---
title: "Cohosty alternative: HolidayHero vs Cohosty"
description: "Looking for a Cohosty alternative? Compare HolidayHero and Cohosty on check-in, guest app, AI messaging, upsells, integrations, data and pricing."
url: "https://www.holidayhero.com/compare/holidayhero-vs-cohosty"
updated: "2026-07-27T08:15:14+00:00"
---

# HolidayHero vs Cohosty

> Cohosty is an AI guest assistant for holiday homes, built in Italy: the guest scans a QR code, opens a chat and gets answers about the house and the area in their own language, with extras requestable from the same window. HolidayHero covers that ground and keeps going, into arrival and check-in, messaging across channels, revenue that reaches the folio and the supplier, and operations. The difference is scope: a chat assistant for a property versus a platform that runs the whole stay.

## Capability comparison

### Arrival & check-in

| Capability | HolidayHero | Cohosty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Online check-in before arrival | Included — Configurable fields per brand | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| ID / passport capture & verification | Included — Document capture by listing country | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Automatic guest registration filing (police / municipality) | Included — Live for Spain (SES.Hospedajes); Italy on the roadmap | Not available — Not publicly documented; terms leave filing to the host |
| Smart-lock / door-code / mobile-key access | Included — Locks plus the wider smart-home layer | Not available — Not publicly documented |

### Guest app & experience

| Capability | HolidayHero | Cohosty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Own colours, logo & theme on the guest app + comms | Included — Own colours, logo and theme | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Guest app served on the operator's own domain | Included — Guest app on your own domain | Not available — Chat sits on Cohosty's domain; own domain not publicly documented |
| Guest app adapts by moment-in-time vs the reservation (stages) | Included — Reservation stages drive what is visible | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Guests and operators add items to an in-app itinerary | Included — Guests and operators both add items | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Create / sort / hide custom guest-app sections | Included — Create, sort and hide sections | Not available — Fixed layout; custom sections not publicly documented |
| Digital guidebooks / house manual | Included — Guidebooks with attached documents | Included — House manual built from an uploaded PDF |
| Auto-translation into many guest languages | Included — Auto-translation across app and comms | Included — Answers in the guest's own language |
| Local / venue events distributed to guests in the app | Included — Events per location, fed to the app | Partial — Custom local events on the Pro plan |

### Messaging & AI

| Capability | HolidayHero | Cohosty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| One inbox across channels | Included — Email, WhatsApp and SMS in one place | Not available — Single web-chat channel; multi-channel inbox not publicly documented |
| Autonomous AI answering & actioning guest messages | Included — Answers, recommends and routes | Included — The core product; escalates to the host |
| WhatsApp as a guest channel | Included — Two-way, with images and documents | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Scheduled / templated messages gated by conditional rules | Included — Templates gated by conditional rules | Not available — Guest-initiated chat; scheduled messaging not publicly documented |
| Booking.com / Airbnb messages synced into the inbox | Included — Booking.com relay and Airbnb | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| PMS guest-message threads synced into the inbox | Included — PMS threads in the same inbox | Not available — Not publicly documented |

### Upsells & revenue

| Capability | HolidayHero | Cohosty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Upsell / ancillary catalogue in the guest app | Included — Products with pricing, VAT and translations | Partial — Bookable extras from the Pro plan |
| Charges post to the folio / PMS bill | Included — Posts to the folio via supported PMS | Not available — Not publicly documented; payment handled off-platform |
| Supplier routing with automatic commission split | Included — Automatic three-way commission split | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Inquiries offloaded directly to suppliers (no middleman) | Included — Routed straight to the supplier portal | Not available — Requests go to the host; supplier routing not publicly documented |
| Local experiences / activities catalogue | Included — Curated local experiences catalogue | Partial — Local experiences as extras, Pro plan |

