Property Management
OwnerRez
Vacation rental software for serious hosts
Best Overall
Most reliable channel manager in its price tier
From $40/listing • 14-day trial
Comparison
OwnerRez vs Safely
Pricing, pros and cons, and buyer-fit side-by-side. Pick the one that matches your operation — or see why neither should.
Insurance & Protection
Safely
Pay-per-booking vacation rental insurance with built-in guest screening
Best for Small Hosts
Best pay-per-booking insurance for low-to-mid occupancy hosts
From $8/listing • No free trial
✓Editorial verdict
Which should you pick: OwnerRez or Safely?
Pick OwnerRez if you need a property management platform with channel management, direct booking, accounting, and zero booking fees — noise and damage protection come through native integrations with NoiseAware and Minut. Pick Safely if your primary operational pain is guest damage risk and you want pay-per-booking insurance bundled with proprietary guest screening that no PMS provides natively. These are complementary tools in different categories — OwnerRez runs your business, Safely insures it.
Editorial perspective from the OwnerRez side; factual claims about Safely are drawn from its review.
Pricing side-by-side
OwnerRez
Full pricing →From $40/listing • 14-day trial
1 property
~$40/mo
1 listing
Booking fee: Zero on all bookings
- Channel manager (Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Google)
- Hosted booking website + widgets
- WordPress plugin
- CRM + guest profiles
- E-signed rental agreements
- Custom triggers + automation
- QuickBooks Online integration
- 14-day free trial
5 properties
$88/mo
Up to 5 listings
Booking fee: Zero on all bookings
- Everything in 1-property tier
- Owner statements + reporting
10+ properties
Sliding scale, decreases per-unit cost as portfolio grows
10+ listings
Booking fee: Zero on all bookings
- Everything in 5-property tier
- Volume pricing
- Priority support
Safely
Full pricing →From $8/listing • No free trial
Detailed pricing tiers available on the Safely pricing page.
What each tool does well — and where it falls short
What OwnerRez does well
Zero booking fees on all channels — including direct
OwnerRez charges only the flat per-property rate — no percentage cut, no per-booking commissions, no surprises. Predictable costs as volume grows.
Best-in-class direct-API channel management, included free
OwnerRez builds its own direct API connections to Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Google Vacation Rentals rather than routing through a third-party aggregator. Faster sync, fewer failure points, and no extra fee for channel connectivity.
Support quality is the platform's defining differentiator
Across Capterra, G2, and Trustpilot, support quality is the single most cited reason operators choose and stay with OwnerRez. Personalised guidance and custom screen-capture videos — uncommon at this price point.
What Safely does well
Proprietary SafelyScore database screens guests against actual vacation rental damage history
No other platform has a comparable industry-specific damage database. Screening also covers criminal databases, sex offender registries, and Interpol/Europol watchlists.
98% of claims paid in 4.5 days with sub-$1K claims within 24 hours
Operators document damage with photos and receipts — no guest confrontation required. Homeowners have up to 60 days to file.
Zero cost during vacancy with insurance fees passable to guests
Coverage activates at check-in and deactivates at check-out, eliminating traditional damage deposit friction. Operators build the fee into the nightly rate so guests effectively cover the insurance.
Where OwnerRez falls short
No native iOS or Android app — mobile management runs through a PWA with real limitations
Users report missing push notifications for SMS and channel messages, navigation issues, and difficult photo reordering on mobile. Staff have confirmed no app is planned.
Steep initial learning curve — the depth is real and so is the ramp
OwnerRez is designed for depth over ease of setup. Independent reviews consistently agree the platform rewards patience but demands it. Users expecting plug-and-play describe feeling overwhelmed initially.
Email-only support — no phone line for urgent issues during live bookings
For most users the depth of email responses compensates, but for time-sensitive situations (guest locked out at check-in, channel sync failure mid-booking), the inability to call is a meaningful gap.
Where Safely falls short
Per-night pricing compounds quickly at high occupancy
At 200+ nights/year the per-night model can exceed annual policy costs from competitors like Proper Insurance ($1,500–$2,500/year). Operators must calculate their breakeven.
