Motel reservation software prices for 30 rooms: why the $39 plan can cost more than the $285 one

Little Hotelier’s pricing page quotes a 30-room property $39 a month for its Basics plan, then adds a 1% fee on the value of every booking, including the ones taken by phone or at the desk [1]. For a motel that fills rooms, that small headline number becomes the most expensive plan on the page.

That matters because motel reservation software is a bill you pay every month for years. Choice Hotels reported that its U.S. economy brands averaged 46.7% occupancy at $70.73 a night in 2025 [2]. At those numbers a 30-room motel sells about 420 room-nights and books about $29,728 of rooms a month, so a 1% fee alone comes to $297.

We read seven vendors’ public pricing pages on Oct 21, 2026, set each price calculator to 30 rooms where the page had one, and wrote down what a property pays before taxes, card processing and add-ons. Motel4 publishes this post. We sell an AI phone receptionist, and none of the reservation systems below is ours.

Prices, checked Oct 21, 2026

Each row is the vendor’s own published price for 30 rooms, billed monthly, in U.S. dollars.

Software and plan	Price for 30 rooms	How the price is set	Channel manager	Source
Sirvoy Starter	$54 a month	Flat, 21-50 room tier	No	[3]
Sirvoy Pro	$185 a month	Flat, 21-50 room tier	Yes	[3]
Little Hotelier Basics	$39 a month plus 1% of bookings	Base fee plus booking fee	Yes	[1]
Little Hotelier Pro	From $285 a month	Flat at 30 rooms	Yes	[1]
WebRezPro	$300 a month	$10 per unit, $250 minimum at 25-49 units; yearly contract, cancel with 30 days’ notice, no penalty	Two free integrations	[4]
HotelRunner Essential Manage	0.75% of bookings, $19.95 minimum	Share of booking revenue	No	[5]
HotelRunner Essential Complete	1% of bookings, $39.95 minimum	Share of booking revenue	Yes	[5]
innRoad core PMS	About $150 a month (vendor estimate)	Quote	Listed as a feature; unclear if the ~$150 estimate covers it	[6]
Cloudbeds Flex, One, Experience	Not published	Quote	One and Experience	[7]
Mews Core, Pro	Not published for 30 rooms	Per room, quote	Pro: yes	[8]

A channel manager is the part that pushes your open rooms to Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb and pulls their bookings back into one calendar. If you sell on those sites, compare only the plans that include it.

Flat plans cost the same in a slow month and a full one

Sirvoy prices by room count. A property with 21 to 50 rooms pays $54 a month for Starter or $185 for Pro, and yearly billing takes about 8% off [3]. Starter gives you a PMS with a booking engine for your own website plus invoicing; Pro adds the channel manager for Booking.com and Airbnb [3].

Who it fits: an owner who sells on online travel agencies and wants a bill that never moves. Watch out for the room tiers: at 51 rooms the price jumps to the next tier, $74 for Starter and $239 for Pro [3].

Little Hotelier Pro starts at $285 a month for 30 rooms, with competitor rate reports, rate parity insights and 24/7 phone support on top of everything in Basics [1]. The 1% fee sits on Basics. Pro’s optional metasearch and extra-channel add-ons carry their own booking fees, so ask which ones you would turn on [1].

WebRezPro charges $10 per unit per month, with a $250 floor for 25 to 49 units, so 30 rooms cost $300 [4]. That covers the booking engine with no commission, housekeeping, group bookings, unlimited users and two free integrations of your choice. Contracts renew yearly, though the page says you can cancel with 30 days’ written notice, without penalty [4].

Percentage plans are cheapest only while bookings stay small

Little Hotelier Basics costs $39 plus 1% of the gross value of your online and offline bookings, before taxes and add-ons [1]. The page’s own example: $1,000 of bookings in a month adds a $10 fee [1]. A guest who calls the front desk and books by phone counts the same as one who books on Expedia.

