When PriceLabs prices look wrong, a setting is usually working against another one. Two we see often: a seasonal profile stacked on PriceLabs’ own seasonality, and a far-out discount on a home whose best guests book early.
Which settings hurt depends on how far ahead your guests book, so the same setup can suit one home and cost the next one money.
How does PriceLabs set a price?
PriceLabs starts with your base price and adjusts it for each date. It applies a seasonality curve, a demand factor from nearby bookings, and any customizations you turn on, such as far-out, last-minute, and occupancy discounts. It keeps the result between your minimum and maximum and syncs it to your booking sites, usually once a day.
Each adjustment looks reasonable on its own screen. They multiply, so two modest ones can produce a price nobody chose.
The five below are the ones we find most often when we first open a host’s PriceLabs account. Two homes we price show how each one plays out, one whose guests book late and one whose guests book months ahead:
| Measure | Late-booking home | Early-booking home |
|---|---|---|
| Typical booking window | About six days before check-in | About two months before check-in |
| When peak-season money books | About two and a half weeks out | Two to four months out |
| An empty calendar 30 days out means | Normal | Something is off |
If you don’t know which column your home belongs in, our free pricing review shows how far ahead guests book in your market and where your rates sit against nearby homes.
1. Are you counting seasonality twice?
PriceLabs builds seasonality into every price by default. Add a custom seasonal profile with a higher base for peak months, and peak dates get the lift twice. PriceLabs’ help center warns about this directly: “We generally DO NOT recommend using Custom Seasonal Profiles as PriceLabs already accounts for seasonality and applies it on your base price” (PriceLabs).
On the late-booking home, a peak-season base sat under PriceLabs’ seasonality curve. January through March priced 40% to 50% above ten similar homes nearby. Those homes were a quarter to half booked for the season, and the late-booking home had nothing. Lowering the peak base by about 30% still left every peak month priced above them.
How to spot it: peak months priced well above similar homes that are filling while your calendar stays empty.
2. Does your far-out setting match when your guests book?
Far-out settings change the price on dates a month or more away. Whether that should be a discount or a premium depends on who books that early.
Almost everyone at the late-booking home books inside two weeks. The few guests who booked two months ahead were peak-season stays at the highest rates of the year, so a far-out discount landed on exactly those bookings. Our PriceLabs cost breakdown covers that home’s defaults.
The early-booking home sells months ahead, so its early prices decide most of the year. Its trouble came from events. A festival weekend booked months out at an ordinary weekend price, before anything lifted it for the event. The same nights now list at more than double. Two convention weeks never showed up as events in PriceLabs, and both booked at ordinary rates.
How to spot it: look at which stays booked more than 60 days out and what they paid. If they’re your best-paying guests, a far-out discount works against you. On a home that books early, check the large events near you against prices that are already live months ahead.
PriceLabs doesn’t warn you about either of these. They show up when you compare what booked with what it paid.
Pricing service
Not sure which of these applies to your home?
Send us your listing. We’ll compare your calendar with nearby homes and tell you which settings we’d check first.
Free whether or not you hire us. If you do, it’s $200 a month with PriceLabs included, so you can drop your own subscription.
3. Is the occupancy adjustment cutting nights that fill anyway?
The occupancy-based adjustment raises or lowers prices depending on how booked you are compared with a target (PriceLabs). The default target comes from your market. A home that books later or earlier than its market looks behind or ahead when it isn’t.
The market around the late-booking home fills earlier than the house does, so the adjustment kept taking a few percent off dates that usually book anyway in the final week. It never added a premium.
The early-booking home has a pool, and the market it measured against included homes without one. The adjustment took about 20% off its event weekends.
How to spot it: a discount on dates a few weeks out that, in past years, booked at full price anyway.
