Streamline operations, reduce costs, and beat your competition.
Centralise tools and get more direct bookings, without any hassle!
Run operations on the go and grow your property management business.
Whether you own an independent hotel, bed and breakfast or guesthouse, the channel manager is critical to developing your business. And there are so many offerings on the market, that getting lost and making the wrong choice becomes extremely easy and finding the best channel manager becomes a challenge.
We have listed for you the best channel managers for 2023, with their strengths, drawbacks and different prices, with small and medium-sized facilities in mind.
What is a Channel Manager?
The software to organize your bookings and avoid the overbooking
The arrival of OTAs, or Online Travel Agencies, has completely changed the way hotel deals are distributed and how prospective guests search for availability for their vacations. Today, most hoteliers and managers of bed and breakfasts or tourist properties use one or more of these giants of the travel distribution industry.
The goal is to ensure a good occupancy rate at the property, so it is really important to get the biggest possible showcase by being present on multiple channels at the same time.
But as a result of this, a problem will quickly arise because the channels are not interconnected. If a customer books a room on Booking, for example, that room will always remain available on Expedia, which does not communicate with Booking’s calendar. This means, consequently, that you have to manually update reservations and remain vigilant all the time to avoid overbooking.
This is where the channel manager comes in, a simple tool that synchronizes the different calendars of each of the OTAs you are on. By synchronizing all bookings, the channel manager prevents the inconvenient phenomenon of overbooking, makes it easier to plan your rooms, maintains availability constantly updated and allows owners to better manage reservations.
How much does a channel manager cost? Is it a free solution?
What makes great channel managers and are they worth it for small businesses?
In this section I would like to show you the features to consider before choosing the best channel manager.
Hoteliers today have dozens and dozens of channel managers to select from to manage their business, which makes it very difficult to navigate to the best product according to your needs. To avoid falling into the trap, I advise you to consider these different aspects:
- The channel manager’s capabilities: check the ability to connect to a PMS and the number of OTAs to hook up to.
- It’s a quality-price ratio: most reliable channel managers come at a price, so it is important to understand your budget based on your needs. Watch out for hidden costs!
- The size of your facility: there is a wide choice of channel managers on the market. Not all are the same, hence our top 10, and not all are suitable for all facilities. For large facilities with many rooms, you will need to rely on a powerful channel manager that can manage so many calendars and so many properties instantly.
Which Channel Manager for hotel, small b&b, and apartments is the Best?
What is the best channel manager for small hotels? Discover the 2023's Best channel management review
Here is ready a list of all the features of the various companies that offer a channel manager among their solutions. This list is intended to show the main features that will help you in your daily work. So you can choose according to your needs the best channel manager for your business.
1. Amenitiz
Amenitiz now has more than 7000 customers among hoteliers, B&B owners and short-term renters.
Amenitiz has a hotel channel manager, designed to streamline all aspects of a hotelier’s daily operations throughout the customer journey. With features that enable direct bookings, payment processing, and centralization of administrative tasks in one user-friendly PMS.
- PMS to easily manage your operations from a single dashboard.
- You can automate and centralize your guests’ payments using Amenitiz Pay.
- Premium hotel channel manager with fast connection to more than 120 OTAs
- Channel manager specifically for small and medium-sized independent facilities: hotels, B&B, and short-rentals.
- Automatic and instant synchronization of availability on all channels
- Quick and intuitive visualization of the status of your reservations
- Customer Support is available and responsive at all times
- Fully integrated reservation system (Direct reservations included)
- All-in-one solution (all Amenitiz’s tools are connected)
- Fixed per month. The subscription includes several tools: the website builder, booking engine, channel manager, and PMS
2. STAAH
STAAH channel manager software can be accessed at any time through the STAAH mobile application, which is designed for independent properties. Let’s see the Staah’s features.
- Revenue Control
- Central Reservation System (CRS)
- RateSTalk ( to track pricing of competitors)
- Hotel channel manager connected with Unlimited number of OTA
- Connect to a PMS
- Last-minute deals
- PCI-Compliant
3. Hotel Spider
Hotel Spider’s Channel Manager assists in synchronizing a hotel’s availability, prices, and booking rules across all booking channels. It can also automatically retrieve and update reservations, modifications, or cancellations to ensure accurate inventory management.
