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Travel · head to head

Kayak vs TrustYou

Kayak logo

Kayak

Travel

Travel search app comparing flights, hotels and car hire across other booking sites, owned by Booking Holdings

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
TrustYou logo

TrustYou

Travel

Guest review aggregation, survey and reputation analytics for hotels

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Kayak has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Kayak it is owned by Booking Holdings, the same parent as Booking.com and Priceline, so its comparison results are not fully independent of its own group's commercial interests.; TrustYou pricing is not published at any tier, so a single hotel cannot compare it against cheaper reputation tools without entering a sales process.
  • They diverge on capability: Kayak covers Flight, hotel and car comparison, TrustYou covers Review aggregation.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Kayak and TrustYou actually diverge.

Attributes where Kayak and TrustYou differ
AttributeKayakTrustYou
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelFree to users, revenue from referral commissions and advertisingquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsiOS, Android, WebWeb

Identical on both: 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 Kayak

  • Flight, hotel and car comparison
  • Price alerts
  • Price prediction
  • Flexible date search
  • Trip planning tools
  • Explore/anywhere search

Only in TrustYou

  • Review aggregation
  • Semantic analysis
  • Competitor benchmarking
  • Guest surveys
  • Review response tooling
  • Score syndication
  • Multi-property reporting
  • Customer data profiles

What people use each for

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

Kayak

  • Comparing flight prices across multiple airlines and booking sites before purchasingnot TrustYou
  • Setting a price alert to buy a flight or hotel once the price dropsnot TrustYou
  • Searching flexible dates or nearby airports to find a cheaper farenot TrustYou
  • Comparing car hire prices across rental companies for a tripnot TrustYou

TrustYou

  • A group quality director tracking which operational category drives score decline across thirty hotelsnot Kayak
  • An independent hotel putting verified review content on its own booking page to compete with OTA social proofnot Kayak
  • A property running post-stay surveys in several languages and analysing them together with public reviewsnot Kayak
  • A chain standardising review response so individual general managers are not writing replies ad hocnot Kayak

Where each one falls short

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

Kayak

  • It is owned by Booking Holdings, the same parent as Booking.com and Priceline, so its comparison results are not fully independent of its own group's commercial interests.
  • Some airlines opt out of listing on metasearch sites entirely, so Kayak's results are not a complete view of every available fare in the market.
  • Revenue comes from referral commissions, and prominence in results can be influenced by which suppliers pay Kayak more, not purely by lowest price.
  • The actual booking typically completes on a third party site, so problems with a booking, cancellation or refund are handled by that site's customer service, not Kayak's.
  • Displayed prices can change or fail to match by the time a user reaches the booking site, since Kayak is not always querying live inventory in real time for every listed fare.

TrustYou

  • Pricing is not published at any tier, so a single hotel cannot compare it against cheaper reputation tools without entering a sales process.
  • Review syncing is not instant, and delays between a review appearing publicly and appearing in the dashboard undermine the case for using it as an operational alert system.
  • Reporting is inflexible next to a general analytics tool, and groups that want a custom cut of the data often export it rather than build the view inside TrustYou.
  • The newer customer data platform modules overlap heavily with functionality in modern property management systems and hotel CRMs, so buyers risk paying twice for guest profile unification.
  • Much of the underlying review data is now retrievable free through Google Business Profile and OTA extranets, which makes the value proposition rest entirely on analysis and workflow rather than access.

Pricing, plan by plan

Kayak

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Unlimited search and price alerts
    • No subscription tier

TrustYou

On request
  • TrustYou platform$undefined/year
    • Quoted per property, scaling by portfolio size
    • Reputation, survey and customer data modules priced separately
    • No public rate card

Which should you pick?

Choose Kayak if

  • You need flight, hotel and car comparison.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on iOS, Android, Web.
  • You also want price alerts.
Kayak review

Choose TrustYou if

  • You need review aggregation.
  • You also want semantic analysis.
TrustYou review

Questions people ask

Is Kayak or TrustYou better?
Neither clearly leads. Kayak starts at Free and TrustYou at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Kayak or TrustYou?
Kayak has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Kayak and On request for TrustYou.
Does Kayak or TrustYou run on more platforms?
Kayak runs on iOS, Android, Web. TrustYou runs on Web.
Can I use Kayak for free?
Yes. Kayak has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. TrustYou starts at On request.
What is Kayak best used for?
Kayak is most often used for comparing flight prices across multiple airlines and booking sites before purchasing, setting a price alert to buy a flight or hotel once the price drops, searching flexible dates or nearby airports to find a cheaper fare, comparing car hire prices across rental companies for a trip. Of those, comparing flight prices across multiple airlines and booking sites before purchasing and setting a price alert to buy a flight or hotel once the price drops are not what TrustYou is typically brought in for.
What can Kayak do that TrustYou cannot?
Kayak covers Flight, hotel and car comparison, Price alerts, Price prediction, Flexible date search. TrustYou covers Review aggregation, Semantic analysis, Competitor benchmarking, Guest surveys.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Kayak: Does Kayak charge a booking fee?

No, Kayak itself is free to use; it earns referral commissions from the airlines, hotels and sites it sends bookings to.

TrustYou: How much does TrustYou cost?

It is quoted. Historical directory listings mention entry figures around 75 US dollars a month for a small property, but the vendor does not publish a rate card and group pricing is negotiated.

Kayak: Do I book directly through Kayak?

Usually the booking completes on the airline, hotel or travel site's own platform after Kayak hands off the click, though some direct booking options exist for select content.

TrustYou: Does it respond to reviews for me?

It drafts responses and publishes them back to source channels, but a human still approves them unless you configure otherwise.

Kayak: Is Kayak owned by an airline or hotel chain?

No, it is owned by Booking Holdings, which also owns Booking.com, Priceline and Agoda.

TrustYou: Is the score syndication worth it?

It is one of the more defensible parts of the product, because showing verified review content on a direct booking page counters the social proof advantage OTAs hold.

TrustYou: Do I need it if I use Google Business Profile?

Google gives you your own reviews free. TrustYou adds cross-source aggregation, competitor benchmarking and category-level sentiment, which is the part you are paying for.

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