Guest Communication
Touch Stay
Digital guidebooks that cut guest questions by up to 80%
Solid Option
Feature-rich digital guidebook platform with a premium price tag
From $8.25/listing • Free trial
Comparison
Touch Stay vs Chekin
Pricing, pros and cons, and buyer-fit side-by-side. Pick the one that matches your operation — or see why neither should.
Guest Communication
Chekin
Guest registration, ID verification, and EU compliance for short-term rentals
Best for Enterprise
The default guest-registration layer for EU short-term rental operators
From €3.95 • No free trial
✓Editorial verdict
Which Should You Pick: Touch Stay or Chekin?
Pick Touch Stay if you need a digital guidebook platform that cuts repetitive guest questions, bundles upselling and review collection, and charges zero commission on upsell revenue. Pick Chekin if you operate in the EU and must file guest data with police or tourism authorities — Touch Stay has no compliance or ID-verification features.
Editorial perspective from the Touch Stay side; factual claims about Chekin are drawn from its review.
Pricing Side-by-Side
Touch Stay
Full pricing →From $8.25/listing • Free trial
Annual plan
$8.25/mo per property ($99/yr)
Per property
- Digital guidebook (PWA)
- Email and SMS messaging
- Upsell widget
- 5-star review popup
- Contact collection
- Analytics dashboard
- PMS integrations
Monthly plan
Higher per-property rate (exact pricing varies)
Per property
- All features in annual plan
Chekin
Full pricing →From €3.95 • No free trial
Basic
€3.95/property/mo
- Online check-in and guest registration
- Police/tourism authority reporting
- Tourist tax collection
Premium
€5.95/property/mo
- Everything in Basic
- One premium feature: ID verification, virtual keys, Guest App, digital guide, unified inbox, or e-invoicing
- Payment processing 1.5% + €0.99/transaction; 1% upselling commission
Enterprise
€7.95/property/mo
- Everything in Premium
- Customized configuration ('Personalizado')
- Same 3-unit monthly / 20-unit annual minimums
What each tool does well — and where it falls short
What Touch Stay does well
Reduces guest questions by up to 80%
Thousands of hosts report significant time savings from automated responses and comprehensive digital guidebooks, with 92% of users reporting happier guests.
No-download progressive web app
Guests access guidebooks directly on their devices without downloading anything. They can optionally add to their home screen for offline access with a custom icon.
Extensive bundled features beyond guidebooks
Touch Stay bundles email and SMS messaging, an upsell widget, a 5-star review popup, contact collection, and an analytics dashboard — reducing the need for separate tools.
What Chekin does well
Police reporting coverage spans 20+ countries
Hotel Tech Report (accessed 2026-04-25) says Chekin handles 'police reporting (20+ countries)' alongside ID verification, digital signatures, tourist tax, and deposits. Removes manual filing for operators in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, and beyond.
Slots alongside ~35+ named PMS and channel partners
The vendor integrations page lists Guesty, Hostaway, Cloudbeds, Lodgify, Smoobu, Mews, OwnerRez, Hostfully, Avantio, Hospitable, and more. Operators don't need to swap their stack to add a compliance layer.
Documented public REST API with self-serve API key generation
Chekin's public API documentation covers Reservations, Housing, Rooms, Police, and Stats endpoints with HTTPS-only access. Operators can build embedded check-in pages or pipe data into custom dashboards.
Where Touch Stay falls short
No permanent free tier
Touch Stay offers only a 14-day trial with no free plan, making it harder for small operators to test long-term before committing.
Higher cost than key competitors
Competitors like GoGuidebook offer similar digital guidebook functionality at roughly 25% lower cost, which adds up for larger portfolios.
Cumbersome multi-guide management
While you can duplicate and edit guidebooks, syncing changes between multiple guides for similar properties is tedious and error-prone.
Where Chekin falls short
Customer support repeatedly described as unresponsive in 2024–2025 reviews
A January 2025 Capterra review says 'Support is zero. We sent several emails... without success.' Capterra customer service score sits at 2.3/5 across multiple reviews — the most consistent negative signal across independent sources.
Minimums force small hosts to overpay
Vendor pricing page requires 3 units monthly or 20 units annually. A 1- or 2-property host pays for 3 units they don't have on monthly billing, and the annual discount is locked behind a 20-unit commitment.
