Every time I turn around on LinkedIn, I see another revenue management company. They all claim the same thing.
Better algorithms. Smarter pricing. More revenue. Some variation of "we use data to optimize your rates." As if that sentence means anything anymore.
Strip the logos off their websites and you couldn't tell them apart. The pitches blur together because the underlying approach is identical.
I'm not saying these tools are bad. Some of them are genuinely good at what they do. The problem is what they do is the same thing. They pull in comp data, layer on some seasonality adjustments, maybe fold in local events, and spit out a nightly rate. That's the playbook. Everyone runs it.
Operators feel this. They feel it in the sales calls that all blur together. They feel it when they switch from one tool to another and the results look roughly the same. They feel it when they're told to "trust the algorithm" without being shown what the algorithm actually sees.
The fatigue isn't about too many options. It's about too many identical options.
The pitch that never changes
Here's how the typical demo goes. The rep shows you a dashboard. There's a calendar with color-coded rates. There's a graph showing your revenue going up compared to a "baseline." They mention machine learning. They mention competitor analysis. They mention dynamic pricing.
Then they ask you to connect your PMS and let the system run.
And maybe it works. Maybe your revenue goes up 8%. But you have no idea why. Was it the tool? Was it the weather? Was it a Taylor Swift concert three towns over that drove demand you never saw coming?
"Was it the tool or the weather? How much of that 8% is your tool?"
— Brock, 170-listing operator
Nobody could answer him. Not one vendor. That's the moment the fatigue turns into distrust.
What operators actually want to see
The pattern is clear. Operators aren't looking for another pricing engine. They've tried those. What they want is something nobody has shown them yet.
Their own demand.
Not comps. Not market averages. Not what the property down the road charged last July. They want to know who is looking at their property right now. Where those people are coming from. What those people are willing to spend. Whether the traffic they're getting this week is the same quality as the traffic they got last month.
The market doesn't need another tool that does the same thing with different branding.
It's like setting the price of a house without knowing who's walking through the open home. A first-time buyer stretching their budget and a cash investor looking for their fifth property are not the same buyer. You'd talk to them differently. You'd negotiate differently. You'd position the property differently.
Vacation rentals skip that step entirely.
The only way through the noise
When every pitch sounds the same, operators tune out. And I get it. I would too.
The only way to break through isn't a better version of the same thing. It's a different thing entirely. Not "our algorithm is smarter." Not "we use more data points." Those claims are dead on arrival because everyone makes them.
The way through is showing an operator something about their own business that they've never been able to see before. Something specific. Something they can verify against their own experience.
When someone sees their actual demand mapped out for the first time, the conversation changes. They stop comparing features. They stop asking about integrations. They start asking questions they've never thought to ask before.
The market doesn't need another revenue management tool. It needs the layer of intelligence that every revenue management tool assumed someone else was providing.
Nobody was.