Comparison3 min read · Updated July 2026

By Jean Duthil, founder of Cléo

Hostfully Guidebooks alternative: free tier, Pro plan or one-time price?

Hostfully Guidebooks can be used alone and offer one free guidebook. Cléo takes a different one-time-price approach.

Hostfully sells both property-management software and Digital Guidebooks, but the guidebook does not require the PMS. Its official pricing page offers one guidebook free, a Pro tier for up to 199 guidebooks and an Enterprise tier for 200 or more. Connecting Hostfully’s PMS adds content syncing, automated guidebook links and AI-assisted guest replies.

Side by side

CléoHostfully Guidebooks
Pricing€29 one-time per published guidebook1 guidebook free; Pro and Enterprise amounts not displayed on public page
Standalone (no PMS required)
TranslationAutomatic guest-view translationInstant translation to 16+ languages on Pro
Videos & rich mediaPhotos and place dataVideo, text and image content listed
Share formatsWeb link + QR codeWeb link, QR code, print and PDF
Product previewOpen live guidebooksOpen examples, recorded demo and sales demo
Paid tier required for premium features
ℹ️

Verification date: 29 July 2026. Method: we checked the vendors’ public pricing, product and support pages only. Prices are shown in the currency, billing period and tax basis displayed by the vendor; portfolio quotes and optional extras can change the total. “Not listed” means we could not verify the feature on those pages, not that the product can never provide it. Cléo publishes these comparisons and is therefore not a neutral publisher.

Official sources checked: Cléo public pricing; Hostfully Guidebooks pricing and feature matrix, public examples and Hostfully’s guidebook/PMS integration page.

The honest fork in the road

  • One basic guidebook is enough → Hostfully’s free plan may be the lowest-cost answer. Check whether sponsored recommendations and the free feature set fit your brand.
  • You need bulk editing, custom branding or 16+ languages → compare Hostfully Pro’s current quote with Cléo’s per-guidebook total.
  • You already use Hostfully PMS → the connected workflow has documented benefits that a standalone link cannot reproduce.
  • You want a fixed price with no paid tier to maintain → Cléo’s €29 publication model is simpler to forecast.

Our verdict

Do not dismiss Hostfully’s free guidebook — compare the tier you will actually use.

Hostfully is not an all-or-nothing PMS purchase: the guidebook is standalone and one is free. Cléo becomes relevant when you prefer its rendering and listing-first workflow, or when a one-time €29 price compares favourably with the Hostfully paid tier required for your portfolio and features.

Frequently asked questions

Can Cléo integrate with my PMS messages?

The guidebook link drops into any PMS or platform’s automated messages — no integration to maintain, no dependency. It works alongside whatever runs your operations.

What about multiple properties?

Cléo charges €29 once for each standard published guidebook and offers multi-property pricing by quote. Hostfully’s Pro tier covers up to 199 guidebooks and Enterprise starts at 200, but the public page reviewed did not display the paid amounts. Request the actual total for your portfolio before comparing.

Create your guest guidebook in minutes

Free to create and test. Publish for a one-time €29 — the guidebook is yours for life, editable forever.

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