Softwr

Travel · head to head

Little Hotelier vs Smoobu

Little Hotelier logo

Little Hotelier

Travel

SiteMinder owned front desk and distribution system for properties under twenty rooms

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Smoobu logo

Smoobu

Travel

All-in-one channel manager and PMS for hosts with a handful of holiday rentals

From
€29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Little Hotelier the product is capped by design at small properties, so a hotel growing past roughly twenty rooms faces a migration rather than an upgrade, usually into SiteMinder plus a separate PMS.; Smoobu the Flex plan carries a 0.9% fee on every booking, which on an apartment turning over €40,000 a year costs more than the entire annual subscription saving, and the pricing page presents Flex as the cheaper option.
  • They diverge on capability: Little Hotelier covers Simplified front desk, Smoobu covers Channel manager.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Little Hotelier and Smoobu actually diverge.

Attributes where Little Hotelier and Smoobu differ
AttributeLittle HotelierSmoobu
Starting priceOn request€29/month
Pricing modelquotePer unit per month

Identical on both: free tier (No), platforms (Web, iOS, Android), 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 Little Hotelier

  • Simplified front desk
  • Channel management
  • Direct booking engine
  • Payments
  • Mobile app
  • Guest communication

Only in Smoobu

  • Channel manager
  • Website builder
  • Guest messaging
  • Unified calendar
  • Invoicing and e-invoicing
  • Mobile apps

What people use each for

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

Little Hotelier

  • A ten room guesthouse where the owner works reception and wants OTA sync without a separate channel manager contractnot Smoobu
  • A hostel needing reliable Booking.com and Hostelworld connectivity more than deep property management featuresnot Smoobu
  • A rural B and B replacing a spreadsheet and manual OTA extranet updatesnot Smoobu
  • A small property already comfortable with SiteMinder support and wanting one bill for distribution and front desknot Smoobu

Smoobu

  • A host with three apartments in Berlin who needs Airbnb and Booking.com calendars kept in sync and wants a direct booking site to cut OTA commissionnot Little Hotelier
  • An owner wanting automated check-in instructions and pre-arrival messages sent per channel without logging into each extranetnot Little Hotelier
  • A small manager who needs guest invoices that meet German documentation requirements without adding a separate accounting toolnot Little Hotelier
  • A host testing dynamic pricing through the bundled trial before deciding whether to subscribe to PriceLabs separatelynot Little Hotelier

Where each one falls short

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

Little Hotelier

  • The product is capped by design at small properties, so a hotel growing past roughly twenty rooms faces a migration rather than an upgrade, usually into SiteMinder plus a separate PMS.
  • Reporting is limited to basic occupancy and revenue summaries, which leaves owners exporting to a spreadsheet for anything an accountant or lender asks for.
  • Rate and package logic is simple, so properties with seasonal packages, meal plans or complex tax handling end up adjusting rates manually.
  • The non-distribution integration list is short, so accounting, door lock, POS or CRM tools outside the small supported set have to be handled by rekeying data.
  • Pricing is banded by room count and paid monthly per property, so an operator with three small properties pays three subscriptions with no consolidated view worth the name.

Smoobu

  • The Flex plan carries a 0.9% fee on every booking, which on an apartment turning over €40,000 a year costs more than the entire annual subscription saving, and the pricing page presents Flex as the cheaper option.
  • Pricing is per unit, so a ten unit portfolio pays roughly €31.50 plus nine additional units at about €9.60, and the headline monthly figure covers a single apartment only.
  • Write access is charged per account beyond the included seats, so a cleaner, a co-host and an owner all needing to edit bookings turn into a recurring per seat cost.
  • There is no trust accounting or owner statement generation, so anyone managing units on behalf of third-party owners has to build payout reporting outside the system.
  • Housekeeping and maintenance dispatch is minimal compared with manager-grade platforms, so cleaning coordination happens in WhatsApp or a separate tool once you are past a few units.

Pricing, plan by plan

Little Hotelier

On request
  • Little Hotelier$undefined/month
    • Monthly subscription banded by number of rooms
    • Booking engine and channel manager included
    • Card processing charged per transaction

Smoobu

€29/month
  • Professional Flex$29/month
    • One unit included
    • 0.9% fee on every booking
    • Channel manager, website builder, messaging
  • Professional Prepaid$31.5/month
    • One unit included
    • No booking fee
    • Website builder, invoicing, chatbot, API access
  • Teams Pro+$49.5/month
    • Everything in Prepaid
    • E-invoicing
    • Two write-access accounts, extra accounts from about €12 each

Which should you pick?

Choose Little Hotelier if

  • You need simplified front desk.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want channel management.
Little Hotelier review

Choose Smoobu if

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

Questions people ask

Is Little Hotelier or Smoobu better?
Neither clearly leads. Little Hotelier starts at On request and Smoobu at €29/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Little Hotelier or Smoobu?
Little Hotelier starts at On request and Smoobu at €29/month.
Does Little Hotelier or Smoobu run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, iOS, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Little Hotelier best used for?
Little Hotelier is most often used for a ten room guesthouse where the owner works reception and wants ota sync without a separate channel manager contract, a hostel needing reliable booking.com and hostelworld connectivity more than deep property management features, a rural b and b replacing a spreadsheet and manual ota extranet updates, a small property already comfortable with siteminder support and wanting one bill for distribution and front desk. Of those, a ten room guesthouse where the owner works reception and wants ota sync without a separate channel manager contract and a hostel needing reliable booking.com and hostelworld connectivity more than deep property management features are not what Smoobu is typically brought in for.
What can Little Hotelier do that Smoobu cannot?
Little Hotelier covers Simplified front desk, Channel management, Direct booking engine, Payments. Smoobu covers Channel manager, Website builder, Guest messaging, Unified calendar.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Little Hotelier: Who owns Little Hotelier?

SiteMinder. It is the small property product line of the same company that sells the SiteMinder channel manager.

Smoobu: Which plan is actually cheaper, Flex or Prepaid?

Prepaid, for almost anyone with real occupancy. The 0.9% booking fee on Flex exceeds the subscription difference once annual revenue passes a few thousand euros.

Little Hotelier: What happens when the property outgrows it?

Most operators move to a fuller PMS and keep SiteMinder for distribution. Expect a data migration rather than a plan change.

Smoobu: How many properties does the entry price cover?

One. Every additional unit adds roughly €9.60 per month.

Little Hotelier: Does it include a channel manager?

Yes, built on the SiteMinder network, which is the main reason to choose it over other small property tools.

Smoobu: Does it include dynamic pricing?

Only two months free on the Teams tier. Ongoing dynamic pricing means subscribing to PriceLabs or similar.

Little Hotelier: Can one login manage several properties?

Each property is a separate subscription and the multi-property view is thin, so operators of more than two or three properties usually look elsewhere.

Smoobu: Is there a contract?

Billing is monthly, yearly or two-yearly, with 30 days notice required to cancel; longer terms buy 10% or 20% off.

Share

Related pages

More on Little Hotelier

More on Smoobu

Keep looking

Other head to heads