The Price Labs Features 90% of Operators Miss

Introduction

90% of PriceLabs users aren't using its most powerful features. If you're one of them, keep listening because I'm going to walk you through my favorite features and how to use them.

Welcome back to Get Paid For Your Pad. This is an episode of Rev Up. It's Monday, and today I'm sharing my favorite PriceLabs features. I notice a lot of operators aren't utilizing all of the powerful tools PriceLabs has to offer. As part of our revenue management service, we create reports for prospective clients, giving us a peek into hundreds of PriceLabs accounts. I can tell you that by not using these features, you might be leaving money on the table.

In this episode, I'm going to share my screen and walk you through seven of my favorite, often-overlooked functionalities. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you won't be able to see the screen, so I highly recommend heading over to Freewyld Foundry on YouTube to watch the video version.

1. The Market Dashboard

The very first feature I want to talk about is the Market Dashboard. Every single PriceLabs user gets one free credit for a Market Dashboard, and a lot of operators aren't leveraging it. If you want more than one, you'll pay anywhere from $9.99 to $39.99 per month depending on your listing count. But since everyone gets one free credit, you might as well use it!

There is a wealth of information here. Looking at our market in Idyllwild, you can see high-level KPIs and a map of all the listings. You can even click through to look at individual Airbnbs, which is incredibly useful for market research. Below that, you'll find a list of all the market listings where you can filter by various KPIs and create custom comp sets.

By far, my favorite graph here is the Future Occupancy graph. It shows how much occupancy is currently on the books, how that compares to the same time last year, and what the final occupancy was last year. This tells you exactly how the market is pacing. For example, we can see that June already has a lot more occupancy on the books than at this time last year.

Booking curves are another great, underutilized tool. For example, right now in late February, our market has 48% occupancy. At this exact time in January, it was at 46%, meaning February is pacing slightly ahead. March, however, is pacing behind. You can also view these curves by revenue, RevPAR, and ADR. To set this up, go to Market Research, click "Add New Dashboard," and claim your free credit.

2. Hiding Inactive Listings

I've noticed many operators have inactive listings cluttering their PriceLabs view. If these inactive listings are visible, PriceLabs includes them in your KPI and reporting sections, dragging down your data.

Instead of constantly filtering for "Sync On," go to Dynamic Pricing > Manage Listings. Find the inactive listing and click "Hide Listing." It will completely remove it from your dashboard, multi-calendar, and reports. If you ever need to manage it again, you can always pull the data back in from your PMS without losing any history.

3. Combined Listings

Number three is the Combined Listings functionality, which is essential if you have multi-unit or master unit setups. For example, we have four cabins, but we also rent out Freewyld Village as a whole. When someone books the entire village, this feature accurately allocates that revenue and occupancy to the individual cabin units. Otherwise, your individual KPIs will look artificially low, making it hard to compare year-over-year performance.

This is a request-only feature. If you don't see it under Manage Listings, reach out to PriceLabs support and they will activate it for free.

4. Customizing the Multi-Calendar

The Multi-Calendar section is probably where I spend the most time. By default, PriceLabs only shows a few forward-occupancy metrics (like 15, 30, and 60 days out). But if you click "Add Metrics," you can customize this completely.

My favorite metrics to add are:

• 7-Day and 15-Day Booking Pickup: Tells you exactly how many bookings came in recently.
• Market Penetration Index (MPI): One of our absolute favorite metrics to track. You can set this to 60, 90, 120, or 180 days depending on your booking window.
• Weekday vs. Weekend Occupancy: Helps you spot opportunities to raise weekend rates or lower weekday rates.
• Min Price Hitting Dates (Next 60 Days): Shows if your minimum prices are too high. If more than 30% of your days are hitting the minimum (and you aren't in dead low season), you likely need to lower your floor.

5. Advanced Calendar Settings

While on the Multi-Calendar, click the gear icon on the right to customize your view. I recommend turning on child listings, minimum night rules, booking info, and holidays.

For calendar colors, I typically use "Demand" to quickly spot high and low-demand dates. You can also switch to "Recommended Price vs. Last Year ADR," which highlights dates where you're priced higher (blue) or lower (red) than last year. The third option colors dates based on reservation recency. Finally, cap the visible days at 90 for faster loading, and try the High Contrast mode if you prefer bolder colors.

6. The Neighborhood Data Graph

This is one of my favorite views in PriceLabs. If you click the three little dots next to any listing on your multi-calendar, select "Neighborhood Data."

To get the most out of this, click "Chart Options" to control what data appears. I typically set the aggregation to daily and turn on last year's data and pickup for the occupancy options. This graph shows you exactly how your unit is priced versus your comp set, your upcoming bookings, and how your pacing compares to the broader market.

7. Refining Your Comp Sets

Be very intentional about how you build your comp sets. For example, we have a studio cabin in Idyllwild called Black Mountain. If I only compare it to other studios, there are only 18 in the market. That small data pool makes the Future Occupancy graph wildly spiky and unreliable—one large group booking can skew the whole market.

Instead, I include 1-bedroom units in that comp set. This expands the pool to 90 units, smoothing out the data and providing much better pacing insights, especially since the booking windows for studios and 1-bedrooms are highly comparable.

If your property is extremely unique, you can also bypass nearby listings and build a completely custom comp set directly within your Market Dashboard. It's time-consuming, so only do it if you have a strong reason, but it gives you total control over the data PriceLabs uses.

Wrap Up

None of these features cost extra—they're all included in your base PriceLabs membership. The only exception is if you want multiple Market Dashboards, which at $9.99 a month is highly recommended if you operate in multiple markets or are researching expansion opportunities.

That's it for today's podcast! If you're interested in our revenue management service, go to freewyldfoundry.com/report. We'll generate a free report showing where your pricing strategies can improve. If you're already doing a great job, we'll tell you to keep doing what you're doing. If there's a lot of upside, we'll suggest working with a professional. We currently manage over $140 million in yearly booking revenue across more than 60 clients, and we're growing fast.

Thanks for listening, have a great week, and we'll be back next Monday with another episode of Rev Up. I'll see you then!