RESOURCES · GUIDEBOOKS
Tabellara vs Hostfully Guidebooks: an honest comparison for hosts
Hostfully's guidebook product grew up alongside its property management system, and it shows in both directions: tight PMS integration and a built-in upsell marketplace on one side, sponsored third-party recommendations inside free guidebooks on the other. Tabellara sells exactly one thing: your guidebook, ad-free, designed, and measured. Here is how they actually stack up.
| Tabellara | Hostfully Guidebooks | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Build and preview unlimited guides free, no card; your first published guide is free for 30 days, still with no card | One guidebook free, and it includes sponsored third-party recommendations shown to your guests |
| Paid price | A flat $6/mo per guidebook at any count; annual is $54 (three months free). Guest WiFi $6 per network, Guest TV $6 per property with three TVs, or all three at one property for $15 | Not published. Pro is billed per published guidebook, and the only price on their pricing page is the free tier's $0; you learn the rate inside the app or from their team. Pro adds custom branding, ad removal, upsells, templates and translations |
| Ads in your guide | Never. Local tours appear only if you switch them on, and when a guest books one the 4% commission is paid to you, not to us | Sponsored recommendations on the free plan; removal requires a paid tier |
| AI builder | Writes the complete guide from your Airbnb listing in about a minute, places your photos, and researches real local recommendations | AI itinerary planner for guests |
| Design | Six layouts, fifteen themes, custom colors and logo | One core format with customizable branding on paid tiers |
| Upsells | Guest Store on every plan: guests pay your own Stripe account directly (you are the merchant of record), each item instant or approve-first on a window you choose, 2% per completed order; plus fee-free quick links to your own pages, every tap counted | Built-in upsell marketplace with checkout launched from the guidebook, plus a 1% Hostfully commission on top of Stripe fees |
| Translations | Automatic translations into 25 languages, included with every guide; guests are offered their own language on arrival | Instant translations in 16+ languages on paid tiers |
| Analytics | Page-level: the ten most-read cards at a glance, every visitor session with city, state, device and the QR or deep link they arrived through, searchable, sortable and exportable to CSV, plus a counted tap on every quick link including book-direct | Email capture and guest data features on paid tiers |
| Multi-property | Start a new property as a copy of any guide; copy sections or single cards between guides; mark any guide as a template and link its sections, so one edit to house rules or checkout updates every property while each guide keeps its own arrival details and WiFi | Paid plans get Guidebook Templates: guidebooks inherit a template's cards and pick up its changes, with per-guidebook overrides, plus bulk editing; not available on the free plan |
| Personalized guest links | Reservation-aware links: connect an Airbnb or OwnerRez listing and every booking gets its own link that greets the guest by name with their dates and party, sent automatically (Airbnb message five minutes after booking, or an OwnerRez template field) and expiring after the stay; the permanent guide link keeps working alongside it | Per-property guidebook links; a per-reservation personalized guidebook page is not a documented feature |
| Ecosystem | Airbnb via Hospitable Connect and OwnerRez today, more on the way. Guest TV puts the guide on the property's television with a welcome by name and a sign-out at checkout; Guest WiFi turns the guest network into a sign-in page that captures every email | Native integration with Hostfully's own PMS and devices; works standalone too |
| Earning from local tours | Tick one box and Viator tours near the house appear in the guide's Local Experiences section and on the Guest TV screensaver, each with a code to book; 4% of every booking is paid to you through your own Stripe account | Sponsored Viator recommendations appear in free guidebooks; the referral value goes to Hostfully |
Hostfully features and tiers from hostfully.com's guidebook pricing page and help center as of August 2026; Hostfully does not publish its Pro per-guidebook rate. Check their site for current details.
The free tier fine print
Both platforms let you start free, but the deals are different. Hostfully's free plan gives you one real, publishable guidebook, and places sponsored third-party recommendations inside it: your guests see sponsored tours and activities in the recommendations tabs until you pay to remove them. Tabellara's free tier is the whole product with the publish button held back: build every guide, preview every layout, run the AI builder, and pay only when a guide goes live to guests. No ads either way, ever.
Pricing past the free tier
Hostfully bills Pro per published guidebook, but the rate is nowhere on its website: the only number on their pricing page is the free tier's $0, and the real price appears once you are inside the app. Tabellara's price is public and flat: $6 a month per guidebook at any portfolio size, $54 a year with three months free. Whether the two end up close, you can only know after signing up for one of them; with the other, the number is on the page before you type an email address.
Where it does get made: the build
Tabellara's AI builder reads a connected Airbnb listing and produces a finished guidebook in about a minute: house manual and rules pulled verbatim, your amenity photos placed on matching pages, and real, researched local restaurants and attractions with addresses that land on the guide's map. Hostfully offers a quick-start wizard that can auto-generate local recommendations from Google Maps, an AI itinerary planner for guests, and templates on paid plans, but the house manual and rules themselves are entered by hand. If you manage more than a couple of listings, the difference is measured in afternoons.
Upsells: their marketplace versus your Stripe account
Both platforms sell extras inside the guidebook now; the difference is whose money pipes they run through. Hostfully's upsell marketplace processes the payment for you and takes 1% plus Stripe fees. Tabellara's Guest Store connects your own Stripe account: guests pay you directly, you are the merchant of record, every item can be instant purchase or approve-first on a window you choose, and Tabellara's fee is 2% per completed order, refunded when you refund the guest. On top of the store, fee-free quick links still drive guests to pages you already control (your booking site, your phone), with every tap counted.
Where Hostfully wins
A slightly lower store fee at 1%, guidebook templates with inheritance and bulk editing on paid plans, a native connection to Hostfully's own PMS if you already run your business on it, and that genuinely free single guidebook if you can live with sponsored recommendations in front of your guests.
Where Tabellara wins
No ads in your guide at any price. A one-minute AI build from your real listing. Six designed layouts instead of one. Automatic translations into 25 guest languages, included with every guide rather than gated to a paid tier. Page-level analytics that tell you what guests actually read, not just who they are, down to a searchable, exportable visitor table. Templates and linked sections on every plan, including free, so a portfolio is edited in one place from day one. Reservation-aware links that greet each guest by name, with their dates, sent automatically from Airbnb's scheduled messages. And Tabellara TV, which carries the guide onto the property's television.
The bottom line
If you run your business on Hostfully's PMS or want in-guidebook payments without building your own checkout, their guidebook add-on is the natural pick. If the guidebook itself is the product you care about (how fast it builds, how good it looks, whether guests read it, and keeping it ad-free), that is the whole of what Tabellara does. Connecting a listing and building a guide costs nothing, which makes the comparison easy to run yourself.
Build a guide guests actually open
Tabellara turns this advice into a working guidebook: app-style guides, area maps, and page-level analytics.
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