Hostel management system
A hostel management system is the software a hostel runs on: one calendar for every bed, the bookings from your website and the OTAs landing in it, payments, check-in, and the reports at the end of the month. People also call it a hostel PMS.
What's different about running a hostel
What makes it a hostel system and not a hotel one is the unit. A hotel sells rooms. You sell beds, sometimes six of them in one room to six strangers, sometimes the same room as a private the next night. Software that counts rooms gets that wrong in small ways all day.
HostelMate is built around the bed. Lite is $19 a month for up to 30 beds, Advanced is $45 with no bed limit, and neither takes a cut of your bookings.
PMS, channel manager and booking engine: how they fit
Property Management (PMS) the calendar your team works from
The PMS is where the day runs: arrivals, departures, which bed each guest is in, housekeeping, payments and reports. Extend a stay, move a guest to another bed, or split a group's bill without leaving the calendar.
From a walk-in during a rainstorm to a cancellation at midnight, the person on shift makes the change and the rest of the night stays in order. Our hostel PMS guide explains each part in more depth.
Dorms, privates, groups and long stays
Every hostel is a different mix. Some sell only beds, some mix in privates, some host big groups, and some switch to long stays out of season. HostelMate handles:
- Dorms and privates on the same screen, with each bed assigned and female, male or mixed dorms kept apart.
- Groups with deposits, shared or split bills, and beds allocated across dorms.
- Seasons, with rate plans, minimum stays and closed dates.
- Long stays and extensions, edited in a click without breaking the calendar.
What a hostel management system does
Rates set once, sent everywhere
Price by bed or by room, set rates for seasons, weekends and events in bulk, and use occupancy-based pricing where a channel supports it. Switch on demand pricing and rates move with demand through the day.
The calendar shows what's live and where, so nobody has to guess.
What it costs
Lite is $19 a month per property for up to 30 beds. Advanced is $45 with no bed limit. Both include the channel manager and the booking engine, with no fee per booking and no setup fee. Open the live demo, or book a call to talk through your dorms and channels.
Frequently asked questions
A hostel PMS (property management system) is the software that runs a hostel's day: the bed calendar, reservations, check-ins and check-outs, housekeeping, payments and reports, in one place. Unlike hotel software, it's built around the bed, so it can sell and track each bunk in a shared dorm, not just the room.
HostelMate is a hostel PMS with the channel manager and booking engine included. Our hostel PMS guide goes through each part.
The PMS runs the inside of the hostel: the calendar, check-ins and check-outs, bed assignments, housekeeping, payments and reports. It's the record your team works from every day.
The channel manager is the link to the OTAs. It sends your availability, prices and rules to Hostelworld, Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia, and brings their bookings back. The PMS holds the record; the channel manager passes it on.
HostelMate includes both, so there's nothing to sync between them by hand.
Yes. HostelMate is on Hostelworld's own list of connected channel managers. Availability and rates sync both ways, each booking lands on the right dorm in your calendar, and the bed comes off every other connected channel. What syncs with Hostelworld.
Yes. Beds and rooms sit on one calendar, including female, male and mixed dorms, so a hostel with both doesn't need workarounds.
Yes, that's much of what it's for. Every channel reads from one calendar, and a bed sold anywhere comes off the others. Closing a date or a dorm goes everywhere at once.
Booking.com, Hostelworld, Airbnb, Expedia and Agoda, plus more than 100 others through the channel manager, with a different price per channel when you want one.
Yes. Build the name list, assign beds across dorms, take deposits and split the bill, all on one booking.
Send us your current bookings as an export or a spreadsheet, as they are. Small files are usually loaded within the hour, a full property within the day. Then the beds are mapped once, the channels are connected one at a time, and we walk your team through it.
Lite is $19 a month per property for up to 30 beds and Advanced is $45 with no bed limit, with no fee per booking. The pricing page has the full plan comparison, and our comparison of ten hostel systems shows how that sits against the rest.
One that bills per bed, ties every payment to its booking, and handles a group's split bill and an OTA's virtual card in the same place. For most hostels that's the payment side of the hostel management system, not a separate tool.