4. Is your minimum price set off the right number?
A minimum price is meant to catch a bad night. PriceLabs can set a safety minimum from your average rate last year. On the late-booking home, that average already included the markup that covers Airbnb’s 15.5% host fee. A minimum meant to sit a little above last year’s rate behaved more like 30% above it, and through April it held prices above what the algorithm wanted.
On the early-booking home, the owner’s minimum sat above what quiet weeks could bear. For most of October, every open night listed at the minimum. We cover other floor mistakes in our list of common pricing mistakes.
How to spot it: count the open dates in the next two months priced exactly at your minimum. A few is normal. A long run of them means the minimum is too high for those dates.
5. Is Airbnb changing the price after PriceLabs sends it?
When we started on the early-booking home, Airbnb Smart Pricing was still switched on. A listing that runs both has two systems repricing the same nights, each blind to the other.
Custom promotions start from a different number. Airbnb says it tracks your prices over 60 days “to figure out what you typically charge for any given date,” and if your current price differs, “we will use your median price to calculate the discount” (Airbnb). PriceLabs never sees the promotion, so the price in PriceLabs and the price a guest sees can drift apart.
Discounts also multiply inside PriceLabs. A last-minute discount and an occupancy discount together can take about a fifth off a night, which the cost breakdown walks through.
How to spot it: check your listing logged out, as a guest would, on a few dates, and compare with PriceLabs.
Which setting is behind what you’re seeing?
| What you see | Setting it often points to | Where it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Peak months empty while nearby homes fill | Seasonality counted twice | Peak dates priced far above similar homes |
| Early bookers paying less than late ones | Far-out discount | Stays booked 60+ days out at below-average rates |
| Event weekends booked early at ordinary prices | Events PriceLabs missed | Big local dates with no lift months ahead |
| Discounts on dates that usually sell | Occupancy adjustment | Discounts a few weeks out on nights that fill every year |
| Many open nights at the same price | Minimum price | A run of identical prices at your floor |
| Guest price differs from PriceLabs | Smart Pricing or Airbnb promotions | Logged-out Airbnb price vs PriceLabs |
Why isn’t this a one-time fix?
You can find all five of these in an afternoon. Keeping them right is harder, because they move. A change to one setting shifts what the others do. The booking window stretches in peak season and shortens in summer. Events get announced months ahead, and PriceLabs picks up some and misses others. Airbnb changes its own pricing tools, and similar homes nearby open and close dates every week.
That ongoing work is our revenue management service. We move your listing into our PriceLabs account, so the software is included. We check it every week against how your home actually books, and we explain any change in plain language. It’s $200 a month, flat, with no share of your revenue. You keep your Airbnb account, your guests, and your payouts.
For a wider look at what the tool does well, see our PriceLabs review. If your calendar is empty and you’re tempted to cut, read when lowering your price pays first.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use a custom seasonal profile in PriceLabs?
PriceLabs recommends against it in most cases, because its default pricing already includes seasonality. If you use one, check that peak dates aren’t getting the seasonal lift twice.
Does PriceLabs see Airbnb promotions?
No. Promotions and Smart Pricing live inside Airbnb. Airbnb calculates a promotion from your median price for that date over the past 60 days, which can differ from the price PriceLabs sent.
What’s a good minimum price?
One that protects you from a bad night without setting your price. If many open nights sit exactly at your minimum, it’s too high for those dates. If it’s based on last year’s average rate, check whether that average includes channel markups.
Should I keep Airbnb Smart Pricing on with PriceLabs?
No. Turn Smart Pricing off when PriceLabs syncs your prices, so only one system sets them.
Can I fix these settings myself?
Yes, you can find and fix all five yourself. The harder part is keeping them right, because the right setting changes with the season, local events, and what nearby homes charge. That weekly upkeep is what we do for owners.
Do I give you my PriceLabs login?
No. PriceLabs moves your listing into our account, or we connect it fresh if you don’t use PriceLabs. You keep your Airbnb account and your payouts, and you can cancel your own PriceLabs subscription.