Comparison is for an
18 room property |
RezOvation |
Booking Center |
| You own the software |
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| Unconditional Guarantee |
90 day money back guarantee. Refund for any reason at all - plus $100 back on Booking Engine for your trouble. |
 Trial period |
| Works even if your internet goes down |
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| Microsoft Certified |
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| Online Booking Engine with fully confirmed reservations, full deposit and payment processing |
Authorize.net or QuickBooks |
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| Booking Engine interface |
4 steps to book single or multiple rooms |
Confusing request based system with outdated graphics requiring email address up front |
| Web analytics |
Full referral conversion and eCommerce tracking through Google Analytics to show where you are getting business |
Extra fee of $15 / month |
| Lodging certified credit card processing |
Fully integrated with website, desktop swiper, through Intuit QuickBooks, Authorize.net, and others |
Uses Authorize.net for retail credit card processing. Authorize.net is not lodging certified. |
| QuickBooks integration |
Completely flexible interface |
Export revenue only based on check-in date |
| Microsoft Office integration |
Microsoft Certified and integrated. |
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| HackerSafe protection and PCI compliance |
PA-DSS Certified, daily scans and every property carries the McAfee seal |
No. Neither PCI or PA-DSS compliant, and has publicly posted failed assesment here. |
| Verisign approved |
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| Onward distribution |
Direct to Expedia, Hotels.com, BedandBreakfast.com, Sidestep, Kayak, GDS |
No direct distribution, GDS only |
| Merchant rate inventory controls |
Easy updates to rates and inventory with just a few clicks; option to update distribution channels separately |
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| Group booking functionality |
Easy drag and drop, combined invoicing, more |
Extra fee of $300 up front |
| Customized marketing lists |
Unlimited customized marketing lists |
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| Auto email confirmations |
Yes, email sent to guest and innkeeper; emails can be customized |
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| Email marketing |
Send through software or export a list to use with third party marketing software |
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| Automatic reservation, birthday, anniversary, or event emails? |
No extra charge! |
No |
| Booking Engine customization |
Use your own website theme, choose your colors, use an availability calendar, or embed availability search script right into your website |
Minimal customization of color and logo only |
| Availability Calendar |
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| Custom reporting |
Fully customized, menu-driven, unlimited reporting templates using Microsoft Word |
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| Fully-automated backups |
Synchronous real-time data backup |
Extra fee of $300; customer must provide provide the remote storage facility |
| Mobile version |
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| Import data |
Automatic import from CSV or PMS software at no extra cost |
Yes, for a fee |
| Export data |
Generate reports and view in Word / Excel, or export straight to Excel. |
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| Webervations connection |
Included with monthly package |
$120 / year extra cost |
| Support |
Included with monthly package |
$360 / year extra cost |
| Database type |
SQL 2005 / Access |
Proprietary |
| Pricing (18 room inn, $500k annual revenue, using onward distribution) |
$0 up-front, plus $110/month
5 year cost: $6,600, includes unlimited support |
Confusing pricing. Estimate $1,549 up-front and
5 year cost of $7,695 |
Booking Center is a company based in Northern California. Booking Center offers a distributed PMS application that they developed in-house, and they resell an online PMS application (their "MyPMS" online application is actually a private label of the "MyHMS" online PMS offered by Innpoints that Booking Center repackages). Booking Center has a number of happy customers and is a relatively robust, full-featured program. In our opinion, it would seem to work well for a property that is not very price-conscious, is not interested in online bookings or distribution, and is looking to manage a stand-alone operation. When it comes to price, there are much more affordable systems available for a stand-alone operation.
As far as Booking Center’s functionality is concerned, we feel that their Booking Engine interface, which makes property websites bookable, is archaic in the way it looks and functions. Much better online booking engines are available from many different suppliers. In addition, their onward distribution is limited to a GDS connection, and when asked to demo properties that they have working through this system, they were not able to provide very compelling results – or any results at all really. Booking Center does not use a lodging-certified credit card gateway which could prove problematic for security reasons, cause an increase in chargebacks, and typically results in higher credit card processing fees. Their systems has other quirks that users have had problems with including things like having to manually type and email every confirmation out to customers which takes quite a bit of time every day.
Booking Center does have connectivity to Quickbooks however, and users can connect with Webervations, although at an additional cost of $120/year. In general their pricing is a little tricky to navigate, but even such basic features as website ecommerce conversion cost an additional $15/month over their base fees. One feature we’ve heard that is quite popular with their users is a unique phone-booking tool that enables faster reservations for bookings made over the phone.
Information on competitor features was gathered from public data available online as of September 2008. If you see any features that are missing or incorrect, please notify us immediately so that we can correct it.
Note: no fee for RezOvation software when purchasing a monthly plan. Fees still apply for software only purchase. See our pricing page for details.
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