Escapia Review: Features and Pricing in 2023
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
Escapia is a full-featured property management software designed specifically for vacation rental management and property managers. It is the only property management software owned by the Expedia Group, meaning there are no additional fees for booking on channels like Vrbo and Travelocity. Accurate trust accounting, a performance dashboard, and a guest hospitality mobile app are a few benefits to choosing this solution, and our Escapia review aims to help you decide if the platform fits the bill.
Pros
- No added distribution fees on direct channels
- Dedicated implementation specialist
- Free and unlimited e-signatures
Cons
- No application programming interface (API) integration with Airbnb or Booking.com
- Two-way short message service (SMS) messaging is unavailable
- Possible steep learning curve for less-experienced users
Monthly Pricing | Custom quote; charges a flat monthly fee based on the number of properties managed |
Owner Portal | ✓ |
Trust Accounting | ✓ |
Performance Dashboard | ✓ |
Reservation Calendar | ✓ |
Signatures Platform | ✓ |
Rates Management | ✓ |
Communications Hub | ✓ |
- Vacation rental property owners who want access to ongoing training and support: Escapia provides vacation rental property owners with assistance. When you sign up, a dedicated implementation specialist will help you transition your vacation rental property business to Escapia, developing a custom data migration plan and validating system operations. You’ll receive free training and ongoing support once your system goes live.
- Property managers seeking a solution for trust accounting: Escapia is ideal for established property managers because it combines a general ledger (GL) and double-entry accounting with vacation rental management accounting requirements. This simplifies year-end IRS reporting to owners (1099s and 1042s).
- Vacation rental property owners that need to manage guest hospitality: Escapia’s mobile app, Hospitality by GladToHaveYou, is a personalized travel guide with all the information that guests need to know about your vacation rental. This includes arrival tips and directions to the property, information specific to your rental, such as gate codes and Wi-Fi passwords, restaurant and activity recommendations, and interactive maps that use your phone’s built-in GPS system.
- Vacation rental property owners seeking a direct integration with Airbnb: Escapia lacks a direct integration with Airbnb, but OwnerRez has partnered with Airbnb to provide an integrated API connection between the two systems. This allows OwnerRez users to distribute your existing property content, rates, rules, and availability directly to Airbnb and receive back booking and guest information inside OwnerRez automatically.
- Vacation rental property owners seeking low-cost and easy-to-use accounting software: FreshBooks offers many features that are useful to vacation rental property owners, including a communication platform that allows you to chat with your guests and answer their questions. A payment log allows you to track guest payments, invoice status reports, and expenses. Check out our FreshBooks review for more information.
- Vacation rental property owners seeking free accounting software: Although Wave doesn’t have vacation rental property management features, you may want to consider it if you’re seeking a free accounting solution for your vacation rental property. It is our recommended free accounting solution for property managers in our guide to the best real estate accounting software because it has decent accounting features and no limit to the number of users. To determine if it is a fit for you, read our review of Wave.
Escapia Alternatives
Monthly Pricing | Number of Users | Free Trial | Mobile App | Integrations | Trust Accounting | Website Builder | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Custom quote | Unlimited | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
 | Starts at $40 | Unlimited | 14 days | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
 | Starts at $17 | 30 days | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | |
 | $0 | Unlimited | N/A | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ |
Are you seeking general-purpose accounting software? Check out our roundup of the best accounting software for small businesses.
Escapia Pricing
Escapia charges a flat monthly fee based on the number of properties you manage. Pricing is unavailable on its website, so you must request a customized quote.
Escapia Features
Escapia has many useful features that assist with both rental property management and accounting. Included are a performance dashboard, reservation calendar, and guest hospitality mobile app.
You can also use its opportunities hub to identify how you stack up against your competition, and it can perform trust accounting as well. Escapia also enables you to manage your rates and housekeeping and provides you with an owner portal if you need to manage vacation rental property owners.
This shows business performance compared to historical results and market comparisons. It includes performance overviews, pace reporting, market data benchmarks, and a real-time trend chart. It provides a detailed glimpse at how your performance is trending, lets you obtain insights about the performance of your properties, and allows you to put your performance in context with the larger vacation rental market.
Escapia Performance Dashboard
What’s more, you can view consolidated year-over-year reporting that features rent, bookings average daily rate, number of nights sold, unit occupancy, and revenue per available rental. You can also use its data filtering and sorting tools to customize reports to provide the data you’re seeking.
This is a centralized page that provides suggestions on how to improve property appeal, optimize rates, and analyze the competition to drive more revenue. It combines the power of Vrbo data with your own data to illustrate how you stack up against the competition. Using the data from Vrbo Marketplace, it highlights changes you can make to attract more travelers and obtain more bookings.
