A comprehensive guide to setting up, optimizing, and getting real results from GPO—built from Guesty's official documentation and our hands-on experience.
Before diving into GPO, let's make sure we're speaking the same language. Revenue management has its own vocabulary, and understanding these concepts will help you get more out of the tool—and this course.
Your starting point for all rate calculations. Think of it as your "default" nightly rate before any adjustments for seasonality, day-of-week, or demand are applied. All other pricing factors add to or subtract from this number.
The lowest rate you're willing to accept for a night. No matter what the algorithm suggests or how low demand gets, your price will never drop below this floor. Protects you from underselling.
The highest rate you'll charge for a night. Even during peak demand or major events, your price won't exceed this ceiling. Protects you from pricing yourself out of the market.
Your average revenue per booked night. Calculated by dividing total room revenue by the number of nights sold. A key metric for understanding your pricing performance.
| Metric | What It Measures | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Occupancy Rate | Percentage of available nights that are booked | Booked Nights ÷ Available Nights × 100 |
| ADR | Average revenue per booked night | Total Revenue ÷ Booked Nights |
| RevPAR | Revenue per available night (booked or not) | Total Revenue ÷ Available Nights — or — ADR × Occupancy Rate |
RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room/Night) is the gold standard metric because it captures both pricing AND occupancy. You can have a high ADR but low occupancy (overpriced), or high occupancy but low ADR (underpriced). RevPAR tells you if you're actually maximizing total revenue.
The number of days between when a reservation is made and the check-in date. Understanding your typical booking window helps you know when to adjust pricing and when to start discounting unsold inventory.
How your bookings are accumulating compared to a previous period (usually last year). "Pacing ahead" means you have more bookings than this time last year; "pacing behind" means fewer. Helps you decide whether to raise or lower prices.
A group of similar listings you compare yourself against. Your comps should be properties that a guest would realistically choose between—similar location, size, amenities, and quality.
Unbooked nights between two reservations that are too short to sell given your minimum night requirement. For example, a 2-night gap when you have a 3-night minimum. These are revenue killers if not managed.
Demand pacing is a strategy that adjusts your prices based on how full your calendar is relative to how far out the dates are. The logic:
GPO lets you configure demand pacing rules in a matrix where you set price adjustments based on occupancy thresholds and days-before-check-in ranges.
The goal isn't maximum occupancy or maximum rate—it's maximum revenue. Sometimes that means leaving a night empty rather than selling it cheap. Sometimes it means dropping your rate to fill a gap. Every decision should ask: "What maximizes my total revenue?"
Guesty PriceOptimizer (GPO) is a data-driven, machine-learning tool that recommends nightly rates for your listings based on market trends, property characteristics, and historical data. It's built directly into Guesty, which means your optimized prices sync automatically across all your connected booking channels.
Unlike manual pricing or basic seasonal adjustments, GPO continuously analyzes your market and updates recommendations daily. This helps you capture demand spikes, fill gaps, and avoid leaving money on the table.
GPO considers: your property's characteristics (amenities, bedrooms, location), market trends compared to similar properties, seasonality patterns, day-of-week demand, local events, and any manual adjustments you've made. All of these factors combine to generate a recommended nightly rate that updates daily.
Capture demand spikes from events, holidays, and market shifts you might otherwise miss.
Stop manually adjusting rates. GPO updates your calendar daily based on real market data.
See how your rates compare to competitors with built-in benchmarking tools.
Prices update automatically across Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and all connected channels.
You must deactivate any other smart pricing tool (like PriceLabs, Wheelhouse, or Beyond) before using GPO. Running multiple pricing tools simultaneously will cause conflicts and unpredictable results in your calendar.
GPO starts with a 14-day free trial (30 days for Guesty for Hosts users). During this period, you can experiment with settings and see how they affect pricing recommendations before the tool goes live on your calendar.
The key insight: you can activate GPO on a listing to see recommendations without actually pushing those prices to your calendar. This lets you experiment safely.
Keep a listing "inactive" while you experiment with settings. You'll see how changes affect the pricing forecast without actually changing your live rates. Only activate once you're confident in the setup.
