WordPress vacation rental plugins and themes compared

A WordPress vacation rental plugin adds the working parts of a booking site to WordPress: a calendar, rates, a booking form and payment. There are two kinds. Standalone plugins run the bookings inside WordPress, and connector plugins display the calendar from booking software you already use.

This page compares both kinds, then looks at themes and at what WordPress costs to run. I build custom sites that are not on WordPress, so read my view with that in mind. Prices and features come from each company’s own pages, read on November 10, 2026.

WordPress vacation rental plugins at a glance

Option	Kind	Price read	How it stays in step with your listings
MotoPress Hotel Booking	Standalone	A free version. Pro at $139 a year for one site	iCal sync, in the Pro version
Vik Booking	Standalone	A free version. Pro is a paid license, price not read	Its own channel manager, with the Pro version and a subscription
OwnerRez WordPress plugin	Connector	From $10 a month, on top of OwnerRez’s $40 base	OwnerRez’s own channel connections
Hospitable booking widgets	Connector	Part of Direct, on the $59 Professional plan and up	Hospitable’s own channel connections
Lodgify external booking widget	Connector	A booking widget is listed from the Starter plan, $26 a month	Lodgify’s own channel connections
Hostfully WordPress booking widget	Connector	Listed on a Hostfully pricing page. Ask Hostfully which plans include it	Hostfully’s own channel connections

A license price is only part of the cost. The sections on running costs and on time, further down, matter as much.

Two kinds of plugin, and why the difference matters

The choice between the two kinds decides where your business lives.

With a standalone plugin, WordPress is your booking system. Rates, availability, guest records and payments all sit in your site’s database. Your listings on the platforms are kept in step by a sync you set up.

With a connector, your booking software is the system and WordPress is the shop window. The plugin or widget shows live availability and passes the guest to the software’s checkout. The software already talks to the platforms.

If you already pay for booking software, a standalone plugin gives you two systems to keep in agreement. If you have no software and one property, a standalone plugin can be all you need.

Standalone plugins

MotoPress Hotel Booking

MotoPress Hotel Booking is a plugin for hotels and rentals with a free version and a paid one. Its own pages describe seasonal pricing, custom rates, discounts, and taxes and fees.

The paid version adds the parts a rental host tends to need. MotoPress lists iCal sync with listing platforms as a Pro feature, along with built-in payment gateways including Stripe and PayPal. Its page says the license is yearly and covers support and updates.

MotoPress’s own comparison post lists the Pro plugin at $139 a year for one site. A lifetime license is also sold. The figures I found for it did not agree, so I have left it out.

MotoPress also sells themes made for the plugin, which removes one compatibility question.

Vik Booking

Vik Booking describes itself as a booking engine and property management system for WordPress. A free version is in the WordPress plugin directory, and its developers say they earn by selling Pro licenses.

Its distinguishing claim is channel management. The developer’s listing says the Pro version works with its own channel manager plugin, and that keeping channel connections active needs a recurring subscription to its service.

That is a fuller setup than iCal, and it has more parts: the Pro plugin, the channel manager and the subscription. I did not read its prices, so check them at the source.

What standalone plugins ask of you

Both plugins put you in charge of the whole system. You install it, set every rate and rule, connect a payment gateway and test the sync.

iCal sync deserves a caution. It passes booked dates between calendars on a delay, and it does not carry prices or guest details. In the gap, two guests can book the same night. It can work for one property with a steady pace of bookings, and you should know the limit before you rely on it.

Plugins and widgets from booking software

OwnerRez

OwnerRez publishes its own WordPress plugin, built in-house. Its support page says the plugin syncs your properties, rates and rules to the site and is used together with OwnerRez’s widgets.

It is a premium feature. OwnerRez lists the WordPress plugin and integrated websites at $10 a month for the first property, $5 for the second and $3 each for properties three to nine, on top of the base subscription. The page on a custom OwnerRez website covers its other routes.