HotelRunner works the same way. Essential Complete takes 1% of the month’s booking revenue from all channels, with a $39.95 minimum; Essential Manage, which has no channel manager, takes 0.75% with a $19.95 minimum [5]. The Complete minimum stops mattering once bookings pass $3,995 a month.

The break-even points are where these plans overtake a flat price. Against Sirvoy Pro, HotelRunner Essential Complete is cheaper only while monthly room bookings stay under $18,500, and Little Hotelier Basics only under $14,600. At the $70.73 average rate for Choice Hotels’ U.S. economy brands, $18,500 is about 29% occupancy for 30 rooms.

Little Hotelier’s two plans cross at $24,600 of monthly bookings, about 39% occupancy at the same rate. Above that line, the $285 Pro plan costs less than the $39 Basics plan.

HotelRunner’s FAQ says it will also quote a yearly subscription to Essential plans at a flat fee. An owner whose bookings sit above these break-evens is worth asking for that flat price before switching to a different vendor [5].

A 1% fee costs a 30-room motel about $297 a month

The occupancy and nightly rate below come from Choice Hotels’ annual report for its U.S. economy brands, Econo Lodge and Rodeway, in 2025 [2]. The 1% rate is the booking fee on Little Hotelier Basics and HotelRunner Essential Complete [5] [1]. Swap in your own occupancy and rate to get your number.

The fee alone is $297 a month at those numbers. Add Little Hotelier’s $39 base and Basics comes to about $336, or $51 more than its own Pro plan. HotelRunner Essential Complete lands at about $297, close to WebRezPro’s $300 and $112 more than Sirvoy Pro.

This assumes a full 30-night month at the 2025 average for Choice Hotels’ U.S. economy brands. A motel that runs full in summer and half empty in winter pays a percentage plan more in July and less in January, while a flat monthly plan stays put. None of the prices include taxes, card processing, setup fees or paid add-ons.

Three vendors want a call before they give a price

innRoad says its core PMS “typically falls around $150 per month for most properties,” but it sets each price from room count and needs [6]. Cloudbeds shows “Request a quote” on every plan from Flex to Enterprise [7]. Mews prices per room and says the figures on its page are for a 10-room property [8].

A quote is only comparable to the table above if you ask the same questions of each vendor:

• What is the monthly price at my exact room count, in writing?
• Does a booking or transaction fee apply, and does it cover phone and walk-in bookings?
• Are there setup, data migration or training fees?
• How long is the contract, and how much notice ends it?
• Is card processing billed separately? Mews bills it outside the subscription [8].
• Can I export my guest and reservation history when I leave?

If phone bookings matter to you, also ask how a clerk types a booking taken by phone into the calendar. Our older post on connecting a phone line to Cloudbeds, Little Hotelier or Mews walks through that hand-off, and why phone callers are your best direct bookings explains why the hand-off is worth getting right.

The diagram puts the questions in order. If you do not sell on online travel agencies, a PMS with a booking engine is enough. If you do, pick between a flat monthly plan and a percentage plan by where your bookings sit against the break-even.

Verdict

Pick Sirvoy Pro if you sell on Booking.com or Expedia and want the lowest published flat price with a channel manager: $185 a month at 30 rooms [3]. Choose Little Hotelier Basics or HotelRunner Essential Complete only if your monthly room bookings stay below about $14,600 or $18,500, the points where they overtake Sirvoy Pro.

Above those points, ask HotelRunner for a flat-fee yearly quote on Essential Complete instead of paying the percentage rate [5].

Pick WebRezPro if you want a dedicated account manager and a contract that renews yearly but ends on 30 days’ notice, at $300 a month [4]. Choose Sirvoy Starter if you take no online travel agency bookings at all; it costs $131 less than Pro. Ask Cloudbeds, Mews and innRoad for a written 30-room quote and hold it against the table.

Prices on these pages change without notice, so rerun the math before you sign: rooms times occupancy times rate times 30 nights, times the fee. It takes two minutes, and it can change which plan you pick for a bill you will pay every month for years.