Does not replace homeowners insurance and has meaningful coverage exclusions
Excludes weather damage, non-guest-caused damage, fine art and collectibles. Contents theft/damage caps at $10,000 and there is a 90-day maximum consecutive rental period.
Limited public reviews and relatively new market presence
Compared to established insurers like Proper Insurance or CBIZ, Safely has fewer independent user reviews, making real-world claims experience harder to assess at scale.
Which should you pick
Pick OwnerRez if
Tech-comfortable hosts and property managers with 2-100+ listings who want deep channel automation, granular accounting, and a direct booking website — and are willing to invest setup time.
Skip OwnerRez if
You need a native iOS/Android app for on-the-go management, want plug-and-play onboarding with minimal configuration, or primarily operate outside the US market.
Pick Safely if
Seasonal or part-time hosts renting fewer than ~100 nights/year who want insurance and guest screening bundled without an annual commitment — the pay-per-booking model keeps costs proportional to actual occupancy.
Skip Safely if
You run high-occupancy properties at 250+ nights/year — per-night pricing will exceed annual policy alternatives, and coverage caps ($10K contents, no weather damage) may be insufficient for premium properties.
Where OwnerRez and Safely actually differ
- OwnerRez is a full PMS starting at $40/mo with direct-API channel management (Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Google Vacation Rentals), direct booking website, CRM, e-signed rental agreements, and QuickBooks integration — zero booking fees. Safely is a pay-per-booking insurance and guest screening provider starting at $8/night with no channel management, no booking, no accounting features.
- OwnerRez includes e-signed rental agreements and security deposit automation for contractual damage deterrence at the booking layer. Safely provides up to $1M primary commercial insurance coverage with 98% of claims paid in 4.5 days — no deposit friction, no guest confrontation needed.
- OwnerRez's CRM tracks guest profiles and booking history but has no background screening capability. Safely's SafelyScore screens guests against a proprietary damage-history database of guests who have caused damage at other vacation rentals, plus criminal, sex offender, and international watchlist databases.
- OwnerRez charges a flat monthly fee on a published sliding scale regardless of occupancy — 8 properties costs ~$112/mo. Safely costs nothing during vacancy with pay-per-booking pricing, but at high occupancy (200+ nights/year) per-night costs can exceed annual policy alternatives.
- OwnerRez integrates natively with NoiseAware and Minut for real-time property monitoring during guest stays. Safely has no property monitoring — it screens before check-in and insures after damage occurs, with no detection layer in between.
Common objections
- OwnerRez already has rental agreements and security deposits — do I really need Safely's insurance on top?
- They protect at different layers. Rental agreements deter through legal obligation; security deposits require guest cooperation to collect and create booking friction that can lower conversion rates. Safely pays you directly — submit photos and receipts, get paid in 4.5 days, no deposit dispute. For OwnerRez operators taking direct bookings, deposits and Safely can layer together. For OTA bookings where security deposits are harder to enforce, Safely fills a gap that OwnerRez's contractual tools cannot.
- At ~$112/mo for 8 properties on OwnerRez, adding Safely at $8+/night significantly increases my total costs — is it justified?
- At 8 properties averaging 80 nights/year each, Safely adds roughly $5,120–$7,680/year. That's substantial — but one serious damage incident (party cleanup, furniture replacement, liability claim) can cost $5,000–$10,000+. The math works if you build Safely's cost into your nightly rate through OwnerRez's pricing rules, effectively passing it to guests. On a $200/night listing, $8 is a 4% increase that's nearly invisible to guests while providing $1M commercial coverage. If your properties run 200+ nights/year, compare Safely's per-night model against annual policies from Proper Insurance before committing.
- Does Safely integrate directly with OwnerRez so guest screening runs automatically?
- Safely's full PMS integration list is not publicly confirmed for all platforms. OwnerRez connects to third-party tools through its marketplace and Zapier, but verify current Safely-OwnerRez compatibility directly before assuming automated screening from booking data. If no native integration exists, Safely's standalone guest screening at $5/check works through its own portal — functional but requires manual guest detail entry rather than flowing automatically from OwnerRez bookings.
Keep digging
Safely
Best pay-per-booking insurance for low-to-mid occupancy hosts