The Pricing Forecast is your command center. Here's what each line means:
| Line | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Actual Pricing | Your current rate after all GPO adjustments are applied. This is what guests will see. |
| Recommended Pricing | GPO's base suggestion before any of your custom adjustments. |
| Market Pricing | Average rates for similar listings in your area. Great for benchmarking. |
| Original Pricing | Your rates before activating GPO. Useful for measuring impact. |
When you hover over any date, a popup shows the price breakdown: base price, seasonality impact, day-of-week impact, and any other factors affecting that night's rate.
GPO's pricing strategy section is where you fine-tune how the algorithm generates rates. You can adjust the base price, set day-of-week patterns, configure seasonal adjustments, and create holiday rules.
Think of it as layering: each factor (base price, day-of-week, seasonality, holidays) adds or subtracts from your final nightly rate.
Final Rate = Base Price
+ Day-of-Week Impact
+ Seasonality Impact
+ Holiday Impact
+ Last Minute Impact
+ Demand Pacing Impact
Your base price is the starting point for all calculations. You have three options:
Let GPO recommend a base price using its algorithm. Choose conservative (-20%), recommended, or aggressive (+20%).
Set your own base price if you have strong market knowledge or specific revenue targets.
Most markets have predictable weekly patterns. Weekends typically command higher rates, while midweek nights may need discounting. GPO lets you set percentage adjustments for each day.
You can also create date-range rules that override your default day-of-week settings for specific periods (like a festival weekend where Tuesday is suddenly high-demand).
Configure how GPO adjusts prices throughout the year:
Your default min/max limits apply year-round, but you can create time-based rules for specific periods. Example: default min $800, max $1300—but for summer (May-October), set min $1000, max $1800.
GPO automatically detects holidays based on your listing's country and applies pricing adjustments. You can:
Date-range rules override day-of-week rules. If you set a specific adjustment for December 20-31, it will take precedence over your normal weekend/weekday patterns for those dates.
Smart minimum night rules are one of the most powerful—and most overlooked—features in GPO. Done right, they help you fill orphan nights, reduce gaps, and maximize calendar utilization.
Once GPO is active, minimum night changes made in Guesty's calendar or listing settings will be overridden within 24 hours. Always manage minimum nights directly in GPO.
Set different minimums for each day. Example: 3-night minimum for Friday check-ins, 2-night for Sunday.
Adjust minimums for specific date ranges like holidays, events, or seasons. These layer on top of day-of-week rules.
Set higher minimums for dates further out (to capture longer stays early) that relax as the date approaches.
Block check-ins or check-outs on specific days to create cleaner booking patterns and reduce turnover.
This is where GPO really shines. Enable "Maximize Occupancy" to automatically handle orphan nights:
You have a 3-night gap between bookings, but your default minimum is 5 nights. With Maximize Occupancy enabled (set to 2-night minimum for gaps), GPO automatically lowers the minimum for that gap, making it bookable. The minimum night of the first night in the gap updates within 24 hours.
You can also automatically adjust pricing for gap nights:
The first day of the gap must fall within your rule's date range. If your rule covers days 7-14 but the gap starts on day 5, the rule won't apply. Also, if the gap is larger than your maximum gap setting, the rule is skipped.
Once you've mastered the basics, these advanced features let you fine-tune GPO's behavior for specific scenarios.
Control how pricing adjusts as check-in approaches. This helps fill last-minute inventory without permanently discounting your rates.
Last Minute Impact = % × (Base Price + Dynamic Factors)
Example:
Base price: $265
Seasonal impact: +$340
Day-of-week: -$57
Subtotal: $548
Within 5 days of check-in: -20%
Final price: $438
You can use Automatic (let GPO decide, with conservative/aggressive options) or Fine-tune to set specific discounts for each time increment before check-in.
This feature adjusts pricing based on your occupancy relative to days before check-in. If your calendar is filling up faster than expected, prices increase. If bookings are slow, prices can decrease.
You set 15-day parameters for "days before check-in" and define adjustments based on occupancy levels:
GPO automatically detects high-impact local events—concerts, festivals, sports games, conventions—and adjusts pricing accordingly. These suggestions are updated every Monday.
