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Travel · head to head

Egencia vs Hostaway

Egencia logo

Egencia

Travel

Corporate online booking and travel management from Amex GBT for mid-market and enterprise programmes

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Hostaway logo

Hostaway

Travel

Vacation rental management platform for professional operators

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Egencia pricing is per transaction and offline touches cost several times an online booking, so a programme with many complex multi-leg itineraries pays far more than the headline online fee suggests.; Hostaway quote-only pricing scaled by listing count, with an onboarding fee commonly reported, so entry cost is real
  • They diverge on capability: Egencia covers Policy and approval engine, Hostaway covers Multi-channel distribution.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Egencia and Hostaway actually diverge.

Attributes where Egencia and Hostaway differ
AttributeEgenciaHostaway
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, iOS, Android, Cloud

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), 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 Egencia

  • Policy and approval engine
  • Negotiated rate loading
  • Traveller tracking
  • Agent support
  • Concur Expense integration
  • AI booking assistant

Only in Hostaway

  • Multi-channel distribution
  • Unified inbox
  • Automation
  • Owner statements

What people use each for

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

Egencia

  • A company of several hundred travellers wanting negotiated hotel rates without paying for a high-touch TMCnot Hostaway
  • A finance team standardising on SAP Concur that wants booking data pre-populating expense reportsnot Hostaway
  • A multi-country employer needing consolidated duty of care reporting on where staff are travellingnot Hostaway
  • An organisation moving off a regional TMC and wanting one supplier across Europe and North Americanot Hostaway

Hostaway

  • Managers running portfolios across several booking channelsnot Egencia
  • Operators whose margin goes to manual guest messaging and turnover coordinationnot Egencia
  • Companies producing owner statements for managed propertiesnot Egencia

Where each one falls short

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

Egencia

  • Pricing is per transaction and offline touches cost several times an online booking, so a programme with many complex multi-leg itineraries pays far more than the headline online fee suggests.
  • It is now a service tier inside Amex GBT rather than an independent supplier, so a competitive process that shortlists both Egencia and Amex GBT is not really two bids.
  • Regional content and service quality are uneven, and companies with travellers in smaller markets often find local fares and hotels missing from the tool and end up going offline.
  • Implementation to load negotiated rates and configure policy typically runs months, and rate loading errors surface as travellers seeing the wrong prices rather than as a clean failure.
  • Because the platform underwent a relaunch on new architecture, customers migrating from the older Egencia stack have faced feature parity gaps and retraining during the transition.

Hostaway

  • Quote-only pricing scaled by listing count, with an onboarding fee commonly reported, so entry cost is real
  • Built for professional operators; single-property hosts find the cost per unit hard to justify
  • Channel sync inherits the reliability of the booking platforms it connects to
  • Depth in individual modules is shallower than dedicated point tools

Pricing, plan by plan

Egencia

On request
  • Egencia$undefined/year
    • Per-transaction booking fees, online and offline rates differ
    • Optional annual platform or management fee
    • Implementation and rate loading charges

Hostaway

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Hostaway review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Egencia if

  • You need policy and approval engine.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want negotiated rate loading.
Egencia review

Choose Hostaway if

  • You need multi-channel distribution.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Cloud.
  • You also want unified inbox.
Hostaway review

Questions people ask

Is Egencia or Hostaway better?
Neither clearly leads. Egencia starts at On request and Hostaway at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Egencia or Hostaway?
Egencia starts at On request and Hostaway at On request.
Does Egencia or Hostaway run on more platforms?
Egencia runs on Web, iOS, Android. Hostaway runs on Web, iOS, Android, Cloud.
What is Egencia best used for?
Egencia is most often used for a company of several hundred travellers wanting negotiated hotel rates without paying for a high-touch tmc, a finance team standardising on sap concur that wants booking data pre-populating expense reports, a multi-country employer needing consolidated duty of care reporting on where staff are travelling, an organisation moving off a regional tmc and wanting one supplier across europe and north america. Of those, a company of several hundred travellers wanting negotiated hotel rates without paying for a high-touch tmc and a finance team standardising on sap concur that wants booking data pre-populating expense reports are not what Hostaway is typically brought in for.
What can Egencia do that Hostaway cannot?
Egencia covers Policy and approval engine, Negotiated rate loading, Traveller tracking, Agent support. Hostaway covers Multi-channel distribution, Unified inbox, Automation, Owner statements.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Egencia: Is Egencia still sold under its own name?

Yes. Amex GBT bought it in 2021 and kept the brand, relaunching it in 2026 with a conversational AI assistant and a Concur Expense integration.

Hostaway: What does Hostaway cost?

It quotes by listing count and modules and does not publish rates. An onboarding fee is commonly part of the arrangement.

Egencia: How is it different from Amex GBT itself?

Egencia is the more self-service, lower-touch tier of the same company, aimed at mid-market programmes; Amex GBT proper is the high-touch enterprise service.

Hostaway: Hostaway or Guesty?

They compete for the same professional operator market with broadly similar feature sets. Differences usually come down to quoted price, onboarding and specific channel or PMS integrations.

Egencia: Does it replace an expense system?

No. It books travel and feeds data to expense tools such as SAP Concur; you still need an expense product.

Hostaway: Is it worth it for one or two listings?

Generally not. It is built for portfolios, and the per-unit cost is hard to justify below a handful of properties.

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