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Compared, October 2026

HomeRunner vs Hostaway Booking Website Pro

Hostaway gives every customer a free one-page site and sells Booking Website Pro as a $49-a-month add-on with a 0.5% reservation fee. HomeRunner is a flat-fee booking engine that adds to your own website and syncs with Hostaway. Both can take payment on the page. They differ on what you own and what the fees add up to.

By Eli Pritykin, founder of HomeRunner and Hudson Creative Studio. Updated October 2026. Part of the full comparison of seven builders.

The short version Jump to the table

The short version

Two good answers to different questions.

Pick Booking Website Pro if

you are on Hostaway for the long haul, you have a small portfolio, and you want a no-code site with a blog and email tools for $49 a month.213

Ours

Pick HomeRunner if

you want the site to be yours, you want a flat fee with no percentage, and you want it to stay standing if you ever change PMS.412

What the Hostaway connection supports

Side by side

Eight criteria, both products.

Each cell is a fact from the vendor’s own pages, with the source number. Scroll sideways on a phone.

CriterionHomeRunnerHostaway Booking Website Pro
01PMS depthHostaway connection with reservation creation, webhooks, coupons, length discounts and upsells. Instant Book or Reservation Request chosen at connect.1Native. Listings, availability and bookings sync with no setup.2
02ConversionSearch, map, live quotes, extras, on-site checkout with Stripe. AI search and rate comparison as paid add-ons.13Instant booking, extras at checkout, coupons, reviews, pop-ups. Guests pay on the site.2
03OwnershipYour site, domain, content and data. Cancel and the site stays; the booking engine stops.4Your domain, your DNS. Hostaway hosting. When Pro ends the site is taken offline. Downgrading to Standard deletes the content. On an agreement with a BWP Minimum or a fixed term, the website cannot be cancelled on its own before the term ends, and the minimum accrues from the contract start even if no site is published.5
04Continuous improvementOne codebase, same release everywhere. At least 276 dated public changelog entries between mid-July and 10 October 2026.6No website changelog found on the pages we read. The product is mid-redesign per its own help pages.7
05EditabilityYour own site editor plus a Template Customizer (Conversion Kit add-on) for HomeRunner page sections.8Drag-and-drop editor, AI content assistant, blog. Property pages are styled in a separate Design section.27
06Any websiteAdds to the site you already have. WordPress and custom-coded sites today; Squarespace and Webflow in early access.9Built on Hostaway. Embeddable search bar and calendar widgets exist for other sites; Hostaway’s own article says WordPress embeds are no longer supported.10
07AI readinessMachine-readable property pages, AI sitemap, read counts, attributed bookings. Included.11AI-written titles and meta, SEO settings in the dashboard.2
0812-month cost$540 at 5 listings, $1,140 at 15, $2,100 at 25. Flat. No guest fee.12$588 plus 0.5% of bookings, plus your Hostaway plan. Guests pay a further 1.8% in the US. At $30,000 a month of direct bookings that is $2,388 a year for you and $6,480 for your guests.13
Twelve-month cost counts the software only. PMS plan, payment processing and hosting are extra on both sides.Run your own numbers Sources

Where each one wins

Where Booking Website Pro wins, where HomeRunner wins, where we lose.

Where Booking Website Pro wins

  • Price, for a Hostaway customer. $49 a month buys a builder, a blog, email campaigns and pop-ups. The Standard site is free.13
  • Nothing to connect. Reservations land natively with no sync layer, and support is one desk with 24/7 phone coverage.2
  • Nothing to host, nothing to update.
  • Unlimited sites per account, billed only when published.14
  • An embeddable search bar and calendar for a site you already have on Wix or similar.10

Where HomeRunner wins

  • The fee is flat. Hostaway adds 0.5% of every booking the site generates and charges US guests 1.8% on top.13
  • The website is yours. Hostaway’s terms say the site goes offline when Pro ends and the content is deleted on a downgrade.5
  • Checkout on your domain is the default with Stripe, and your analytics see the whole funnel.115
  • No template ceiling, and the site keeps working through a PMS change.

Where we lose

  • Live today on WordPress and custom-coded sites. Squarespace and Webflow are in early access.9
  • With a gateway other than Stripe, checkout may not stay on your site.1
  • Hosting is your cost and a bespoke design is a separate quoted project.16
  • Hostaway bundles email campaigns and pop-ups into the $49. HomeRunner captures guests to Hostaway and leaves email to your PMS or an email tool.
  • Hostaway’s Standard site is free. Nothing we offer is free except the Toolkit, the AI Booking Channel and the read-only MCP server, all on top of a paid Core plan.12

Switching

Looking for a Hostaway Booking Website Pro alternative?

