COMPANY

Name: PriceLabs

Legal Name: PriceLabs, Inc

Location: Chicago, IL

Founded: 2014

Founder(s): Richie Khandelwal and Anurag Verma

Website: https://pricelabs.co/

Social Media: 560 followers on Twitter, 71 subscribers on YouTube, 719 followers on LinkedIn, 962 followers on Facebook 

Reviews: 5/5 Rating via 27 reviews on Capterra

Industry: Global Sharing Economy

Size: $14B in 2014 (Source: Brookings)

Projections: $335B by 2025 (Source: Brookings)

Introduction

One of the biggest problems faced by hosts of short-term rental properties is getting the pricing right! Most hosts depend on their gut feeling to set the rates without any reliable data or resources to make those decisions. If the price is then set too high or too low, they end up losing out on revenue. To help rental property owners tackle this issue, powerful web-based revenue management and dynamic pricing platform PriceLabs was conceptualized. It integrates with 30+ Property Management Systems (PMS), such as Airbnb, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor, and automatically adjusts prices according to market variations.

The Product

The SaaS platform collects location-specific data on rents, from various sources. Then, by harnessing an advanced algorithm it offers price optimization based on parameters such as historic supply and demand trends, as well as seasonal, holiday, and day-of-week trends.

Users can also customize last-minute discounts and set stay restrictions to improve revenues.

The best part is that the more rental and user preference data the platform receives, the better it’s able to harness adaptive machine learning to generate smarter pricing results.

PriceLabs offers users a 30-day trial period. After this, users need to pay a monthly charge of around $20 per property, with discounts on bulk listings. The startup also offers market intelligence report packages starting at $9.99.

Origin and Founding Team

PriceLabs is the brainchild of engineering college-mates Richie Khandelwal and Anurag Verma.

Khandelwal, who is also an MBA graduate from the Kellogg School of Management and an Airbnb host, was frustrated with the effort it took to manage the pricing on the property management system in the face of market fluctuations – according to Chicago Business. 

So, in 2014, he started shaping the foundation for the PriceLabs business model. Meanwhile, building on his experience of setting up dynamic pricing tools for United Airlines, Verma began work on the technical aspects of the software.

The PriceLabs C-suite dream team was complete when they added software engineer Syed Hassan to the core team. Together, while moonlighting, they built a strong revenue management product.

Then in 2017, out of nowhere 200+ customers signed up for PriceLabs – adding 1000+ new properties onto the platform. This gave Verma the impetus to, in early 2018, quit his day job and focus on PriceLabs full-time.

By the end of 2019, PriceLabs plans to increase its full-time employee headcount to a six, which could also signal the complete commitment of Hassan’s and Khandelwal’s time.

Performance and Trends

Though it doesn’t have as fancy a UI or a strong funding backup as its competitor Beyond Pricing, PriceLabs is seeing great traction, thanks to its technical superiority. In 2018, the company saw 3x growth, crossing 1000 customers – according to Chicago Business.