How HostScore works, where the numbers come from, and what they do — and don't — mean.
HostScore shows how your short-term rental's look and amenities compare to real nearby listings, and what that means for your nightly rate. It combines live comparable-listing data with AI photo analysis. It's a benchmarking and styling tool — not a dynamic pricing engine.
ADR (average daily rate) is the average nightly price a listing actually charged. Occupancy is the share of available nights that got booked. RevPAR (revenue per available night) combines the two — roughly ADR × occupancy — so it reflects revenue, not just headline price. A higher nightly rate can lower occupancy, so the two always have to be read together.
Comparable-listing data (rates, occupancy, amenities) comes from AirROI, which aggregates public short-term-rental performance data. Photo analysis is done by Claude, Anthropic's AI. Rate and occupancy figures are trailing-twelve-month averages, so they smooth out seasonality rather than reflecting this week specifically.
Comps are refreshed when you run an analysis and cached for about 7 days, so re-running within a week returns the same set. Reports older than 7 days show a nudge to re-run. Premium properties also auto-refresh weekly; Starter refreshes monthly or on demand.
It starts from the average nightly rate of your comparable listings, then adjusts up or down based on which of your amenities carry a measurable rate premium in that specific comp set. The adjustment is deliberately dampened and capped, so a thin data pattern can't swing the number wildly. It is a directional benchmark, not a guarantee — and it does not account for how a higher rate would affect your occupancy.
Not necessarily. A premium like "+18% ADR" means listings in your area that have that amenity tend to charge more — it's a correlation across real listings, not a promise that adding it to your place raises your rate by that amount. Nicer listings often have several premium amenities at once, so the effects overlap. Treat these as signals about what your market values, not guaranteed returns.
They're pulled from your address and your bedroom, bathroom, and guest counts, so they're listings genuinely similar in size and location. Monthly and long-stay rentals (two-week-plus minimums) are excluded from the rate math, because comparing a nightly rate against a monthly rental isn't apples-to-apples — when several are found, the report tells you how many were set aside.
That's usually a good sign — it means your amenities are roughly in line with your comps. The estimate only moves when an amenity shows a premium supported by enough listings to be trustworthy (we require at least three on each side of the comparison), so small or coincidental patterns are intentionally ignored.
On a paid plan (or a one-time audit), we run photo analysis on up to 15 of your top comps and compare the styling patterns that correlate with higher rates against what we detect in your own photos — split into what's working in your favor and what's working against you. Because it's based on a limited comp sample, we treat it as directional guidance, not a precise dollar figure, which is why it isn't folded into your ADR estimate.
If you selected your address from the autocomplete, we show true straight-line distance from your property. Comp coordinates from listing platforms are intentionally approximate (hosts' exact addresses are hidden), so distances are rounded and should be read as "about this far."
Market avg ADR is a trailing-twelve-month average, which smooths out seasonality but can lag a market that's moving right now. This line compares the same comp set's average rate over just the last 90 days against that 12-month baseline, as a directional "is the market currently running hotter or cooler than its own recent history" signal. It only appears when enough comps have recent-90-day data to be trustworthy. We intentionally don't show a 90-day occupancy figure the same way — occupancy over a short recent window can read artificially low simply because a listing had limited availability in that window, not because demand actually dropped.
Clear, well-lit interior shots of the main rooms work best — a living room or primary bedroom is a great start. You can label each photo by room on any plan; Premium's higher photo limit (5, vs. Starter's 2) just gives you more rooms to document. Blurry, dark, or exterior-only photos give the analysis less to work with.
On a paid plan (or a one-time audit), HostScore turns your report into a starting point for a real listing: a suggested nightly price range, the amenities worth featuring, and an AI-drafted title and description you can copy straight into Airbnb. It's grounded only in your actual detected styling and amenities — it won't invent features you don't have — and it's a draft to edit, not a finished listing.
Your photos are sent to Anthropic (Claude) to detect styling tags, and stored with our infrastructure providers. They aren't shared beyond what's needed to produce your report. See our Privacy Policy for details.
Both give you the exact same depth of analysis — comp photo aesthetics, amenity premiums, and an AI-drafted listing. The $35 audit is a single full-depth report on one property, kept for 90 days with one re-run included — a good fit if you just want a thorough check before making changes, with no ongoing commitment. A subscription (Starter $29/mo or Premium $99/mo) makes more sense once you want continuous tracking — a monthly digest, comps refreshed automatically, and a history of how your numbers move over time — or once you have more than one property to cover. If you buy an audit and subscribe later, the subscription simply takes over; you don't lose anything.
Both include the full analysis — aesthetic premiums from your comps' photos, the AI-drafted suggested listing, everything. Starter ($29/mo) covers up to 3 properties, 2 photos each, refreshed manually or monthly. Premium ($99/mo) is built for managing a larger portfolio: up to 10 properties, 5 photos each with per-room labels, weekly auto-refresh, and a portfolio rollup dashboard summarizing all your properties at a glance.
Yes. You can cancel from your settings at any time; your plan stays active through the end of the billing period you've already paid for. See our Terms for the full billing details.
Still have a question? Email support@hostscore.io.