Cloudbeds vs. Lodgify: What They Actually Cost a Bed & Breakfast Over a Year
A $100/mo sticker gap is easy to compare. What it actually costs once you account for manual guest-data entry and mid-contract migration risk is a different number entirely.
Cloudbeds $3,000/yr vs. Lodgify $1,800/yr — the $1,200/yr gap can shrink fast once you count staff time
Annual cost based on monthly list pricing; does not include staff time or migration cost, both discussed below.
The $100/mo difference between Cloudbeds and Lodgify is the easy part of this comparison — multiply by 12 and it's $1,200/yr, full stop. What most cost comparisons skip is the two things that actually move that number in practice: whether your guest-texting tool syncs automatically, and what it costs to switch platforms later if you outgrow the cheaper one mid-contract.
Annual cost comparison
The sticker-price gap is fixed; the real cost gap moves with how much manual work fills in what each platform doesn't automate.
What's actually included at each price point
| Factor | Cloudbeds | Lodgify |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly / annual cost | $250 / $3,000 | $150 / $1,800 |
| Employee ceiling | 40 | 25 |
| Native Podium sync | ||
| Booking-website builder included | Add-on | Yes |
| Room to grow before a forced migration | High | Moderate |
Here's the part the sticker price hides: Lodgify doesn't connect to Podium. If you're paying $150/mo for Podium's guest-texting and review automation on top of Lodgify, someone on staff is either re-typing guest names and dates by hand for every reservation, or that automation simply isn't running. Even a few minutes of manual entry per booking adds up to real labor cost over a season — cost that never shows up on an invoice but is just as real as the $100/mo sticker gap it's supposedly saving.
The worst time to migrate PMS platforms is the middle of peak season — OTA calendar re-syncing that goes wrong shows up as an actual double-booking, not a quiet backend error nobody notices.
What to actually add up before comparing sticker prices
- The $1,200/yr sticker-price gap itself — the only number most comparisons stop at
- Staff time spent on manual guest-data entry if you run Podium on Lodgify without native sync
- Migration cost — data export/import, staff retraining, OTA re-linking — if you outgrow Lodgify's 25-employee ceiling and have to switch mid-contract
- Whether Breezeway's housekeeping sync needs reconnecting too, since it ties to whichever PMS you keep
The cost-adjusted decision rule
If you rarely use Podium's automation and have no near-term plan to cross 25 employees, Lodgify's $1,200/yr saved is close to free money — take it. If you already pay for Podium and lean on its automation, the manual-entry cost on Lodgify likely erases a meaningful chunk of that $1,200/yr; run the math on your actual reservation volume before assuming the cheaper platform is actually cheaper.
$1,200/yr is the sticker gap. The real number depends on whether you're already paying for Podium and how many reservations a season run through manual re-entry instead of automatic sync.
Run the free audit with your real headcount and current spend to see the full-stack cost picture, not just one line item.