Compliance value is overwhelmingly EU-centric
Authority connectors include Policía Nacional, Guardia Civil, SES.HOSPEDAJES, Alloggiati Web, ISTAT, SEF Portugal, eVisitor, and Feratel — with limited non-EU coverage (Dubai Police, EMAAR). US operators pay the per-property rate without the police-reporting feature that anchors the value prop.
Which Should You Pick
Pick Touch Stay if
Larger vacation rental portfolios (10+ properties) already integrated with PMSs like Hostaway or Guesty who want comprehensive guest communication tools with upselling features.
Skip Touch Stay if
Small operators (1–5 properties) who prefer free options or don't need extensive PMS integrations — competitors like GuestIntro offer similar functionality at lower cost.
Pick Chekin if
European STR operators in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, and France who must submit guest data to police or tourism registries and want online check-in, ID verification, and tourist tax collection in one workflow.
Skip Chekin if
You're a sub-3-property US/non-EU host with no police-registration obligation, or you require fast, responsive customer support.
Where Touch Stay and Chekin actually differ
- Touch Stay starts at $8.25/listing/mo on annual plans ($99/year) with a 14-day free trial and no unit minimums; Chekin starts at €3.95/property/mo (Basic) up to €7.95 (Enterprise) with a 3-unit monthly minimum or 20-unit annual minimum and no free trial — Touch Stay is pricier per-unit but has a lower barrier to entry.
- Touch Stay's core product is a progressive web app guidebook with bundled email/SMS messaging, upsell widget, 5-star review popup, and analytics dashboard. Chekin's core product is regulatory compliance — police and tourism authority reporting in 20+ countries, ID verification, and tourist tax collection — with guest communication as a secondary feature.
- Touch Stay charges zero commission on upsell revenue; Chekin charges 1.5% + €0.30 on deposits, $2.50–$4 per booking for Waivo damage protection, and 1.5% + €0.99 + 1% commission on Premium payment processing — operators who monetize upsells keep more with Touch Stay.
- Touch Stay lists 10+ native PMS integrations (Hostaway, Guesty, OwnerRez) with limited API access; Chekin documents a public REST API with self-serve key generation and integrates with 35+ PMS, channel, and smart-lock partners including Nuki and Cloudbeds — Chekin has a broader integration footprint.
- Touch Stay is rated "great" for large portfolios and multi-channel operators who benefit from consistent guidebook delivery at scale; Chekin is rated "great" for mid-size EU portfolios (10–50 units) that need police reporting their PMS doesn't handle natively — each tool's sweet spot is a different operational problem.
Common objections
- Chekin costs less per property — why pay more for Touch Stay?
- Chekin's lower per-unit price buys compliance automation (police filing, ID verification, tourist tax), not guest communication. If you don't operate in the EU or have no police-filing obligation, that per-property spend returns zero operational value. Touch Stay's $8.25/listing/mo buys a guidebook PWA, messaging, upselling with zero commission, and review collection — features that reduce guest questions across every booking regardless of jurisdiction. Compare what each dollar buys, not the dollar amount.
- Chekin has 35+ integrations and a public API versus Touch Stay's 10+ — doesn't that make Chekin more future-proof?
- Chekin's broader integration count reflects its compliance scope — many of those connections are to police registries, smart locks, and channel managers needed for the ID-and-filing workflow. Touch Stay's 10+ native PMS integrations (Hostaway, Guesty, OwnerRez) cover the connections that matter for guidebook delivery and guest data sync. If you need smart-lock pairing or police-registry transmission, Chekin's ecosystem is essential. If your integration need is PMS-to-guidebook automation, Touch Stay's smaller list covers the major platforms.
- Can't I just use Chekin's built-in digital guide feature instead of paying for Touch Stay separately?
- Chekin's Premium tier (€5.95/property/mo) unlocks a digital guide as one of several premium features, but it's a secondary add-on to a compliance platform — not a purpose-built guidebook product. Touch Stay's entire product is the guidebook experience: offline-capable PWA, branded content, upsell widgets with zero commission, review collection, and analytics. If you already pay for Chekin for EU compliance and want a basic guest guide, the built-in option may suffice. If the guidebook is your primary guest-communication strategy, Touch Stay's dedicated tooling is substantially deeper.
Keep Digging
Touch Stay
Feature-rich digital guidebook platform with a premium price tag
Chekin
The default guest-registration layer for EU short-term rental operators