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Travel · head to head

Apaleo vs Lodgify

Apaleo logo

Apaleo

Travel

API-first hotel property management platform sold per room with a monthly floor

From
€8/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Lodgify logo

Lodgify

Travel

Direct booking website builder and channel manager for vacation rental owners and small managers

From
$16/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Apaleo the €400 monthly floor means a property under fifty rooms pays well above the headline €8 per room, so a twenty five room hotel pays €16 per room and the advertised rate is misleading at the small end.; Lodgify the 1.9 per cent booking fee on Starter and Professional applies to direct reservations, the exact bookings you built the site to win, so an owner turning over 200,000 dollars direct pays around 3,800 dollars a year on top of the subscription unless they move to Ultimate.
  • They diverge on capability: Apaleo covers Open REST API, Lodgify covers Website builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Apaleo and Lodgify actually diverge.

Attributes where Apaleo and Lodgify differ
AttributeApaleoLodgify
Starting price€8/month$16/month
Pricing modelPer room per monthPer month by property count and plan
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, iOS, Android

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Travel).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Apaleo

  • Open REST API
  • Apaleo Store
  • Multi-property inventory
  • Apaleo Pay
  • Unit group model
  • Night audit and accounting export

Only in Lodgify

  • Website builder
  • Channel manager
  • Booking engine
  • Unified inbox
  • Automated messaging
  • Rental agreements
  • Multi-calendar
  • Damage deposits

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Apaleo

  • A serviced apartment group building its own branded check-in and access flow that needs full PMS control through an API rather than a vendor-built kiosknot Lodgify
  • A European hotel group standardising twenty properties on one system with central rate management and DATEV-ready accounting exportsnot Lodgify
  • A new-build lifestyle hotel operating with no permanent front desk, where door locks, kiosks and messaging come from specialists and the PMS is the record of truthnot Lodgify
  • A revenue team that wants to plug Duetto or IDeaS into live inventory without paying a per-connection interface feenot Lodgify

Lodgify

  • An owner with three holiday cottages who wants a branded site to cut Airbnb commissionnot Apaleo
  • A manager consolidating Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com calendars to stop double bookingsnot Apaleo
  • A rural property with weak OTA visibility that relies on repeat direct guestsnot Apaleo
  • A host adding rental agreements and deposit collection to bookings taken off-platformnot Apaleo

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Apaleo

  • The €400 monthly floor means a property under fifty rooms pays well above the headline €8 per room, so a twenty five room hotel pays €16 per room and the advertised rate is misleading at the small end.
  • Apaleo ships no point of sale, no spa or golf module and no conference and banqueting system, so full service hotels must buy and integrate three or four more products before the stack is complete.
  • Because the model assumes you assemble the guest-facing layer from the Store, the real monthly cost is the platform fee plus several third-party subscriptions, and that total is nowhere on the pricing page.
  • Support and documentation lean towards developers, so an operator without technical capacity or an implementation partner will find configuration and troubleshooting harder than with a conventional PMS.
  • The product and integration ecosystem is strongest in German-speaking Europe, and North American buyers will find fewer local integrations for payments, tax rules and accounting than a US-focused PMS offers.

Lodgify

  • The 1.9 per cent booking fee on Starter and Professional applies to direct reservations, the exact bookings you built the site to win, so an owner turning over 200,000 dollars direct pays around 3,800 dollars a year on top of the subscription unless they move to Ultimate.
  • Operations tooling is thin: there is no real housekeeping scheduling, task assignment or owner statement generation, so managers past roughly twenty units outgrow it.
  • Prices shown are annual-commitment rates; paying monthly costs substantially more, which makes the headline figure misleading for anyone unwilling to commit for a year.
  • The website templates are constrained, and heavy design customisation means editing within a narrow theme system rather than having real control over layout or markup.
  • Payment processing is effectively tied to a small set of gateways, so operators in markets without local acquiring support may struggle to take payments in their own currency without extra cost.

Pricing, plan by plan

Apaleo

€8/month
  • Apaleo Platform$8/month
    • €8 per room per month
    • Minimum €400 per month regardless of room count
    • All APIs included at no extra cost

Lodgify

$16/month
  • Starter$16/month
    • Billed annually, higher month to month
    • Website builder and booking engine
    • Channel manager
  • Professional$42/month
    • Billed annually
    • Payment automation
    • More integrations and higher limits
  • Ultimate$103/month
    • Billed annually
    • No booking fee on direct reservations
    • Priority support

Which should you pick?

Choose Apaleo if

  • You need open rest api.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want apaleo store.
Apaleo review

Choose Lodgify if

  • You need website builder.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want channel manager.
Lodgify review

Questions people ask

Is Apaleo or Lodgify better?
Neither clearly leads. Apaleo starts at €8/month and Lodgify at $16/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Apaleo or Lodgify?
Apaleo starts at €8/month and Lodgify at $16/month.
Does Apaleo or Lodgify run on more platforms?
Apaleo runs on Web, API. Lodgify runs on Web, iOS, Android.
What is Apaleo best used for?
Apaleo is most often used for a serviced apartment group building its own branded check-in and access flow that needs full pms control through an api rather than a vendor-built kiosk, a european hotel group standardising twenty properties on one system with central rate management and datev-ready accounting exports, a new-build lifestyle hotel operating with no permanent front desk, where door locks, kiosks and messaging come from specialists and the pms is the record of truth, a revenue team that wants to plug duetto or ideas into live inventory without paying a per-connection interface fee. Of those, a serviced apartment group building its own branded check-in and access flow that needs full pms control through an api rather than a vendor-built kiosk and a european hotel group standardising twenty properties on one system with central rate management and datev-ready accounting exports are not what Lodgify is typically brought in for.
What can Apaleo do that Lodgify cannot?
Apaleo covers Open REST API, Apaleo Store, Multi-property inventory, Apaleo Pay. Lodgify covers Website builder, Channel manager, Booking engine, Unified inbox.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Apaleo: What does Apaleo actually cost for a sixty room hotel?

€480 per month for the platform at €8 per room, plus payment processing from 0.6% and whatever Store integrations you add. Below fifty rooms you pay the €400 floor.

Lodgify: Does Lodgify charge commission on direct bookings?

Yes on the two lower tiers. Starter and Professional take 1.9 per cent of each direct booking; the Ultimate plan removes it.

Apaleo: Is API access charged separately?

No. All APIs are included in the per room fee, which is unusual in the PMS market where interface fees per connection are common.

Lodgify: At what point is Ultimate cheaper than Professional?

Roughly once your direct booking revenue passes about 38,000 dollars a year, at which point the 1.9 per cent fee exceeds the price difference between the plans.

Apaleo: Does it include a channel manager?

No. You connect one from the Store, such as SiteMinder, and pay that vendor separately.

Lodgify: Is Lodgify a full property management system?

No. It is a website, booking engine and channel manager. Housekeeping, task management and owner accounting are largely absent.

Apaleo: Can it run a full service hotel?

Only with additional systems. There is no native POS, spa or events module.

Lodgify: Can it run a hotel?

It is designed for whole-unit vacation rentals. Room-level hotel inventory, folios and night audit are not part of the product.

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