### Operations & intelligence

| Capability | HolidayHero | Cohosty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Single operational dashboard for the property | Included — One dashboard across the property | Included — Dashboard for conversations and extra requests |
| Guest-app analytics / actionable insights from guest data | Included — Insights across the guest journey | Included — Basic on Base, advanced on Pro |
| Guest sentiment detection | Included — Sentiment surfaced before checkout | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Composite 0–100 guest engagement score (5 dimensions) | Included — Composite 0–100 score, 5 dimensions | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Event-driven automations / workflow builder | Included — Event-driven automations and rules | Not available — Auto-accept on extras; workflow builder not publicly documented |
| In-stay surveys & post-stay review generation | Included — In-stay surveys into post-stay reviews | Not available — Assistant feedback only; in-stay surveys not publicly documented |

### Platform & fit

| Capability | HolidayHero | Cohosty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Runs beside the existing PMS (no rip-and-replace) | Included — Runs beside the PMS you already have | Included — Standalone, so it sits beside any PMS |
| Headless guest app: run the guest experience inside your own app/site | Included — Run the experience in your own app or site | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Integration API for system-to-system integration | Included — Integration API for system-to-system | Not available — No public API documentation |
| Breadth of PMS / channel / lock / payment integrations | Included — Around 17 PMS plus locks, devices, registration | Not available — No operator-facing integrations publicly documented |
| Multi-property / group management & rollup | Included — Workspaces rolling up to one organisation | Included — One dashboard, up to 100 properties |
| Run multiple distinct brands from one account | Included — Several distinct brands from one account | Not available — Not publicly documented |

### Pricing & commercial

| Capability | HolidayHero | Cohosty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Public, self-serve pricing (no mandatory sales call) | Included — Published, from 6.50 euro per unit per month | Included — 6.90 euro Base, 9.90 euro Pro; quote above 3 properties |
| Free / self-serve start | Included — Free trial, self-serve signup | Included — 14-day free trial, self-serve signup |
| No commission taken on the operator's guests | Included — No commission on your guests | Included — No commission on extras |
| Guided onboarding / setup | Included — Guided setup, one-time fee by size | Included — AI import from PDF; setup help on Business |

### Security & data

| Capability | HolidayHero | Cohosty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GDPR compliance & EU data residency | Included — GDPR with EU data residency | Partial — GDPR yes; non-EEA processing acknowledged under safeguards |
| Operator owns & can export first-party guest data | Included — Operator owns and exports the data | Partial — Host is the controller; export tool not publicly documented |
| PCI-compliant payment handling | Included — PCI-compliant in-app payments | Partial — Stripe for subscriptions; guest extras paid off-platform |

## Detail

Cohosty is an AI guest assistant for holiday homes, built in Italy around one idea: the guest scans a QR code, opens a chat, and gets answers about the house and the neighbourhood in their own language. HolidayHero is a whole-stay platform, where that assistant is one pillar of five, alongside arrival and check-in, the guest app, revenue and operations.

### What Cohosty does well

The setup story is genuinely good. You upload the welcome-guide PDF you already have, the AI pulls out the wifi password, the check-in times, the house rules and the parking, and you have a working assistant in a few minutes. There is no app for the guest to install and no dependency on where the booking came from, which is exactly right for a host with three apartments and no patience for onboarding projects. Pricing is published, starts at 6.90 euro per month, and Cohosty takes no commission on the extras a host sells.

### Why HolidayHero

**The stay starts before the QR code.** Cohosty picks the guest up once they are in the property with a code to scan. HolidayHero starts at booking: online check-in with configurable fields, ID and passport capture, automatic guest registration filing with the authorities, and smart-lock plus smart-home access, so the door, the lights and the thermostat sit in the same system as the chat. Cohosty's site documents none of that. If arrival is the part of your operation that eats the most time, it is the part that has to be automated first.

**One inbox, not one chat window.** Cohosty's channel is its own chat, opened by the guest from a QR code or a link, with an email to the host when the AI cannot close the request. HolidayHero runs a unified inbox across email, WhatsApp and SMS, converts Booking.com relay mail into chat threads, syncs Airbnb and Booking.com messages, pulls PMS message threads in, and schedules templates gated by conditional rules so the right guest gets the right message at the right moment. That is the difference between waiting to be asked and running the conversation.

