Airbnb calendar sync,
done properly.
Connect Airbnb once and stop copying dates between tabs. A booking on any channel closes those nights on the others, and there is a free way to do it before you decide whether the fast one is worth paying for.
Laurie saved $4,000 last year when he switched to Host Port.
“I was paying hotel money for software I needed a training call to understand. Host Port does the same job for a fraction of it. One calendar, every channel, and nothing I have to think about on a changeover day. Moving all four took less than an hour to do.”
Laurie hosts four stays around Manly, NSW.See them on Airbnb
Two ways to sync Airbnb. One of them is free.
Both keep your calendar in step. They differ in what they carry and how quickly, and the right answer depends entirely on how busy your calendar is.
- Airbnb’s booked dates come into your calendar
- Your calendar goes back out as a feed Airbnb reads
- We check every 15 minutes; Airbnb refreshes on its own timetable
- Rates, stay rules and guest details do not travel
Fine while your calendar is quiet and a few hours of lag would not cost you a booking.
- A booking on any channel closes those nights on Airbnb, and the reverse
- Nightly rates and stay rules push out with the availability
- Reservations arrive with the guest, the dates and the payout attached
- Future Airbnb reservations are pulled in the moment you connect
What you want the first weekend two guests could plausibly book the same night.
Start on iCal if you are not sure. Nothing about it is a trial, it does not expire, and moving to a direct connection later is a setting rather than a migration. It is decided per listing, so your busiest property can be on one and everything else on the other.
What crosses between you and Airbnb, and which way.
Worth being specific, because “two-way sync” is usually where the detail stops, including about the three things at the bottom, which do not travel at all.
- A booking on AirbnbFrom Airbnb
Arrives with the guest, the dates and the payout, and closes those nights everywhere else. The inbox thread opens at the same moment, before the guest has said anything.
- A booking anywhere elseTo Airbnb
Those nights close on Airbnb as the booking lands, direct, Booking.com, Vrbo or one you typed in yourself.
- Nightly ratesTo Airbnb
Pushed with the availability, across a rolling 500-day horizon, so you are not repricing the same night in three places.
- Minimum and maximum stayTo Airbnb
Per date, both of them. Minimum stay is enforced on the arrival date rather than on every night of the stay, that is Airbnb’s model, and we set it to match.
- Booking notice and pausingTo Airbnb
How far ahead a guest must book, and a stop-sell that closes the listing on Airbnb without touching your other channels.
- Closed to arrival / departureDoes not sync
Not per date. We only ever set these on the derived weekly and monthly rate plans, so if you need “no Saturday check-ins in December”, set it on Airbnb. This is a real gap, not a design choice.
- Weekly and monthly stay discountsDoes not sync
Airbnb keeps these inside the channel mapping rather than on the listing, so they are not yet ours to move. Change them on Airbnb, and see the note below, because they are worth checking.
- Listing content, photos and reviewsDoes not sync
Nothing we run edits your Airbnb listing. Availability, rates, stay rules and reservations, and that is the whole of it.
Both directions are event-driven, so the usual case is under a minute. Behind that sit a sweep every two minutes, a reconcile against Airbnb every fifteen, and a full resync overnight, so the worst case is a delay rather than a double booking. Anyone quoting you a firm number is quoting one they do not control.
Four steps, and the first one is the one that matters.
Nothing here is hard. Step one is the only one that can cost you money if you skip it, which is why it is step one rather than a footnote.
- 01In HostPort
Block what is already booked
Before anything connects, make sure nights sold on other channels are closed on Airbnb. Migrating an open calendar is the most common way a host creates a double booking on day one, and it is entirely avoidable.
- 02In HostPort
Turn on channel sync for the listing
Per listing, not per account, you can run one property on a direct connection and leave the rest on free iCal for as long as you like.
- 03On Airbnb
Authorise the connection
You are handed to Airbnb to sign in and approve, then pick which Airbnb listing maps to which HostPort listing. From your second listing onward there is nothing to sign in to again, the same authorisation covers every listing on that Airbnb account.
- 04Automatic
Your existing reservations are pulled in
As soon as the connection is live we ask Airbnb for your future reservations, so the calendar you are looking at a minute later already has them on it. You are not re-entering a season by hand.
We are not going to promise you a setup time. Step three lands on Airbnb’s clock rather than ours, and how long it takes depends on how quickly you can get into your own Airbnb account.
The money on an Airbnb booking, said plainly.
Both of these come up the first time a host reconciles a month and something does not add up. Better here than in a support email.
The figure on the booking is your payout, not the guest’s total
We ask Airbnb for the payout amount, so what lands in HostPort is what Airbnb will pay you, already net of their host service fee. It will not match the total the guest saw at checkout, and it is not meant to. It is the number you actually care about at the end of the month.
Co-host splits are not calculated for you
Where a payout is split with a co-host, that split is not worked out on our side, so a co-hosted listing can read high against what reaches your bank. Worth knowing before you reconcile a month and think something is broken.
Neither is a bug and neither is going to surprise you twice. They are simply what Airbnb sends, and we would rather you read it on a landing page than discover it in a spreadsheet.
iCal has an order, and Airbnb goes first.
The free route is not just the paid one made slower. It behaves differently, and four things about it are worth knowing before you paste your first feed URL.
Add Airbnb’s feed first
Of the big feeds, Airbnb’s is the one we trust on a first import. Its events carry enough to identify a real stay, so when it disagrees with a placeholder another platform’s feed left behind, Airbnb wins and the placeholder is replaced. Import the others first and you get the vaguer version of the same nights.
