Short-Term Rentals
Sharp Vacation Manager
Most STR software just tracks bookings. Real STR profitability requires understanding cleaning costs, dynamic pricing, occupancy gaps, and whether STR is even beating long-term rental for that property.
Most STR software just tracks bookings. Real STR profitability requires understanding cleaning costs, dynamic pricing, occupancy gaps, and whether STR is even beating long-term rental for that property.
Short-term rental software is everywhere — every vacation rental owner has been pitched at least five booking platforms, channel managers, and pricing tools. What's harder to find is software that answers the question every Airbnb host eventually asks: am I actually making more money on this than I would as a long-term rental? Most STR software is built to optimize bookings, not to tell you whether the whole STR strategy is even working.
Gross Airbnb revenue looks impressive. A property pulling $48,000 a year in bookings sounds like it's killing it compared to a $2,200/month long-term rental ($26,400 a year). But STR profitability is full of hidden subtractions. Cleaning fees that you might be passing through but still have to coordinate. Supply restocking. Higher utility costs from variable occupancy. Wear and tear that runs 3-5x faster than LTR. Vacancy gaps between bookings. Platform fees. The mental cost of managing a property that turns over every weekend.
Subtract all of that and the gap between gross STR revenue and net STR profit can shock owners. Sometimes the LTR comp wins. Sometimes the STR is worth it. The point is that most STR owners don't actually know which of those is true for their property. Sharp Vacation Manager was built to make that question answerable.
Multiple STR properties. Booking integration. Calendar tracking. Occupancy patterns and seasonality data.
Repeat guests. Problem guests. Booking source patterns. Lead time analysis. The data that helps you optimize.
Cleaning fees per turnover. Supply costs. Repair frequencies. Maintenance per booking — the costs STR owners often miss.
The headline feature. Compare your real STR net profitability against what a long-term rental would generate at market rate.
Average daily rate. Effective annual rent. Occupancy rate. Lead time. Patterns that drive better pricing decisions.
STR tax reporting is its own beast. Schedule E vs. Schedule C considerations. Material participation tracking.
Sharp Vacation Manager is built for STR operators with one or more vacation rental properties. Solo Airbnb hosts. Small portfolio operators. Landlords running both LTR and STR who need to evaluate whether each property is in the right strategy. Real estate investors evaluating STR potential before buying.
The biggest question every STR owner faces is whether to keep running it as STR or convert to LTR. The answer depends on actual numbers — STR net (after all real costs) vs. LTR market rent in that submarket. Most owners can't actually run that comparison because they don't track STR costs accurately enough to know their real net.
Sharp Vacation Manager runs that comparison continuously. Real STR net profit, calculated month-over-month. Local LTR market rent, updated periodically. The difference, expressed clearly. If your STR is netting $400 a month over what an LTR would produce, that's worth the operational complexity. If it's netting $50, the math probably doesn't justify it.
STR taxation is significantly more complex than LTR. The "average rental period" of seven days or less can shift your STR from passive rental income (Schedule E) to active business income (Schedule C). Material participation rules can affect whether losses are deductible against other income. State and local lodging taxes apply that don't apply to LTR. Most STR owners are either underpaying or overpaying because the rules aren't intuitive. Sharp Vacation Manager tracks the data points that drive these tax distinctions so your CPA has what they need to file correctly.