- Payment Processing
- It’s a Cloud Base model
- Dashboard
- GDS OTA Integration
- Channel Manager
- Booking Engine
- Centralised Reservation System
- Online Payment Processing
- Online distribution management
4. Octorate
Octorate is a SaaS hotel channel manager company. It not only helps in distributing hotel inventory across multiple channels, but it also includes invoice management features.
- Hotel channel manager connected with more than 130 OTAs
- Smart Calendar
- Marketing automation
- The pricing for Octorate depends on the number of channels connected.
- Online booking
- For single property and oliday rental
- Multi-property
- Customer support
5. NightsBridge
Nightsbridge channel management software can connect you with agents and websites available on the market.
- CRM & POS invoicing
- Database backup/restore (Management)
- Financial Management & Inventory Management
- Housekeeping & laundry management tool
- Property management
- Maintenance Management and Administration
- Messaging System
6. SiteMinder
Siteminder’s hotel channel manager provides access to over 400 distribution channels including popular platforms. SiteMinder also provides integrations with various hospitality industry-specific solutions, including PMS, RMS, Booking Engines, and many more.
- Recommended by the Airbnb platform
- Allows bookings to be redirected directly to your website
- Offers a control strategy that allows you to monitor your competition
- Cannot export the booking calendar created by the platform to another calendar such as Google Calendar, for example
- Reports are difficult to customize, making it difficult to process data
- Connection to be made independently (with assistance)
7. Cloudbeds
Cloudbeds is a fully-integrated, cloud-based platform designed to accelerate revenue growth, simplify operations, and provide exceptional guest experiences.
- Hotel channel manager, connected to over 300 channels
- Includes a dashboard that provides a central view
- Offers integrations with other Cloudbeds products, like the Property management system
- Reliable, real-time updates and daily reporting.
- Provides customizable rate plans, promotions, and restrictions for each channel
- Front office management
- Property Management & Marketing Management
8. Cubilis
Improve your online presence and simplify the management of your online booking channels with ease using Cubilis Channel Manager, which integrates with more than 200 OTAs and listing sites.
- PMS connectivity
- Analytics dashboard
- Multi-currency support
- Inventory Management
- 2-way real-time integrations
- Centralized user & role management
- Global Distribution System (GDS)
- Revenue Management Systems (RMS)
- Payment Providers (PAY)
9. Eviivo
An Eviivo booking channel manager designed for hotels, B&Bs, pubs, and inns with rooms, self-catering holiday homes, and holiday rentals. Automate the management of your rooms and rates across multiple OTAs with just one click.
- Offers a complete solution for managing your hotel
- Very affordable price for small and medium-sized facilities
- Customer service, is not among the most responsive according to customer reviews
- Problems with payment and direct debit are mentioned regularly
10. Sirvoy
Sirvoy is a user-friendly property management system specifically designed for hotels, B&Bs, and hostels. The front desk solution offers a seamless guest experience, from check-in to check-out.
- Database backup/restore (Management)
- Event, Expense & Finance Management
- HR & Payroll
- Inventory Management
- POS invoicing
- Housekeeping
- Laundry & Property Management
- Mobile App
Does the best channel manager for short-term rentals and hotels exist?
When you own a hospitality business, going digital is imperative in order to remain competitive in the market. However, many independent owners of small and medium-sized businesses find that equipping themselves is very expensive and requires a lot of IT skills.
The recent proliferation of digital solutions means that hoteliers and accommodation owners who are less comfortable with digital can find solutions that are easy to use. Having a channel manager means making your life easier in every aspect and having real control over accommodations and pricing.
But choosing the best channel manager is not easy, as it depends on your facility’s needs.
To reduce costs and save money, you can rely on all-in-one digital solutions that include a management system (PMS), a channel manager and an integrated booking engine, possibly linked to a hotel website builder.
At Amenitiz, we offer you just such an all-in-one solution, and our prices fit the needs and size of your property. Do you want to create the website of your hotel, B&B, or tourist flat and have the freedom to modify it at any time without using a webmaster? Do you want to increase your direct bookings and pay less commission to OTAs? Do you want to digitize your business with a perfectly integrated PMS and channel manager?
You are in the right place! Discover all our solutions by requesting a free demonstration.