Hospitable

Hospitable does not need a plugin. It gives you embed code: a booking widget for each property and a search widget. Its help page says the code can be placed on any site that accepts custom HTML, and notes that WordPress.com needs a paid plan for that.

The widgets are part of Direct, which Hospitable includes on its Professional and Mogul plans. Direct carries a fee on each booking, set out on the page about a custom Hospitable website.

Lodgify and Hostfully

Lodgify’s pricing page lists an external booking widget that adds a booking form to any website. A Hostfully pricing page lists a WordPress direct booking widget. I have not used either, and I did not read their setup guides.

If you run one of these systems, ask its support team what the widget shows, where checkout happens and whether it can be styled to match your site.

If you searched for a plugin that connects to a listing platform

Many people who land here typed something like “Airbnb WordPress plugin”. They usually want one of two things.

The first is to show the calendar from their listing on their own site, so the two never disagree. That is a sync job. A standalone plugin does it by iCal, and booking software does it through a direct connection.

The second is a WordPress site that looks and works like a listing page. That is a design job, and a theme or a custom build does it.

One caution on naming. Airbnb’s Trademark Guidelines say its name and logo cannot be used in a website name, a product name or a domain. Describe your site in your own words, and keep the platform’s name to plain sentences.

Choosing a vacation rental WordPress theme

A plugin handles the booking. A vacation rental WordPress theme handles how the site looks: property pages, galleries, a search bar and the homepage.

Check four things before you buy one.

• It is built for the booking plugin you chose. A theme designed around one plugin may not display another’s forms well.
• It is fast on a phone. Load the demo on mobile data, not on office wifi.
• It has been updated recently, and the seller answers support questions.
• It does not depend on a page builder you would not otherwise use.

A vacation rental WP theme from a marketplace is usually sold for a one-time price with a limited support period. I have not listed prices, because I did not read each seller’s page.

Remember what a theme cannot do. It gives every buyer the same layouts, so your site will resemble others built on it. And it adds no content, which is the part search engines read.

What WordPress costs to run

WordPress itself is free. Running a booking site on it is not.

• Hosting, paid monthly or yearly.
• The booking plugin license, renewed each year for updates.
• A theme, and sometimes paid add-ons for extra payment gateways or features.
• A payment processor’s fee on each booking.
• Your time, or a developer’s, for updates, backups and fixes.

The last item is the one people underestimate. WordPress, the theme and each plugin all release updates, and a booking site has to keep working through every one. A broken checkout in peak season costs more than any license.

WordPress or a done-for-you site

WordPress suits an owner who likes to tinker, has time and wants low cash costs. Plenty of good rental sites run on it.

It suits less well if you want the site to bring in guests and you do not want a second job. A plugin and a theme give you a place to take bookings. They do not write the area pages or plan the structure that ranks, which is the work of vacation rental SEO.

My own builds are not on WordPress. They are fast, static pages. The booking steps from your software are connected where they are needed, so there are no plugins to update. The guide on how to build a direct booking website compares the routes, and the page on vacation rental website builders covers the hosted ones.

How to choose

• One property, no booking software, comfortable with WordPress: a standalone plugin, with the paid version for calendar sync.
• Already on booking software: its own plugin or widget. Do not add a second booking system. The booking software integrations page shows how a custom site uses the same widget.
• Several properties and listings on three platforms: booking software first, then decide what kind of site sits on top. The guide to the direct booking engine explains the pieces.
• No time to build or maintain a site: have it built.

What I could not verify

• The price of Vik Booking’s Pro license and its channel manager subscription.
• The price of MotoPress’s lifetime license, where the figures I found did not agree.
• Theme prices on any marketplace.
• Hands-on quality. I have read each product’s own pages and have not built a client site on any of these plugins.

Both standalone plugins have free versions. Install one on a test site and make a booking before you commit.

Final Thought

A WordPress vacation rental plugin is a sound choice when you want to run things in WordPress and have the hours to look after it. Pick the kind that matches where your calendar already lives. Test the sync before you trust it, and budget time as well as money.

If you would sooner hand the whole job over, see how I approach vacation rental website design and what a custom build includes.