**Extras that actually close.** Both platforms let a guest ask for a transfer or a late checkout, and neither takes a commission on it. The difference is what happens next. On Cohosty the guest leaves an email and a phone number, the host gets a notification, accepts or declines, and payment happens somewhere else: a payment link, or cash at the property. On HolidayHero the guest pays in the app, the money splits automatically between operator, supplier and platform, charges post to the folio through supported PMS integrations, and the supplier receives the inquiry directly in their own portal instead of the host relaying messages. Bookable extras also sit on Cohosty's 9.90 euro Pro plan; on HolidayHero upsells and the local experiences catalogue are part of the product.

**Your brand, your domain.** The Cohosty guest chat is a Cohosty page with a Cohosty look. HolidayHero's guest app carries your colours, your logo and your theme across the app and every guest-facing message, runs on your own domain, lets you create, sort and hide sections, and changes what the guest sees depending on where they are in the stay: before arrival, in-stay, after checkout. For a single apartment that may not matter. For a brand with a hundred units it is the whole point.

**Any property type, on any PMS.** Cohosty is built for holiday homes, B&Bs and small properties, and runs standalone with no PMS integration documented. HolidayHero runs hotels, holiday parks, hostels, aparthotels and short-term rentals on one platform, connects to around 17 PMS plus locks, devices and payment providers, supports multiple distinct brands from one account, and exposes an API and a headless guest app so you can run the guest experience inside your own app or site. A standalone assistant stays simple right up until your property data lives in two places.

**Operational intelligence, not just analytics.** Cohosty reports what guests asked and where information was missing, which is useful. HolidayHero adds sentiment detection, a composite 0–100 engagement score across five dimensions, a workflow builder, task management with assignment and an audit trail, and in-stay surveys that turn into post-stay reviews. The goal is catching the unhappy guest before checkout, not reading about it afterwards.

**Pricing you can read, at either end.** Both publish their prices and both let you start on your own, which is worth saying plainly. HolidayHero starts at 6.50 euro per unit per month against Cohosty's 6.90 euro, and the gap widens once you want extras, since those need the 9.90 euro Pro tier. Above three properties Cohosty moves to a custom quote.

**European by construction.** Cohosty is Italian, GDPR-compliant, and unusually explicit about its AI Act transparency obligations, which is to its credit. Its privacy policy also states that some providers may process data outside the EEA under standard safeguards. HolidayHero is GDPR-compliant with EU data residency, and first-party guest data belongs to the operator and can be exported. Cohosty's terms put backing up your own content before account deletion on you, and no export tool is documented.

### Capability by capability

Both platforms do the core assistant job well, and the table shows it: an AI concierge answering guests around the clock, a house manual and guidebook, translation into the guest's language, a dashboard over conversations and requests, multi-property from one account, published pricing, a free self-serve start, and no commission on the host's own guests. Cohosty earns those rows.

The table separates on arrival (check-in, ID capture, authority filing, door access), on messaging (unified inbox, WhatsApp, OTA and PMS sync, scheduled templates), on the mechanics behind an extra (folio posting, supplier routing, commission splits), on guest-app control (branding, own domain, stage-based journey, custom sections, itinerary), on operational intelligence (sentiment, engagement score, workflows), and on platform openness (API, headless, integration breadth, multiple brands). Where Cohosty is marked "not publicly documented", that is what its own site and legal pages say today, not a claim about what it could build.

One honest note on our own side: HolidayHero's automatic guest registration filing is live for Spain through SES.Hospedajes, with Italy and Dubai on the roadmap. If you are an Italian host and Alloggiati Web filing is your priority today, ask us about timing rather than assuming. Cohosty does not file registrations either, and its terms leave that obligation with the host.

### Which one fits you

If you host one to three holiday homes in Italy, the job you want done is fewer repeated questions about the wifi and the air conditioning, and you want it working this afternoon from a PDF you already wrote, Cohosty is a fine pick. It does that job cheaply and neatly.

If you run more than a handful of units, or a mix of rentals and hotels, parks or hostels; if check-in, ID capture, door access and compliance are part of the work; if you want guest conversations across WhatsApp, email and the OTAs in one inbox; if you want upsells that post to the bill and suppliers who fulfil them without you in the middle; and if the guest app has to carry your brand on your own domain, HolidayHero is the platform built for that.