Touch Stay vs Hostfully vs Keystay: what a vacation rental guidebook should cost in 2026
Digital guidebooks have quietly become standard kit for short-term rentals. Guests expect the wifi password, the door code, and the checkout steps on their phone, not in a binder under the coffee table.
The question is no longer whether to have one. It is what you should pay for one, and on what terms.
This article compares the three pricing models on the market in 2026: subscription (Touch Stay), freemium (Hostfully Guidebooks), and one-time payment (Keystay, that's us). We build Keystay, so read this knowing where we stand. We have kept the numbers factual and the trade-offs honest, including the ones that favor our competitors.
All prices were checked in July 2026 on public pricing pages and software directories. Prices change. Always confirm on the vendor's own site before you buy.
The three pricing models, in one table
| Feature | Touch Stay | Hostfully Guidebooks | Keystay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model | Subscription | Freemium + subscription | One-time payment |
| Entry price | From $99/year for 1 property (annual billing); around $15/month billed monthly | Free plan: $0 for 1 guidebook | $39 once for 1 property |
| The catch at entry | No free tier. Stop paying, lose access | Free plan carries sponsored recommendations you cannot remove | Fewer themes and no PMS integrations |
| Paid tier | Scales with property count via their pricing calculator | Pro plan (up to 199 guidebooks); price not published on their pricing page, directories list around $8 to $10 per guidebook per month | $59 Pro (AI import, 3 guest languages, extra themes) or $99 for 3 Pro guidebooks |
| 5-year cost, 1 property | Roughly $495+ at current entry pricing | $0 with sponsor branding, or roughly $480+ on Pro at directory-listed rates | $39 to $59, total |
| Hosting terms | While you subscribe | While on a plan | Hosting included for 5 years + export anytime |
| Free trial | 14-day trial | Free plan itself | Free Wi-Fi QR Sign Maker, no signup |
| Best for | Hosts who want a mature feature set and accept a yearly bill | Managers running many units who want PMS sync and upsell tools | Hosts with 1 to 3 properties who want to pay once and be done |
Now the detail behind each row.
Touch Stay: the subscription veteran
Touch Stay is one of the oldest names in digital guidebooks, and it shows in the product. It is polished, feature-rich, and widely used.
What it costs
Touch Stay uses a pricing calculator based on how many properties you manage. As of July 2026, public listings and their own pricing page put the entry point at $99 per year for a single property on annual billing, or about $15 per month if you pay monthly. Two properties run around $150 per year. There is a 14-day free trial and no permanent free tier.
Source: touchstay.com/pricing. Directory listings on G2 and Capterra corroborate these figures.
What you get
A genuinely deep product: guidebook builder, scheduled guest messaging, upsell features, integrations with property management systems, and a track record going back years. If you run a growing portfolio and want your guidebook to talk to the rest of your stack, Touch Stay earns its keep.
The honest trade-off
The bill never stops. At entry pricing, one property costs roughly $495 over five years, and the day you stop paying, your guidebook goes dark. You are renting the guidebook, not buying it. For a professional operation that treats software as an operating expense, that is fine. For a host with one cottage, it is a strange deal: your wifi password does not change often enough to justify an annuity.
Hostfully Guidebooks: free, with an asterisk
Hostfully sells a full property management platform, and its Digital Guidebooks product is the piece most small hosts encounter first.
What it costs
Per Hostfully's own pricing page (checked July 2026): the Free plan covers 1 guidebook at $0. The Pro plan covers up to 199 guidebooks and adds custom branding, bulk editing, and instant translation to 16+ languages; Hostfully does not publish the Pro price on that page, and third-party directories list it at roughly $7.99 per guidebook per month billed annually, or $9.99 billed monthly. Enterprise (200+ guidebooks) is quote-based. A 1% Stripe fee applies if you sell upsells through their marketplace.
Source: hostfully.com/pricing/digital-guidebooks.
