---
title: "Oaky Alternative: HolidayHero vs Oaky Compared"
description: "Compare HolidayHero and Oaky side by side: upselling, arrival, messaging, smart home and pricing. When a whole-stay platform beats an upsell point tool."
url: "https://www.holidayhero.com/compare/holidayhero-vs-oaky"
updated: "2026-07-15T10:59:11+00:00"
---

# HolidayHero vs Oaky

> Oaky is upsell software for hotels and hotel chains, serving pre-stay, front desk and in-stay offers with deep PMS automation. HolidayHero makes a different bet: run the whole stay on one platform, with upselling as one pillar among arrival, guest app, messaging and operations. See how the two compare, capability by capability.

## Capability comparison

### Arrival & check-in

| Capability | HolidayHero | Oaky |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Online check-in before arrival | Included — Configurable per brand | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| ID / passport capture & verification | Included — ID/passport capture | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Automatic guest registration filing (police / municipality) | Included — Spain (SES.Hospedajes) live, more coming | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Smart-lock / door-code / mobile-key access | Included — Goki, Bold + smart devices | Not available — Not publicly documented |

### Guest app & experience

| Capability | HolidayHero | Oaky |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Own colours, logo & theme on the guest app + comms | Included — App + all comms | Included — Branded emails, landing page, fonts/colours |
| Guest app served on the operator's own domain | Included — Own domain | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Guest app adapts by moment-in-time vs the reservation (stages) | Included — Reservation stages | Partial — Upsell offers staged pre-stay/front desk/in-stay |
| Guests and operators add items to an in-app itinerary | Included — Guests + operators | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Create / sort / hide custom guest-app sections | Included — Per stage | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Digital guidebooks / house manual | Included — Rich text + documents | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Auto-translation into many guest languages | Included — Auto-translate | Included — 25 languages |
| Local / venue events distributed to guests in the app | Included — Local events in app | Not available — Not publicly documented |

### Messaging & AI

| Capability | HolidayHero | Oaky |
| --- | --- | --- |
| One inbox across channels | Included — Email, WhatsApp, SMS | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Autonomous AI answering & actioning guest messages | Included — Answers + recommends | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| WhatsApp as a guest channel | Included — Two-way, rich media | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Scheduled / templated messages gated by conditional rules | Included — Conditional rules | Included — Scheduled upsell comms |
| Booking.com / Airbnb messages synced into the inbox | Included — Booking.com + Airbnb | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| PMS guest-message threads synced into the inbox | Included — Via connected PMS | Not available — Not publicly documented |

### Upsells & revenue

| Capability | HolidayHero | Oaky |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Upsell / ancillary catalogue in the guest app | Included — Full catalogue, VAT-aware | Included — Core product, 100+ deal library |
| Charges post to the folio / PMS bill | Included — Via supported PMS | Included — Deals sync to PMS (2-way) |
| Supplier routing with automatic commission split | Included — Automatic three-way split | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Inquiries offloaded directly to suppliers (no middleman) | Included — Direct to supplier portal | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Local experiences / activities catalogue | Included — Curated local catalogue | Not available — Not publicly documented |

### Operations & intelligence

| Capability | HolidayHero | Oaky |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Single operational dashboard for the property | Included — Stay-wide dashboard | Partial — Upsell dashboard + chain reporting |
| Guest-app analytics / actionable insights from guest data | Included — Journey-wide insights | Partial — Upsell/conversion reporting |
| Guest sentiment detection | Included — Across interactions | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Composite 0–100 guest engagement score (5 dimensions) | Included — 0–100, 5 dimensions | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Event-driven automations / workflow builder | Included — Rules + automations | Partial — Upsell automation only |
| In-stay surveys & post-stay review generation | Included — In-stay + post-stay | Partial — Via ReviewPro/Quicktext integrations |

### Platform & fit

| Capability | HolidayHero | Oaky |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Runs beside the existing PMS (no rip-and-replace) | Included — Runs beside any PMS | Included — Add-on beside the PMS |
| Headless guest app: run the guest experience inside your own app/site | Included — Your app, our engine | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Integration API for system-to-system integration | Included — Integration API | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Breadth of PMS / channel / lock / payment integrations | Included — ~17 PMS, locks, devices, registration | Included — Hotel PMS, RMS, CRM, guest-exp tools |
| Multi-property / group management & rollup | Included — Workspaces + rollup | Included — Chain dashboard, built for chains |
| Run multiple distinct brands from one account | Included — Distinct brands, own domains | Partial — Per-hotel imagery/language within chain tools |

