Is Kayak or Uplisting better?

Neither clearly leads. Kayak starts at Free and Uplisting at $100/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Kayak or Uplisting?

Kayak has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Kayak and $100/month for Uplisting.

Does Kayak or Uplisting run on more platforms?

Kayak runs on iOS, Android, Web. Uplisting runs on Web, iOS, Android.

Can I use Kayak for free?

Yes. Kayak has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Uplisting starts at $100/month.

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 Uplisting is typically brought in for.

What can Kayak do that Uplisting cannot?

Kayak covers Flight, hotel and car comparison, Price alerts, Price prediction, Flexible date search. Uplisting covers Channel sync, Direct booking site, Automated messaging, Cleaning and team management.

Travel · head to head

Kayak vs Uplisting

Kayak

Travel

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

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Uplisting

Travel

Short-term rental management with a flat per-property price and no percentage of revenue

From: $100/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

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.; Uplisting the 100 US dollar monthly minimum means an owner with one or two properties pays roughly fifty dollars per unit, five times the effective rate a twenty-unit manager pays.
They diverge on capability: Kayak covers Flight, hotel and car comparison, Uplisting covers Channel sync.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Kayak and Uplisting actually diverge.

Attributes where Kayak and Uplisting differ
Attribute	Kayak	Uplisting
Starting price	Free	$100/month
Pricing model	Free to users, revenue from referral commissions and advertising	Per property per month
Free tier	Yes	No
Platforms	iOS, Android, Web	Web, iOS, Android

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 Uplisting

Channel sync
Direct booking site
Automated messaging
Cleaning and team management
Guest verification
Smart lock codes
Unified inbox
Multi-unit handling

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 Uplisting
Setting a price alert to buy a flight or hotel once the price dropsnot Uplisting
Searching flexible dates or nearby airports to find a cheaper farenot Uplisting
Comparing car hire prices across rental companies for a tripnot Uplisting

Uplisting

A manager with fifteen city apartments who wants fixed software cost rather than a percentage of high nightly ratesnot Kayak
An operator burned by double bookings across Airbnb and Booking.com wanting hard sync protectionnot Kayak
A team coordinating cleaners across same-day turnovers with automated task assignmentnot Kayak
A host issuing smart lock codes automatically instead of arranging key handoversnot 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.

Uplisting

The 100 US dollar monthly minimum means an owner with one or two properties pays roughly fifty dollars per unit, five times the effective rate a twenty-unit manager pays.
Owner statements and trust accounting are effectively absent, so agencies that must report to and pay property owners need separate bookkeeping alongside it.
Payments are tied to Stripe for direct bookings, which limits operators in countries Stripe does not serve well or who want to keep an existing acquiring relationship.
Channel coverage is narrower than the larger platforms: Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo are solid but regional OTAs and wholesale distribution are not there.
Reporting is basic, with limited custom report building, so investors or multi-entity operators typically export data and analyse it elsewhere.

Pricing, plan by plan

Kayak

Free

FreeFree
- Unlimited search and price alerts
- No subscription tier

Uplisting

$100/month

Pro$100/month
- 100 USD monthly minimum
- About 20 USD per property per month
- Channel manager, direct booking site and automation included
Pro at scale (21 to 100 listings)$undefined/month
- About 10 USD per additional listing beyond twenty
- Same feature set
- No revenue share
Pro above 100 listings$undefined/month
- About 5 USD per additional listing beyond one hundred
- Volume rate for larger portfolios
- No revenue share

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 Uplisting if

You need channel sync.
You work on Web, iOS, Android.
You also want direct booking site.

Uplisting review

Questions people ask

Is Kayak or Uplisting better?: Neither clearly leads. Kayak starts at Free and Uplisting at $100/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Kayak or Uplisting?: Kayak has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Kayak and $100/month for Uplisting.
Does Kayak or Uplisting run on more platforms?: Kayak runs on iOS, Android, Web. Uplisting runs on Web, iOS, Android.
Can I use Kayak for free?: Yes. Kayak has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Uplisting starts at $100/month.
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 Uplisting is typically brought in for.
What can Kayak do that Uplisting cannot?: Kayak covers Flight, hotel and car comparison, Price alerts, Price prediction, Flexible date search. Uplisting covers Channel sync, Direct booking site, Automated messaging, Cleaning and team management.

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.

Uplisting: Does Uplisting take a percentage of bookings?

No. It charges a flat monthly rate per property and takes no cut of reservation value, including on direct bookings.

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.

Uplisting: What is the minimum I can spend?

One hundred US dollars a month, regardless of whether you have one property or five.

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.

Uplisting: Does it do owner payouts and statements?

Not meaningfully. Managers who owe monthly statements to property owners generally run accounting separately or choose Hostaway or Guesty instead.

Uplisting: Which channels connect?

Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo are the core two-way connections, plus its own direct booking site and Google Vacation Rentals.

Kayak vs Uplisting

Kayak

Uplisting

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Kayak

Only in Uplisting

What people use each for

Kayak

Uplisting

Where each one falls short

Kayak

Uplisting

Pricing, plan by plan

Kayak

Uplisting

Which should you pick?

Choose Kayak if

Choose Uplisting if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Kayak

More on Uplisting

Keep looking

Other head to heads