Transparency: Zugrow publishes this blog, and Zugrow is one of the tools compared below. We checked each rival's price on its own website in October 2026, kept the comparison factual and flagged where rivals are genuinely the better fit, but read it with that context in mind.
If you host on Airbnb, you have almost certainly answered the same questions again and again: What's the WiFi password? Where do I park? Anywhere good to eat nearby? A good digital guidebook answers them before they are asked, and some also let you sell extras such as late checkout.
There are plenty of guidebook products to choose from. Below are five options UK hosts commonly weigh up, including a free one built into Airbnb, with prices taken from each provider's own website in October 2026. Prices change, so check the current figure before you buy.
The 5 Best Digital Guidebooks for Airbnb Hosts in 2026
We compared each option on price, how the guide gets built, paid extras (upsells) and how well it suits UK hosts.
1. Zugrow Guidebook. Best Value for Small Hosts
Price: £2.95 a month billed annually (£35.40 a year), or £3.25 month to month, with a 14-day free trial. Cancel anytime; your guide pauses rather than being deleted. The guidebook is also included with Zugrow's Max plan.
Best for: Hosts with one or a handful of properties who want a mobile-first guidebook live in minutes, with paid extras built in.
You paste your Airbnb listing link and Zugrow's AI drafts your guest guide in about 2 to 3 minutes: check-in steps, house rules, transport info and local restaurant picks from Google Places. You then add the private details a public listing doesn't show, such as the WiFi password and door code, and refine anything you like in your host portal. Guests open it as a web link, with no app to download.
The built-in upsells (late checkout, early check-in, welcome hampers) run on Stripe. Zugrow's fee is 1% of each paid extra, and you can also add a link to your own direct booking site.
Start your 2-week free trial →
2. Touch Stay. Best Established Player
Price: Touch Stay works out your price with a calculator on its site, in several currencies including GBP, based on how many homes you have. Its own blog quotes from $99 a year, or $12.50 a month, for one guidebook, with the price per home falling as you add more. There is a 14-day free trial, and a free plan limited to 20 guest views per guidebook each month.
Touch Stay has been around a long time and has a polished editor. It now offers an AI guidebook generator that pulls details from an Airbnb or Booking.com listing link, along with an upsell widget and PMS integrations. On a paid plan, a single property costs more than on Zugrow; because its price per home drops as you add properties, it is worth comparing if you run a larger portfolio.
Pick Touch Stay if you want a long-established brand with a deep feature set and don't mind the higher cost for one property.
3. Hostfully. Best Free Starting Point and for Bigger Portfolios
Price: Free for one guidebook. The Pro plan (up to 199 guidebooks) adds upsells, custom branding, bulk editing and translation into 16 or more languages, but its price is not shown on Hostfully's guidebook pricing page, so you need to ask for it. Paid upsells carry a 1% Stripe fee.
Hostfully launched digital guidebooks in 2016 and merged with Orbirental in 2018 to add a property management system. If you have one property and are happy to write the guide yourself, the free plan is hard to argue with. For larger portfolios, Pro's bulk editing and translation are the draw. Pricing is in US dollars.
4. YourWelcome. Best Tablet-in-Property Experience
Price: £299.99 a year per property on its tablet plan, a one year contract billed annually, with an 8 inch tablet included.
YourWelcome's main sell is a tablet you leave in the property, backed by a web dashboard with property and local area guides, guest check-in, upsells and the option to sell advertising to local businesses. It is the most expensive option here, so it makes most sense for higher-end stays where a device in the property suits the experience.
5. Airbnb's Built-in Guidebook and House Manual. Best Free Option Inside Airbnb
Price: Free.
Airbnb lets you write a guidebook of local recommendations and a house manual from the Arrival guide section of your listing editor. Guidebooks are public and can be shared outside Airbnb or printed; the house manual is only visible to guests with a confirmed reservation. There is no AI build, no upsells and little design control, but it costs nothing and guests find it in the Airbnb app.
Which Should You Pick?
For hosts with one to a few properties who want a guide built for them and paid extras included: Zugrow, at £2.95 a month billed annually. Of the paid tools here that publish a price, it is the cheapest.
If you want to pay nothing and don't mind writing it yourself: Hostfully's free plan for one guidebook, or Airbnb's built-in guidebook and house manual.
For larger portfolios that want an established brand and integrations: Touch Stay or Hostfully Pro.
For a tablet in the property: YourWelcome.
From our own portfolio: we run about 24 short lets in Manchester with a small team. Our guests check in with a lockbox, and we send the code on arrival day. Whichever tool you choose, the check-in section is the one to get right: in our experience, fast replies and clear check-in information on the day earn us more 5-star reviews than anything else. That is how we do it, one example among many, and Zugrow works with whatever check-in setup you use.
Start your 2-week Zugrow guidebook trial →
Sources, checked October 2026: Touch Stay pricing (its blog), Hostfully guidebook pricing, YourWelcome pricing, Airbnb Help Centre on guidebooks and house manuals, and Zugrow's terms for Zugrow's own prices and fees.