How to Entice Customers to Stay Longer With Tiered Pricing

By Checkfront Marketing

Marketing StrategiesMarketing Strategies

A person looking very cozy as they sip coffee and stare out a huge window into the forest

Checkfront is a very powerful booking system with a lot of different options and capabilities. We covered group pricing in marketing in a previous blog post, but there’s more than one way to set different prices for different configurations. Tiered pricing structures work really well for accommodation owners; it uses a combination of rule sets and events to create different price points based on the length of stay that is being booked, for example:

  • 1-2 nights stay @ 200/night
  • 3-5 nights stay @ 180/night
  • 6-7 nights stay @ 150/night
Stay and save pricing discount graph for customers

Why use a tiered pricing strategy?

This is one of the components of Checkfront that can help you stay competitive in the industry. Discounting your per-night rate can give you an edge over other accommodation businesses, and encourages more business. After all, you’re giving your customers a compelling reason to book seven nights instead of four, since they’ll get a better per-night rate the longer they stay.

How to set up pricing tiers

There are three main steps involved: creating the new rule sets, creating the events to pair them with, and setting the new prices.

The first step is to go to Inventory > Rules. Here we will create three new rule sets, one for each pricing tier. Click on +New Rule Set in the top left corner , give it a name that you’ll easily recognize (we’ve used “1-2 Nights”), and then turn your attention to the Minimum/Maximum duration per item rules. Here you can set your first tier (in our example it’ll be 1-2 nights, so minimum of 1 and maximum of 2). Click “Save” and then repeat for 3-5 nights and 6-7 nights.

Tiered pricing rule set in Checkfront

Next, go to Inventory > Events, and create a new event called “1-2 Nights”. Each rule set must have its own event paired with it. Make sure to set the event Type to “Special”, or else your tiers will not function properly. If you don’t wish for this pricing structure to expire, select “Always” under the Recurrence option. For the price, we’ll select “Create New Price”, but you may also choose to use the dynamic price function; the tiers will still work the same. Then, under Rules, select “1-2 Nights”. Finally, apply the event to the applicable items (in our case, our Love Shack cabins) and save. Repeat for the other two tiers, applying the relevant rule sets and ensuring that they are all Special events, not seasonal.

Setting up tiered pricing rules in Checkfront

Finally, go to your items and click the Pricing tab. You’ll see that there are now three options for pricing, corresponding with the new tiers. Fill in your desired prices and you’ll be ready to go.

Creating new prices in tiered pricing event in Checkfront

Tiered pricing uses rule sets and events to create a complex and dynamic pricing structure. It’s a great way to stay competitive, especially if you pair it with an early bird pricing strategy, and entice your customers to book more. If you’d like to try it, our video tutorial goes into more detail about how to set this up, step by step.

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