The two reasons we hear: the percentage fees, and the site belonging to Hostaway rather than to the operator. Hudson Creative Studio, the studio behind HomeRunner, is listed on the Hostaway Marketplace under direct booking websites.17

What moves: nothing in Hostaway changes. Listings, pricing, availability and reviews sync to the new site, and reservations are created in Hostaway as Instant Book or Reservation Request, your choice. What changes: the site is yours, the fee is flat, and whether Hostaway’s guest fee applies to bookings paid through your own Stripe is a question to put to Hostaway. If you have a website, HomeRunner installs into it. If not, a pre-built site from Hudson Creative Studio ($2,000) or a bespoke build by Hudson Creative Studio or a partner studio under Hire an Expert gets you one. Setup help is unlimited and there are no fees until live.1912

Tell us about your portfolio See pricing

Frequently asked

The questions that come up on calls.

Have a situation these do not cover? Tell us about your portfolio and we will say which option fits, including the one that is not ours.

Does HomeRunner take payment on my site with Hostaway?

Yes, with Stripe connected to your Hostaway properties. With another gateway, checkout may not stay on your site. Source 1

What does Hostaway charge for Booking Website Pro?

$49 a month plus a 0.5% reservation fee on bookings generated through it, per Hostaway’s direct booking page. Hostaway’s terms also allow a per-site minimum charge, so your agreement governs. Sources 13, 5

What happens to a Booking Website Pro site if I cancel?

Hostaway’s terms say any public-facing website it powers is taken offline. Your reservations stay in Hostaway. If your agreement carries a BWP Minimum or a fixed term, the same terms say you cannot cancel the website on its own before the term ends, and the minimum keeps accruing. Source 5

Can I run both for a while?

Yes. Hostaway’s site and a HomeRunner site are separate domains or subdomains, both synced to the same Hostaway account.

Does HomeRunner need a WordPress site?

No. It adds to the website you already have. WordPress and custom-coded sites are live today; Squarespace and Webflow are in early access. Source 9

Sources

Every number on this page, and where we read it.

17 sources, all read 10 October 2026
  1. homerunner.io/integrations/hostaway/ ; homerunner.io/docs/feature-support-by-pms/
  2. www.hostaway.com/features/direct-booking/
  3. homerunner.io/#pricing ; homerunner.io/docs/ckit-overview/
  4. homerunner.io/#pricing FAQ (“HomeRunner runs on your site and your domain. The design and content are yours”); homerunner.io/terms-of-service/
  5. support.hostaway.com/hc/en-us/articles/47966103093787 (Terms 5.2 “taken offline”; 3.3 “charged from the commencement of the Contract, regardless of whether any Booking Website Pro instance has been created”; 5.1 “may not cancel the Booking Website Pro independently of the Agreement”); support.hostaway.com/hc/en-us/articles/47672142150427 (“the content will be deleted”)
  6. homerunner.io/docs/toolkit-changelog/ ; homerunner.io/docs/conversion-kit-changelog/ ; homerunner.io/docs/ai-concierge-changelog/
  7. support.hostaway.com/hc/en-us/articles/47672142150427 (“being updated to a new version”)
  8. homerunner.io/docs/ckit-overview/
  9. homerunner.io/any-website/ (“WordPress and custom-coded sites are live now. Squarespace, Webflow and other platforms are in early access”)
  10. support.hostaway.com/hc/en-us/articles/9521197987995 (“WordPress is deprecated, and unfortunately, is no longer supported”)
  11. homerunner.io/ai-ready/ ; homerunner.io/docs/toolkit-ai-booking-channel/
  12. homerunner.io/#pricing (rate card; “No fees until you’re live”)
  13. www.hostaway.com/features/direct-booking/ (“$49/month, plus a 0.5% reservation fee”; “charges a 1.8% fee directly to guests (US only)”)
  14. support.hostaway.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409887050011
  15. homerunner.io/docs/how-conversion-tracking-works/
  16. homerunner.io/integrations/ (read 2026-10-11: “PMS charges, payment-provider fees, hosting, optional paid add-ons and any separately purchased website services still apply”)
  17. support.hostaway.com/hc/en-us/articles/33617377742235

Compared against five more builders in the full guide to direct booking website builders. Connection details: HomeRunner for Hostaway. Other comparisons: all HomeRunner vs pages.

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