### Pricing & commercial

| Capability | HolidayHero | Oaky |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Public, self-serve pricing (no mandatory sales call) | Included — From €6.50/unit/mo, public | Not available — Quote-only |
| Free / self-serve start | Included — Free trial | Not available — Demo-gated |
| No commission taken on the operator's guests | Included — No commission on your guests | Not available — Not publicly documented |
| Guided onboarding / setup | Included — Guided, tiered fee | Included — Onboarding tool + dedicated specialist |

### Security & data

| Capability | HolidayHero | Oaky |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GDPR compliance & EU data residency | Included — GDPR + EU residency | Partial — GDPR/SOC2 pages; residency not stated |
| Operator owns & can export first-party guest data | Included — Exports on demand | Partial — Results export (Excel/CSV); ownership terms not stated |
| PCI-compliant payment handling | Included — PCI-compliant in-app payments | Not available — Not publicly documented; guest pays the hotel directly per their terms |

## Detail

Oaky, part of Plusgrade, is a dedicated hotel upsell tool built for hotel chains: pre-stay, front desk and in-stay offers designed to lift TRevPAR. HolidayHero is a whole-stay platform where upselling is one pillar among arrival, guest app, messaging, operations and smart home, built for hotels, groups, parks, hostels, aparthotels and rentals alike.

### Where Oaky is strong

Credit where it is due: Oaky is one of the best-known upsell specialists in hospitality, used by over 3,000 hotels including chains like Radisson and Minor. Its chain tooling runs deep, with dynamic room upgrade pricing via IDeaS and Duetto, a front desk upsell module, and two-way integrations into hotel PMSs such as Oracle OPERA Cloud, Mews, Infor HMS and Shiji. If a chain revenue team wants a single-purpose upsell engine, Oaky does that job well.

### Why HolidayHero

The question for most operators is not whether upselling works, it is how many tools you want to run. Oaky handles the upsell moment; everything else in the stay still needs other software. HolidayHero covers the whole gap between booking and review on one platform:

**The whole stay, not one slice of it.** Online check-in with ID capture, authority registration filing (SES.Hospedajes in Spain, with more countries on the roadmap), smart-lock access, a branded guest app that adapts to each moment of the stay, guidebooks, an AI concierge, a unified inbox with two-way WhatsApp and email, and upsells and local experiences. With Oaky, the upsell layer is covered and the rest of the journey sits outside its scope.

**Upselling that reaches further.** HolidayHero's catalogue covers your own services and curated local experiences, with inquiries routed straight to the supplier who fulfils them and commission splits calculated automatically. Charges can post to the folio via supported PMSs, and guests can pay in-app with an automatic three-way split. No operator relaying messages in the middle.

**Smart home, not just software.** Beyond locks, HolidayHero connects thermostats, sensors, lighting, energy management and more, with visibility gated by reservation stage. Nothing comparable is publicly documented at Oaky.

**Built for every property type.** Oaky describes itself as purpose-built for hotel chains. HolidayHero serves boutique hotels, groups, holiday parks, hostels, aparthotels and short-term rentals, with roughly 17 documented PMS integrations spanning hotel and rental systems, multi-workspace rollup for groups and multiple brands from one account.

**Transparent and self-serve.** HolidayHero publishes pricing from €6.50 per unit per month and you can start with a free trial today. Oaky's pricing is quote-only and access starts with a sales call. If you like to evaluate software by using it, that difference matters.

**EU-native trust.** Both companies are Dutch. HolidayHero adds explicit GDPR compliance with EU data residency, PCI-compliant in-app payments, and first-party guest data that belongs to you and exports on demand.

### Capability by capability

The table above tells the story at a glance. Oaky scores well where you would expect: the upsell catalogue, PMS folio sync, scheduled upsell communication, chain reporting, 25-language translations and guided onboarding are all documented strengths. HolidayHero matches those rows and adds the categories a point tool does not aim at: arrival and check-in, the adaptive guest app, unified messaging with an AI concierge, guest sentiment and engagement scoring, workflows, a headless guest app and an integration API. Where Oaky shows no coverage across a whole category, read it as focus rather than failure: Oaky is an upsell specialist, so arrival, messaging and smart home sit outside its scope. That focus is exactly the point to weigh: every category it skips is another tool on your stack and another integration to maintain.

### Which fits you

If you run a large hotel chain, your only gap is upselling, and a revenue team will manage it centrally, Oaky is a credible specialist pick. For everyone broader, from a 30-room boutique to a multi-brand group with parks and rentals in the mix, buying a separate tool for each slice of the stay adds cost and complexity fast. HolidayHero gives you the upsell engine and the rest of the stay in one platform, at published pricing you can start on today.