If you make a manual override in the pricing forecast or calendar, it takes priority. Next comes any manual local event you created. Automatic (data-driven) events come last. This means your manual adjustments always win.
You can also create manual events for local happenings GPO might miss. Just check first—wait to see if it's automatically added before creating a duplicate.
Suggested local events are managed under Group Pricing Strategies, not under individual listings. Navigate to PriceOptimizer → Group pricing strategies → Override groups to view and toggle them on/off.
Managing pricing listing-by-listing works fine for small portfolios, but becomes unsustainable as you grow. GPO's Group Pricing Strategies let you define strategies once and apply them to groups of listings.
When you create a new group, you'll choose between two types:
Create multiple strategies at once for all the listings in a group. Control ALL pricing levers from one place.
Override a specific pricing strategy for selected listings. Control ONE lever that applies on top of existing settings.
A Strategy Group gives you full control over every pricing lever for all assigned listings:
| Pricing Lever | What It Controls |
|---|---|
| Base price | Starting point for all rate calculations |
| Price limits | Min/max rate boundaries |
| Seasonal | Monthly and date-range adjustments |
| Day-of-week | Weekend vs. weekday pricing |
| Holiday | Holiday-specific rate adjustments |
| Min. nights | Minimum stay requirements and gap filling |
| Last minute | Discounts as check-in approaches |
| Local event | Event-based pricing adjustments |
| Demand pacing | Occupancy-based rate adjustments |
When you add a listing to a Strategy Group, the group's settings replace the listing-level settings for all configured levers.
Override Groups let you make targeted adjustments for a subset of listings without changing the main Strategy Group. A listing can belong to one Strategy Group AND one or more Override Groups.
Your "Miami Portfolio" Strategy Group has a 2-night minimum for 50 listings. Art Basel is coming, and 10 of your properties are in the event zone. Create a minimum nights Override Group with a 3-night time-based rule for the event dates, assign those 10 listings, and you're done—the other 40 properties keep their 2-night minimum.
The Group pricing strategies page has tabs: "All groups," "Strategy groups," and "Override groups." Use these to quickly filter and find what you're looking for as your group count grows.
When using group pricing strategies, bulk capabilities are disabled. Use groups for ongoing management, and bulk actions only for one-off ad hoc adjustments.
Setting up GPO is just the beginning. The real value comes from monitoring performance, comparing against the market, and continuously optimizing your strategy.
GPO includes two powerful dashboards:
Compares your current year's revenue, average nightly rate (ANR), and booked days to the same periods last year. Spot trends and identify when you need to adjust.
Uses anonymized data from 200,000+ listings to show how you compare to the market on ANR, booked days, and review ratings.
Key metrics to monitor:
GPO's Competitor Benchmarking lets you compare your listing's performance against similar properties. By default, GPO creates an auto-generated comp set based on its algorithm—but you can (and should) build your own custom comp set for more accurate comparisons.
The default comp set is a starting point, but it may include properties that aren't truly comparable to yours. A custom comp set lets you hand-pick the listings a guest would actually choose between when booking—giving you much more actionable pricing intelligence.
Include 5-15 listings that match your property on: location (same neighborhood or area), size (similar bedroom/bathroom count), quality tier (similar review scores and amenities), and property type (don't compare a cabin to a downtown condo). These should be properties a guest would realistically book instead of yours.
Once you have your comp set, you can compare:
Weekly and monthly average rates for your listing vs. your comp set. See if you're priced above, below, or in line with the market.
How full your calendar is compared to competitors. High occupancy with lower ADR might mean you're underpriced.
Custom comp sets are created per listing—there's no way to bulk-apply a comp set to multiple properties. You'll need to build comp sets individually for each listing you want to benchmark.
Manual price adjustments you make in the multi-calendar will sync TO GPO and won't be overwritten. This includes minimum night rules. Once you've made a manual adjustment on the multi-calendar, your GPO minimum night setting will no longer be applied to that set of dates. If you wan to avoid this, you can update your pricing via the Pricing Forecast, directly in GPO.
This course covers the fundamentals, but every portfolio is different. If you want expert eyes on your GPO setup, we're here to help.
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