What you get
The free tier is a real product and a fair way to test the format. The paid tiers make sense at scale: if you manage 20 units, per-guidebook pricing with bulk editing and PMS sync is the right shape of deal.
The honest trade-off
Read the free plan closely. It includes sponsored recommendations, which means third-party promotions appear inside the guidebook you hand your guests, and you cannot remove them without upgrading. Free means their monetization runs through your guest experience. That is not a scandal, it is how freemium works. But a guidebook is part of your hospitality, and many hosts are uncomfortable with ads in it. The moment you want them gone, you are on a subscription, and the five-year math starts to look like Touch Stay's.
Keystay: pay once, own the outcome
Keystay is our product, so weigh this section accordingly. We built it around one belief: a guidebook for a small rental is not a service you should rent. It is closer to a piece of equipment. You buy it, you use it, you adjust it when something changes.
What it costs
Three prices, no subscription anywhere:
- $39 Guidebook. One property. A hosted, mobile-first web guidebook with a wifi card (tap-to-reveal and copy), check-in steps, house rules, local tips with Google Maps links, photos, and your contact. Plus an auto-generated printable QR sign in A5 and US letter.
- $59 Guidebook Pro. Everything above, plus AI import (paste your listing description and the form pre-fills), a guest language toggle for up to 3 languages, and 2 extra themes.
- $99 Host Bundle. Three Pro guidebooks, for hosts with a few doors.
The terms in plain words: hosting included for 5 years + export anytime. Edits are free through your private magic link. You can download your guidebook as HTML or PDF whenever you want, so your content is never hostage. See keystay.co/#pricing for the current details.
The honest trade-off
Keystay is new, and we will not pretend otherwise. There are no reviews to show you yet, no logos, no case studies. What we can show you is the product itself: there is a live demo guidebook you can open on your phone right now, tap the wifi reveal, and judge with your own thumbs. There is also a free Wi-Fi QR Sign Maker that requires no signup, so you can test our print quality before spending a cent. And a refund guarantee backs the purchase.
You should also know what Keystay does not do. No PMS integrations. No scheduled messaging. No analytics dashboard. One theme at $39, three at $59. If you manage ten or more units and need your guidebook wired into a management platform, Touch Stay or Hostfully Pro is honestly the better tool. We built Keystay for the host with one to three properties who wants the guest-facing result without the recurring bill.
The five-year math
Take one property and run the numbers from July 2026 pricing:
- Touch Stay: about $99 per year on annual billing. Five years: roughly $495, assuming prices never rise.
- Hostfully Free: $0, with sponsored recommendations in front of every guest for five years.
- Hostfully Pro: around $96 per year at directory-listed annual rates. Five years: roughly $480.
- Keystay: $39 or $59, once. Five years: $39 or $59.
The subscription products deliver more software for that money. The question is whether you need more software. Most small hosts need exactly one thing: a page where guests find the wifi, the door, the rules, and three good places to eat, plus a sign that gets them there. If that is your need, paying $480+ over five years for it is a pricing model problem, not a product problem.
How to decide
- You manage 10+ units, use a PMS, and want messaging automation: pick Touch Stay or Hostfully Pro. At that scale, the subscription pays for itself in saved admin time.
- You want to test the digital guidebook format at zero cost and do not mind sponsor content: Hostfully's free tier is a legitimate starting point.
- You have 1 to 3 properties and want to solve this once: that is what Keystay is for. $39 once, unbranded, hosting included for 5 years + export anytime.
Whichever you choose, get the wifi password off your message thread and onto a wall. Your guests will find it there. You can start with our free Wi-Fi QR Sign Maker today, no account needed.
Disclosure and disclaimer: Keystay makes the Keystay guidebook builder. Keystay is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Touch Stay or Hostfully. Their names are used only to identify and compare the products. Prices were checked in July 2026 on public pricing pages and software directories and may have changed; confirm current pricing on each vendor's site. Keystay is also not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com.