Guide
How to choose a hotel PMS.
Every system demos well. These are the questions that separate the ones that survive a real season from the ones that get replaced.
Written for owners and managers of independent hotels and small groups, who are usually choosing a PMS while also running the property. No vendor comparison table — just the questions that decide whether you will still be happy in year three.
Start with the day, not the feature list
Every property management system demos well. The differences show up in the ordinary day: a walk-in at 23:00, a guest who wants to extend by one night when the room is sold, a group booking where three of twelve names change. Ask to be shown those, not the dashboard. A system that handles the awkward cases gracefully will handle the easy ones.
Check what happens when two people work at once
Two staff will eventually open the same reservation. A serious system re-checks availability at the moment a change lands, under a lock, and refuses a move that would double-book rather than warning about it afterwards. Ask directly: what stops the same room being sold twice? If the answer is "staff training", keep looking.
Rates are where money quietly leaks
Ask how a nightly rate is decided when a stay moves to a different room type mid-stay, how a discount is applied to part of a stay, and whether a rate change applies to existing bookings. These are not edge cases; they are Tuesday. If nobody can explain the rule, your revenue is being decided by whoever last clicked.
The questions worth asking every vendor
- Who owns the data, and how do I get it out? Ask for the export format before you sign, not when you leave.
- What is included in the price? Per-user pricing punishes you for hiring. Ask what a second property costs, and what happens in high season.
- Can a housekeeper see the folio? Permissions should be per role and per module, not one "staff" account everyone shares.
- Is there an audit trail? When a rate was changed and by whom is the difference between a conversation and an argument.
- What happens when the internet drops? Get a straight answer about offline behaviour rather than a reassuring one.
- Who answers when something breaks at 22:00? Ask for the actual response time in writing.
Channel manager and booking engine: one system or three?
A PMS, a channel manager and a booking engine from three vendors means three contracts, three support queues and a sync you own the failures of. Running them as one system is not automatically better — but if they are separate, ask who is responsible when availability disagrees between them, and get the answer before you need it.
Setup is the part everyone underestimates
Room types, rate plans, existing forward bookings, deposit rules, tax handling. Ask who does that work, how long it takes, and what it costs. A system that is cheap to buy and expensive to start is not cheap.
Our own answer to all of this is the ineed.now Hotel PMS — 27 modules, one system, published pricing from $95 per property per month. If it is not the right fit we will say so.