Smart Pricing: the right price for every night, without a revenue manager
Hotely's revenue management engine recalculates every night of the next twelve months starting from your rate sheet, and explains every price it proposes.
Smart Pricing reads the Italian calendar, demand in your area, the pace of your bookings, searches on your website and the prices of similar properties, all on its own. Then it publishes the result on your website and on the connected channels. You choose the minimum, the maximum and the mode. It does the rest, and every choice stays readable.
Why it's different
Many tools react to every change: a single booking or one night still open is enough to make prices swing for no reason. Smart Pricing does the opposite: each signal weighs in proportion to the real data behind it, and a weak signal stays neutral.
- No compounding. The price always starts again from your reference, never from yesterday's suggestion.
- Every signal has a weight and a cap. Weak, stale or thinly supported data counts for little, sometimes nothing.
- Every price has an explanation. Multiply the lines of the Why together and you get exactly the proposed price.
- No price without verification. It's simulated before it's written and read back afterwards. If it doesn't match, the night goes back to how it was.
What it reads, night by night
The proposed price is a reference price multiplied by a few factors. Every recalculation follows the same steps.
- Calendar and events. National holidays, Easter, your town's patron saint and long weekends are calculated for every year. Major events like Salone del Mobile, Vinitaly, EICMA, Lucca Comics or the Monza Grand Prix are already in the calendar. Salone del Mobile, for example, is worth +40% in Milan and Rho and +15% in the rest of the province.
- Demand pace. It doesn't look at occupancy against a threshold. It compares each night with the same weekday one, two and three weeks away. 80% three months before arrival is an excellent result; two days out, it's normal.
- Searches on your website. The dates searched on your booking engine are demand no channel will show you. This signal can only raise the price, by 5% at most.
- Market. It compares your price with properties that are genuinely similar in type, capacity and area, using a weighted median that one very expensive listing can't drag along. There's a single correction for the whole month, never beyond ±8%.
- Stay economics. If you enter your turnover cost, commissions and minimum margin, no price drops below the floor that covers your costs. It also spots orphan nights between two stays and suggests what to do.
Every price has its Why
Next to every night you'll find the list of lines that led to the price, with the weight of each. An example: Saturday 17 October, 26 days before arrival, current price €125.
| Line | Effect | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Reference: your October Saturday price | €120.00 | |
| Event: similar properties nearby booked 1.3× the usual | +12% | €134.40 |
| Pace: your bookings ahead of nearby Saturdays | +6% | €142.46 |
| Searches on your website for these dates | +2% | €145.31 |
| October market level | −3% | €140.95 |
| Proposed | from €125 | €141 |
You stay in control
Choose the mode for each room type. You always start with Suggestions: Smart Pricing calculates and explains, without changing anything. In Assisted you pick the nights and apply the prices with one click. Automatic unlocks after at least 14 days of suggestions and applies prices on its own, in small steps, within the limits you've accepted.
A date you edit by hand is never touched again. Every application keeps the previous price and can be undone with Restore. Before writing, every night passes six checks, up to the final read-back: if the price doesn't match, it goes straight back to how it was. With the channel manager connected, prices reach the channels in a single push.
What it doesn't do
- It never goes outside the minimum and maximum you chose.
- It doesn't touch existing bookings or the minimum stay.
- It doesn't overwrite a night you edited yourself.
- It doesn't promise revenue increases: in the How it went tab you see its mistakes too.
Want to know how each step works? You'll find every detail of the model, from signal weights to publishing checks, in the Smart Pricing documentation.
Frequently asked questions
I have a detailed rate sheet. Will Smart Pricing upend it? No. Every night starts from your price, and the differences between weekdays, weekends and special dates stay exactly as you set them.
Do I need to do anything every week? No. Events, competitors and recalculations update on their own. Each room type is recalculated within an hour of any change, and every 6 hours regardless.
Does it work in a small town too? Yes, in every Italian municipality. Where there are no public listings with prices, the market is estimated from similar towns, and the Why tells you so.
Try Smart Pricing in Suggestions mode
See the proposed prices for the coming months, each with its Why, without changing anything in your rate sheet.