Vrbo Dynamic Pricing: Effective Tools & Strategies for 2025

One way to optimise your revenue from Vrbo, Airbnb and other short-term rental websites is through dynamic pricing — instead of just using a static price like you would with long-term rentals, dynamic pricing automatically updates your nightly rates based on demand-based variables such as property type, location, seasonality, and more. By using dynamic pricing, you make your property more competitive in the market, helping you earn more by keeping it booked at competitive rates.

In this article, we’ll talk about your options for dynamic pricing for Vrbo, as well as strategies for short-term rental that still work in 2025. 

Dynamic pricing for Vrbo: what are my options?

Hosts have the following options when it comes to dynamic pricing for Vrbo:

1. Rate Automation, Vrbo’s in-house pricing tool
2. Third party short-term rental pricing tools
3. Working with a short-term rental manager

How to enable rate automation on Vrbo:

1. Go to your Vrbo owner dashboard and select MarketMaker™.
2. Select Rate automation under ‘Your rates’, .
3. Set your rate range, duration, seasonal rules, and any other customisations.
4. Accept the terms & conditions, then select Turn on rate automation.

Note that it can take up to 48 hours for dynamic rates to be implemented.

To make rate automation work better for you, we recommend implementing the following settings:

1. Add minimum and maximum limits for your nightly rate
2. Set seasonal rules, including peak or low seasons, or dates where you’d rather prefer to set prices manually (think local events)
3. Choose how far in advance the tool should adjust rates, between 90 or 180 days
4. Override suggested rates or disable the feature as necessary

Should I use Vrbo’s rate automation tool?

While rate automation is a good first step to dynamic pricing for Vrbo, especially for those new to hosting, many hosts have also brought up concerns such as:

1. Limited data: Vrbo’s rate automation algorithm relies on internal data only, which may not provide a full picture of your local market. This could lead to prices leaning too high and limiting your bookings, or too low and reducing your revenue.
2. Guest-centric pricing: To get bookings faster, rate automation may lean on the lower end of your preferred pricing range to be more appealing to guests.
3. Not considering market-wide dynamics for different types of guests: Rate automation does not differentiate its pricing based on guest demographics such as business travellers vs. vacationers or family-friendly properties vs. solo-travel accommodations. You may need to manually adjust your prices accordingly for each of these guest segments.
4. No local knowledge of events: You will need to manually increase pricing when local events take place in your area, as rate automation cannot automatically do it for you.
5. Pricing not pushing through to other channels: Rate automation cannot sync prices on Vrbo, Airbnb, and other STR hosting platforms — you’ll need to manually update the prices for those listings.

If you’re finding that the prices being set by Vrbo’s dynamic pricing software are either too high or too low for your liking, consider using a short-term rental pricing tool or working together with short-term rental experts who’ll take care of pricing on your behalf.

Third-party short-term rental pricing tools

Pricing tools such as PriceLabs are ideal for tech-savvy hosts who want to be more involved with pricing their short-term rental listing. These paid tools offer more features compared to Vrbo’s Rate Automation, such as:

• Customised rule sets,
• cross-platform integrations to sync prices between Airbnb, Vrbo, and other short-term rental websites,
• optional, paid upgrades like analytics tools, market dashboards for real-time performance tracking, and more.

However, while third-party pricing tools are a step up from Vrbo's Rate Automation, note that they are a single-purpose tool. If you want to scale your operations, you may eventually need to get other tools for channel management, coordinating tasks, guest communication, and more. Third-party pricing tools also become more expensive the more properties or listings you have, which may eat into your budget — if you’re operating on a limited budget or at a loss, then you may want to consider another option.

Tailored pricing strategies for Vrbo

Short-term rental management companies like Hometime combine dynamic pricing with human insight and market context to come up with a customised pricing strategy that’s built around your property’s unique earning potential. The result? On average, Hometime properties saw an 11% rise in occupancy and a 9% revenue increase during peak season after implementing our pricing strategies.

Schedule a chat with us below to know more about how we set pricing and get a free earnings estimate:

How does Hometime set pricing for my short-term rental?

Before enabling dynamic pricing for your property, we first set your base price using internal and external data points regarding similar properties in the area. Note that this base price is not fixed — instead, it is updated periodically based on its performance (past, current, and future) and any long-term changes in the market.

From there, our unique dynamic pricing for Vrbo is then applied, which factors in the following:

1. Seasonality: Pricing increases during peak season and decreases during off-peak seasons, especially for properties in highly seasonal markets like the Northern Territory and Northern Queensland.
2. Day of week: Prices trend higher on weekends due to greater demand, while it trends lower on weekdays due to less demand and to fill in any booking gaps.
3. Booking lead time: Hometime changes pricing depending on how far ahead or how last-minute a customer makes their booking.
4. Holiday and event pricing: Our pricing algorithm is more responsive during  holidays and events to capitalise on these brief peak periods.
5. Booking pace: Pricing updates in line with real-time booking pace, or the number of bookings currently being made for a listing. We increase the price when booking pace is high and decrease it when booking pace is low.
6. Market customisations: Hometime’s dynamic pricing algorithms are not applied uniformly across all markets — how much each of the aforementioned pricing factors affect a property’s prices will vary depending on its location.
7. Manual pricing override: Our in-house pricing experts may also manually adjust pricing and minimum night settings for your property to maximise revenue.

Here's an example of what a $100 nightly rate might look like after dynamic pricing, with up to a 32% increase during peak seasons and a 30% decrease during off-peak seasons:

Take a look at this video from Dale and Abdullah from Hometime's Revenue Management team to learn how our dynamic pricing algorithm works:

How Hometime sets pricing for our homes | Nightly rates, dynamic pricing, & more pricing strategies

Maximise your Vrbo revenue with Hometime

Managing a short-term rental property isn’t passive income like it’s often made out to be. It can actually take you up to 20-40 hours of hands-on effort every week, without guaranteed results. Whether you’re starting from scratch or already self-managing your short-term rental, you might find yourself frustrated or even experiencing hosting burnout, especially if your earnings plateau despite your hard work.

Consider bringing in a partner who lives and breathes short-term rentals and can help you move on from actively managing your property to maximising your profits while reducing your workload. With Airbnb management services from Hometime, you’ll no longer need to balance bookings and optimise your pricing yourself — you’ll get a team of experts dedicated to boosting your revenue, taking care of the day-to-day, and helping your property reach its full potential. Whether you're seeking stronger returns, better guest reviews, or less time in your inbox, we’re here to help.

Book a call today and discover how Hometime helps short-term rentals thrive, without adding to your workload.

Frequently asked questions

Does Vrbo have dynamic pricing built-in?

Yes, Vrbo has dynamic pricing built-in to the system called Rate Automation, a free tool that was recently introduced to homeowners on Vrbo.

Does Vrbo have Smart Pricing?

Yes, Vrbo has its own version of Airbnb's Smart Pricing called Rate Automation.