front desk and back office operations. It also lets you manage customer profiles, maintenance, pricing, and finance. Key features of the software include:
FCS CosmoPMS features (discussed above) are free for small hotels that have less than 300 reservations in a month. If you feel that the features perfectly match your business, you can upgrade to the paid versions.
The premium versions of FCS CosmoPMS are available in two plans:
As free hotel management software, KWHotel caters to small and midsize hotel accommodations. The software is available in three different versions based on computer and network deployment. KWHotel also offers free hotel management software with limited features, which can be upgraded to a paid version with all features. Key features of the software include:
KWHotel offers a free version of its hotel management software with the following features:
KWHotel offers the following premium plans:
(Note: Pricing info below is in euros; check out their pricing page to find out more.)
Most users like the flexibility of plans in terms of features based on the price. Apart from features, users can also chose the price of a plan based on the number of rooms.
According to one user, "Software is well done and works flawlessly in every situation, but most of all it has all the features of the expensive ones with a cheap price. What more ? SQL compatibility, which means that you can use data for other personal applications… that's great!"
It's always a good idea to try a free hotel management tool for a trial period before purchasing one, so you can assess the features you would actually need.
For more information on other free and premium hotel management software, check out our hotel management software directory.
Abhishek Singh