Escapia simplifies the process of trust accounting and year-end IRS reporting, automating and tracking the movement of money across accounts. You can create consolidated statements for owners of multiple properties, manage recurring owner charges, split statements for shared ownership, and build custom variable commission structures and revenue recognition rules. Its detailed reporting provides insight into monthly and year-over-year business performance.
Escapia’s Trust Accounting interface
One of Escapia’s most useful features, this enables users to view and manage their property’s availability and bookings in a user-friendly interface. The reservation calendar displays a visual representation of the property’s availability over a selected period, so users can easily see which dates are available, booked, or blocked for maintenance or other reasons, using color-coding to distinguish between the different statuses.
Escapia Reservation Calendar
Also, users can create new bookings directly from the calendar, specifying guest details, rental rates, and any other relevant information. It also offers filters and various viewing options to customize how data is displayed.
Escapia provides a system for creating and managing work orders for housekeeping and maintenance tasks. Property managers can generate work orders for cleaning, repairs, inspections, and other maintenance tasks. Users can also assign work orders to specific housekeeping or maintenance staff, and scheduling features help organize tasks based on priority and availability.
Escapia Housekeeping Dashboard
Housekeeping and maintenance staff can have access to the system to update the status of work orders in real time. It also provides checklists or predefined task templates for common housekeeping and maintenance routines.
Escapia lets users set different rental rates based on seasonal fluctuations in demand, with the ability to define rate tiers for peak seasons, off-peak seasons, holidays, and special events. Users can also automatically adjust rates based on factors such as occupancy levels, booking lead times, and market demand.
The platform also allows you to enable length-of-stay pricing, promotional discounts, minimum stay requirements for certain dates or seasons, and rate rules and exceptions to handle complex pricing scenarios.
Escapia Rates Manager
Escapia maintains a history of rate changes and allows users to revert to previous rate configurations if needed. This feature helps track pricing changes over time and provides a level of pricing control. Users can also make bulk rate updates, saving time when adjusting rates or multiple properties or date ranges simultaneously.
Hospitality, Escapia’s mobile app, was designed to enhance the guest experience for vacation rental properties. The app was developed by GladToHaveYou, which is part of the HomeAway/Vrbo family of vacation rental brands now owned by Vrbo, which is part of Expedia Group.
It allows guests to access essential details about their vacation rental property, such as check-in/check-out instructions and property address. Guests can communicate directly with the property manager or owner through the app, and it can also send guests push notifications and reminders about important dates and events.
Minimize your direct involvement in responding to owner inquiries by implementing an integrated portal that enables owners to efficiently access all necessary information. This is achieved by granting each owner exclusive entry to a personalized dashboard that is tailored to their specific requirements. This enables them to manage permissions, choose which charges to display, and maintain control over their property’s booking availability.
Escapia Owner Portal
Escapia Customer Service & Ease of Use
Escapia offers responsive customer support, and users can reach out to the customer service team via phone, email, or online chat to seek assistance with any issues, questions, or technical problems that arise while using the software. You’ll be paired with a dedicated implementation specialist upon enrolling, and once everything is set up they will connect you with Escapia’s support team, who will provide ongoing support as needed.
The solution was designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, making it accessible for both experienced and novice property managers. It has a straightforward interface so that users can easily navigate and find the features they need.
Key tasks like managing reservations, updating rates, and evaluating your property’s performance are intuitive. Also, the software allows for easy integration with other tools and services, such as channel managers and payment gateways, enhancing the overall user experience (UX) and improving operation efficiency.
Escapia Reviews From Users
Those who left an Escapia review praised the platform’s robust set of features, especially its ability to manage rates, housekeeping, and maintenance requests. They also appreciate its mobile app that gives guests access to reservations and property details. The biggest complaint about the solution is that it’s not transparent with the monthly subscription fee.
- Software Advice[1]: 4.5 out of 5 stars based on around 130 reviews
- Featured Customers[2]: 4.7 out of 5 stars based on around 2,250 reviews
- G2[3]: 3.0 out of 5 stars based on 10 reviews
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Escapia can benefit your vacation rental business by providing tools to manage reservations efficiently, streamline operations, improve guest communication, and optimize financial management. It offers insights and analytics to make data-driven decisions and helps ensure compliance with local regulations.
Yes, you can. Escapia is designed to handle multiple properties and allows property managers to manage reservations, availability, rates, and other property-related information for their entire portfolio.
Yes, Escapia is a cloud-based software solution, which provides flexibility and convenience for property managers on the go.
Yes, Escapia can manage trust accounting, allowing you to meet strict reporting requirements and industry regulations.
Bottom Line
Escapia is a powerful vacation rental property management software tailored specifically for property managers and vacation rental property owners. With its user-friendly interface and robust features, Escapia enables seamless reservation and booking management, guest communication, and streamlined financial operations. By providing insightful analytics and integration with popular vacation rental platforms, Escapia empowers property managers to stay competitive in the dynamic vacation rental market.
User review references:
1Software Advice
2Featured Customers
3G2
