Hostli vs a marketing agency
An agency retainer is paid whether the month brought bookings or not, and a new ad waits for a brief, a draft and a call. Hostli replaces the retainer with $100 a month flat on Deluxe, or a managed plan whose success fee is billed only on direct bookings it can show you, booking by booking. The campaigns are built from your reviews, photography and booking data, and approved from your phone.
Start freeSide by side
Every line on the right describes how that option is bought and run, not a price. Every line on the left describes what the platform does today.
Cost
How you pay
Hostli: $100 a month flat on Deluxe. On the managed plans, a monthly fee plus a success fee only on direct bookings we can show you.
Agency: A monthly retainer, paid regardless of results, often with a percentage of media on top.
What the money buys
Hostli: Campaigns, budget pacing, organic social, inbox, reviews, rate scans, SEO audits and attribution, on every paid plan.
Agency: A scope of work. Anything outside it is a change request and a new line on the invoice.
Setup
Hostli: Self-serve from your phone; the first campaign is built from the data you already have.
Agency: An onboarding fee, a kickoff meeting, and a discovery phase before anything runs.
Speed
From idea to live ad
Hostli: Minutes. The campaign arrives on your phone ready to approve.
Agency: Days to weeks: brief, draft, review round, revisions, scheduling.
Reacting to a full weekend
Hostli: A WhatsApp message or a voice note pauses the campaign and holds the budget.
Agency: An email to the account manager, actioned in their working hours.
Seasonal changes
Hostli: Personas and content direction refresh as new bookings arrive.
Agency: A quarterly planning cycle, if it is in the scope.
Control
Who decides what goes live
Hostli: You. Nothing publishes without your approval, and every effect of a change is shown before it happens.
Agency: The agency, within the brief. You see the result, rarely the reasoning.
Where the accounts live
Hostli: Your Meta, Google and GA4 accounts, connected to Hostli. Disconnect and everything stays yours.
Agency: Often the agency’s own ad accounts and pixels. Leaving can mean starting the history from zero.
Budget guardrails
Hostli: Spend paced within a band around the monthly plan, with Meta’s own minimums read daily.
Agency: Manual budget edits, when someone remembers to make them.
Proof
What gets reported
Hostli: Bookings, reconciled across Meta, Google and your site so each is counted once, with exportable reservation IDs.
Agency: A monthly deck of reach, clicks and platform-reported conversions, each platform claiming its own.
What you are billed on
Hostli: The same reconciled bookings, one by one. You can check the invoice against your PMS.
Agency: Hours or a retainer. The invoice does not reference a booking.
Coverage
Guest messages and reviews
Hostli: Drafted from verified facts about your property, in the guest’s language, waiting for your tap.
Agency: Usually out of scope, or a separate community-management retainer.
Competitor rates and search visibility
Hostli: Weekly rate scans and SEO audits, with fixes handed to whoever runs your site.
Agency: Separate tools, separate subscriptions, and a separate person to read them.
Languages
Hostli: Copy composed in the guest’s language, not translated from one master.
Agency: Whatever languages the team on your account happens to write.
When an agency is the right call
Some work needs a room full of people, and Hostli does not pretend otherwise.
A brand launch or repositioning across several properties, where the work is strategy and identity before it is campaigns.
Television, print, outdoor or PR. Hostli runs Meta, Google and your own channels, nothing else.
A group large enough to want a named team in the room every week. Many hotels run Hostli for the day to day and keep an agency for that.
What Hostli costs
Start free on your own data, no card required. Deluxe is $100 a month flat with no success fee. Superior and Signature add a person accountable for your bookings, with a success fee of 2% to 2.2% charged only on direct bookings we can show you: tagged clicks, campaigns that started the visit, and the organic social channel Hostli runs for you. Each reservation counts once.
Questions hoteliers ask at this point
We already have an agency. Why do we need Hostli?
Keep the agency for strategy and let the platform do the part you pay a retainer for by the hour. Hostli adds what an agency rarely gives you: weekly competitor rate checks, guest personas built from your own bookings and daily budget guardrails, all for $100 a month flat on Deluxe. Many hotels run both, with full visibility of every shekel of ad spend.
Can I work with Hostli alongside my current marketing agency?
Yes, and it usually shortens the agency's billable hours. Your agency can build ads, run the social calendar and pull market reports inside Hostli instead of from scratch. You see every campaign, every budget change and every booking the platform attributes, and you decide how much runs on autopilot.
How does Hostli's pricing model work?
Compare it with the 15% to 25% an OTA takes: Deluxe is $100 a month flat with no success fee. Superior is $500 a month at 2.2% and Signature is $750 a month at 2%, charged only on direct bookings they can show you by reservation ID. Free costs nothing and carries no fees at all. Annual billing on Superior and Signature costs ten months for twelve.
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