Held and blocked dates are ignored on purpose
Airbnb exports a hold or a manual block as an event reading “not available”. We drop those rather than import them, because we push your own blocks out to Airbnb and they come back in the same feed, importing them would breed phantom bookings out of your own closures.
What Airbnb sees from you is one word
Every event on the feed we publish says “Reserved”. Dates and nothing else. No guest name, no rate, no channel ever leaves HostPort on a calendar feed.
Lag is the sum of two schedules
We read your feeds every 15 minutes. Airbnb pulls the feeds it subscribes to on its own timetable, its published guidance for its own imports is around three hours. Neither number is the whole delay; the two stack.
None of this makes iCal unsafe. It makes it slow and literal, which is fine for a calendar with room in it and not fine for one without. Compare it against the same decision for the other channels on Vrbo, Booking.com, or Airbnb and Vrbo together.
One window no channel manager can close.
When Airbnb holds dates while a guest clears ID verification, it has not created a reservation yet, so there is nothing for Airbnb to tell us about, and its calendar feed reports those nights as unavailable rather than booked, which we deliberately ignore because that is also how your own blocks come back to us. For that window, Airbnb is the only system that knows those dates are claimed. We have measured it at about an hour and a half on a live listing, and it closed by itself when the guest finished verifying.
We are telling you because it is true of every tool in this category, including the ones that say they eliminate double bookings. They are either unaware of it or hoping you are.
Free is a plan here, not a countdown.
One price per listing whatever you connect it to. No per-channel fee, no commission, no charge for the people you invite.
Unlimited listings. No credit card, no trial clock.
- One-way iCal sync with Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo
- Unified calendar across every listing
- Manual bookings, blocks and notes
- Mobile app with push alerts
- Commission-free direct booking page for every listing
- Team and cleaner access, unlimited seats
Per listing, per month, in AUD.
- Everything in Free
- Airbnb connected directly, not by iCal
- Two-way sync, usually inside a minute
- Rates and stay rules pushed with availability
- Airbnb guest messages in the unified inbox
- Booking.com, Vrbo and more on the same connection
Stop paying and the listing drops back to free iCal rather than going dark. Full pricing.
Common questions
Is Airbnb calendar sync free?
Over iCal, yes, for unlimited listings, with no card and no trial clock, alongside Booking.com, Vrbo and anything else that publishes a feed. What you give up is speed and detail: iCal carries dates and nothing else, and each platform refreshes on its own schedule rather than the moment something changes. The direct two-way connection is $10 AUD per listing per month.
How do I sync my Airbnb calendar with Booking.com?
Two ways. Free: connect both calendars by iCal and each reads the other’s feed, with dates only and a few hours of lag on each side. Paid: connect both directly, and a booking on either closes those nights on the other in about a minute, with your rates and stay rules pushed out at the same time. You do not have to pick the same route for both, one listing can run Airbnb directly and Booking.com on iCal.
How long does Airbnb calendar sync take to update?
On a direct connection, usually under a minute in both directions, because both are event-driven rather than scheduled. Behind that sit a sweep every two minutes, a reconcile every fifteen and a full resync overnight, so the worst case is a delay rather than a double booking. On iCal it is slower and less predictable: we read every 15 minutes, and Airbnb refreshes what it subscribes to on its own timetable.
Will connecting change my Airbnb prices?
Your HostPort rates become the ones that push out, so set them before you connect rather than after. Nightly rates and per-date minimum and maximum stay travel across a rolling 500-day horizon. Weekly and monthly stay discounts do not, Airbnb keeps those inside the channel mapping, and they stay yours to manage on Airbnb.
Why does the payout in HostPort not match what the guest paid?
Because it is not meant to. We ask Airbnb for the payout figure, which is already net of their host service fee, so it will read lower than the guest’s checkout total. If the listing is co-hosted, note that we do not calculate the co-host split either, so a co-hosted listing can read high against what actually reaches your bank.
Do Airbnb guest messages come through too?
Yes, on a direct connection, in the same inbox as Booking.com and your direct guests. The thread opens the moment the booking lands rather than waiting for the guest to speak first, so there is somewhere to write before they do. Photo attachments do not reach the guest on any channel.
Can Airbnb still block a date I cannot see?
Yes, briefly, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. When Airbnb holds dates pending a guest’s ID verification it has not created a reservation yet, so there is nothing for us to be told about, and its feed reports those nights as unavailable rather than booked. We have measured that window at about an hour and a half. It closes by itself when the guest clears the check.
What happens to bookings I already have on Airbnb?
On a direct connection they are pulled in as soon as it goes live, we ask Airbnb for your future reservations at the end of setup, so you are not re-entering a season by hand. On iCal, the dates come in on the next poll, without the guest or the money attached.
Do I have to connect every listing?
No. The direct connection is per listing, so you can run your busiest property on it and leave the others on free iCal indefinitely. One authorisation on Airbnb covers every listing on that account, so adding the second one is a mapping step rather than another sign-in.
What happens if I stop paying?
The listing falls back to free iCal rather than going dark. You lose the speed, the rate pushing and the messages, you keep a calendar that still updates, and nothing is held hostage.
Put Airbnb on the same calendar as everything else.
Start on the free plan, connect a feed, and see your whole month in one place tonight. Upgrade the listing that needs the speed when it needs it.