A Complete Guide to the Top 10 Vacation Rental Sites

Maximizing your vacation rental bookings means finding and listing your properties on the best vacation rental websites. Most hosts start with Airbnb but there are plenty of other vacation rental sites that you can use to maximize exposure for your property.

Which are the best vacation home rental sites?

We’ve done the research on the top 10 vacation rental websites so you can decide which sites to use to get the best returns for your business.

1. Airbnb

Airbnb is a top trusted vacation rental website that offers hosts the opportunity to make money from listing their rental properties, as well as, experiences. It has the largest community of vacation rental hosts, having served over 200 million guests with over 5 million rental property listings in more than 81,000 locations around the world.

It is also the fastest growing among vacation rental sites because it has the best brand recognition among hosts and guests.

For hosts, there is no fee to list a property. Airbnb charges a host service fee which is generally 3%. Guest service fees are deducted from the booking subtotal and range from 0% to 20%.

Top Features:

• Offers a $1 million Host Guarantee insurance policy
• No fee to list a property

2. HomeAway

HomeAway has more than 2 million rentals listed in 190 countries with 25 different sites to serve hosts internationally. HomeAway is owned by Expedia, a top travel website. HomeAway has more than 50 websites to serve vacation rental hosts and guests internationally.

On this platform, hosts have the option of paying an annual subscription fee or paying per booking. The annual subscription is $499 per year for unlimited inquiries and bookings with a 3% credit card charge per booking. The pay per booking option HomeAway charges a 5% commission with 3% credit card charge per booking.

Top Features:

• Instant booking
• Large network of branded vacation rental sites

3. VRBO

VRBO, a site that is part of the HomeAway family of brands of vacation rental sites, focuses on providing vacation rentals in the United States. This makes it a good option for finding guests who are looking to travel to popular American tourist destinations. VRBO has more than 265,000 vacation home rental listings.

In order to rent a property on VRBO, hosts pay per booking or an annual subscription of $499 per year. The pay per booking fee ranges from 8% to 10% of the total rental amount.

Top Features:

• List a property for free
• Attracts families / specializes in travelers to U.S. destinations

4. Booking.com

Booking.com boasts more than 27 million properties listed on the platform with over 1.5 million room nights booked daily. The site is primarily known for hotels and not vacation rentals. However, as the top visited travel site online, there’s no shortage of traffic.

Booking.com does not have a payment system. Instead, it allows hosts to choose the payment options they prefer. As a result, Booking.com invoices you for the 15% commission owed on each booking on a monthly basis. The costs are deducted from your account by direct debit. Booking.com also charges a commission on non-refundable reservations where the guest has been charged a cancellation fee.

Top Features:

• Free to list a property
• Instant booking only

5. TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is the largest and oldest online travel community making it one of the best vacation websites. As a result, it has great brand recognition making it an ideal place to list your vacation rentals. TripAdvisor has over 750,000 vacation rental listings. It also owns a host of vacation rental sites including FlipKey, VacationHomeRentals, and HouseTrip.

On TripAdvisor, it’s free for hosts to list a property. The company charges hosts a 3% commission per booking.

Top Features:

• Free to list a property
• Low commission rate

6. Homestay.com

Homestay.com offers vacation rentals and private room rentals in over 160 countries. With more than 33,000 rooms available, Homestay.com has served more than 200,000 guests since 2013.

Homestay.com charges host a 3% host service fee. For any other extra services that hosts want to charge for, such as laundry or cleaning services, Homestay.com allows hosts to arrange the costs directly with guests before they book.

Top Features:

• Specializes in private rooms/solo traveler accommodations
• Hosts can work directly with guests to negotiate pricing

7. atraveo

atraveo is a Europe-focused vacation rental listing site. This site has more than 270,000 vacation home rental listings which they advertise for hosts across 1,000 European vacation home rental websites.

atraveo charges a booking fee of 15% plus VAT on confirmed bookings. There’s no fee to list a property.

Top Features:

• List a property for free
• Specializes in tourist destination/holiday bookings

8. OneFineStay

OneFineStay is a vacation rental site backed by the hotel chain AccorHotels. The site currently offers more than 10,000 high-end vacation rental home listings in over 180 destinations.

OneFineStay doesn’t publish their listing fees on their website. Instead, they manually select properties for inclusion in their listings and offer a full-service property management solution.

Top Features:

• Luxury properties only
• Full-service management for property owners

9. Interhome

Interhome has provided vacation rentals since 1965. The vacation rental platform currently offers 95,000 vacation home and apartment rental listings in 31 countries.

Fees are variable and are quoted by the management. Hosts enter into a contract agreement where they can choose either full professional property management or to host directly.

Top Features:

• Personal in-resort service for guests from local Interhome offices
• Full-service property management for hosts

10. 9flats

Launched in 2011 in Hamburg, Germany 9flats is an independent vacation rental site serving hosts and guests international. The site currently has six million vacation rental property listings in 140 countries. Many of the properties listed on their site are in Europe.

The company charges host a booking fee of 12% for listings that accept the instant booking or 15% non-instant booking listings.

Top Features:

• List a property for free
• Guests can pay with Bitcoin

The Bottom Line on Vacation Rental Sites

Although there are new vacation home rental websites that launch every year, these are the vacation rental sites that are the most established and popular among hosts in the industry.

However, if you really want to maximize your profits, don’t only focus on picking the vacation rentals websites that charge the least in fees. Instead, you should work to get more bookings. The more bookings you can attract, the more you’ll earn in rental income.

Pro tip: No matter what platforms you choose, if you want to fully automate your hosting business and increase occupancy rate dramatically, vacation rental software is your must-have tools. You can start for free and create an account right now.