• Off-the-shelf PMS not designed for your property type -- serviced apartments, extended stay, or multi-property operators with specific booking and billing workflows?

  • OTA dependency and high commission rates that a direct booking platform with the right guest experience could reduce?

Hospitality Software Development

Custom hospitality software built for your specific property type and operations -- booking platforms, PMS, guest experience apps, and operations tooling that fits how your property actually runs.

100+ products shipped since 2019. We've built booking systems and operations platforms for serviced apartments, boutique hotels, and hospitality operators across multiple markets.

  • Custom booking platforms with direct channel capability and OTA channel management

  • Property management systems built around your specific property type and operations

  • Guest experience apps for check-in, communication, and in-stay services

  • Integration with your existing payment processors, channel managers, and accounting systems

RaftLabs builds custom hospitality software -- property management systems, online booking platforms, guest experience apps, channel managers, housekeeping tools, and revenue management dashboards -- for hotels, serviced apartments, boutique properties, and hospitality operators. Custom hospitality software development is appropriate when off-the-shelf PMS platforms do not support your specific property type, booking workflow, or integration requirements. Most projects deliver in 10-16 weeks at a fixed cost with full source code ownership.

Vodafone
Aldi
Nike
Microsoft
Heineken
Cisco
Calorgas
Energia Rewards
GE
Bank of America
T-Mobile
Valero
Techstars
East Ventures
Products shipped since 2019
100+
Booking capability
Direct
Property support
Multi
Cost delivery
Fixed

Generic hospitality software is built for the average property. Yours isn't average.

A serviced apartment operator has different requirements than a boutique hotel, which has different requirements than a multi-property resort group. Generic PMS platforms make compromises that fit no one particularly well: billing models they don't support, booking workflows they can't configure, guest communication workflows that don't match your service model, and OTA integrations that lock you into commission structures you're trying to reduce.

Custom hospitality software builds the platform around your specific property type, guest experience model, and operations.

What we build

Online booking platform

Direct booking platform for your property with real-time availability, rate management, and payment processing -- reducing OTA dependency and commission costs. Room and apartment type configuration with images, amenities, and pricing rules. Promotional pricing, discount codes, and loyalty guest rates. Booking confirmation, pre-arrival communication, and cancellation workflows. The direct channel that lets guests book without going through an OTA.

Availability is managed against a live inventory pool using Redis pub/sub so that simultaneous booking attempts across multiple sessions cannot result in a double-booking. Payment is processed through Stripe or Adyen with PCI DSS SAQ-A card tokenisation -- card data never touches your servers. Rate parity management keeps your direct rates competitive against your Booking.com and Expedia listings. Automated confirmation emails go out via SendGrid or Postmark immediately on booking completion, with pre-arrival reminders triggered on a configurable schedule before check-in. Cancellation policy enforcement is baked into the checkout flow: free cancellation windows, penalty amounts, and deposit retention rules are applied automatically based on rate type and booking date. The booking engine can be embedded in your existing website or hosted as a standalone white-label page with your branding.

Property management system

PMS built around your specific property type -- room/apartment inventory management, reservation management, check-in and check-out workflows, and billing and folio management. Multi-property support for operators with several locations under one management platform. Housekeeping schedule management with room status tracking. Maintenance request and resolution tracking. The operations backbone your front desk and management team actually use.

Unlike off-the-shelf platforms such as Opera, Cloudbeds, or Mews that impose a standard room-night model, a custom PMS can be built around the specific inventory and billing structures your property requires: extended-stay apartments with weekly and monthly rate tiers, apart-hotel units with separate bedroom and living area tracking, or mixed-inventory properties combining hotel rooms and serviced apartments under a single folio system. Folio management handles split billing, advance deposits, and consolidated corporate account invoicing. The check-in workflow supports mobile check-in and NFC/BLE-based digital key issuance for properties where guests bypass the front desk entirely. Integration with your accounting system (Xero, QuickBooks, Sage) posts daily revenue automatically so your finance team is not reconciling manually. Protel and Mews API connectors are available if you need a custom layer over an existing PMS rather than a full replacement.

Channel manager and OTA integration

Availability and rate synchronisation across your distribution channels -- OTAs (Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb), your direct website, and GDS -- with a single inventory pool preventing overbooking. Two-way integration: availability pushes to all channels, reservations pull back into your PMS automatically. Rate parity management and channel-specific pricing rules. The distribution infrastructure that keeps your inventory current across all booking sources.

Channel manager connectivity is built via SiteMinder, RateGain, or Cloudbeds APIs depending on which platform you already use -- we integrate with your existing channel manager rather than replacing it. For properties distributing through GDS, we support Amadeus, Sabre, and Galileo connectivity via your channel manager's GDS gateway. OTA-specific pricing rules let you set Booking.com and Expedia rates at a markup relative to your direct rate, maintaining rate parity while still incentivising direct bookings. Channel-specific restrictions -- minimum stay, closed to arrival, stop-sell -- can be pushed independently per channel without affecting your direct inventory. When a reservation arrives from any OTA, it is parsed from the channel manager webhook, mapped to your internal room type, and inserted into the PMS reservation record within seconds. Channel contribution reporting shows which OTAs are generating volume, at what average daily rate, and what commission cost per booking so you can make informed distribution decisions each quarter.

Guest experience app

Mobile app for guests covering pre-arrival check-in, digital key access, in-stay service requests, local recommendations, and check-out. Push notifications for arrival instructions, housekeeping updates, and promotional offers. In-app messaging with your front desk or guest services team. Property information guide replacing the physical in-room binder. The guest-facing app that improves the experience and reduces front desk workload.

Digital key delivery uses NFC or BLE protocols to issue a mobile key to the guest's app once check-in is complete and payment is confirmed. We integrate with SALTO, Dormakaba, Nuki, and August lock platforms -- the right integration depends on your installed hardware. For properties running 24/7 unstaffed or lightly staffed receptions, mobile key delivery removes the dependency on physical handover entirely. In-stay service requests -- housekeeping, late check-out, extra towels, maintenance -- are logged through the app and dispatched to the relevant team member, with the guest notified when the request is completed. The in-room information guide is managed through a CMS so your team updates it without developer involvement. Post-stay review requests are triggered automatically via push or email 24 hours after check-out, with a direct link to your Google Business or Booking.com review page. Payment processing via Stripe or Adyen supports card-on-file for incidental charges authorised at check-in.

Housekeeping and operations

Housekeeping management with daily task lists generated from the day's check-outs and stay-overs, room assignment to housekeeping staff, and status updates from mobile. Maintenance request logging and assignment with priority management and resolution tracking. Inventory management for linen, amenities, and supplies. Operations dashboards showing room status, outstanding tasks, and occupancy for the day. The operations tooling your team uses on the floor.

Housekeeping task dispatch is automated: when a guest checks out, the room is flagged as requiring a full clean; stay-overs generate a daily refresh task based on configurable day-of-stay rules. Tasks are assigned to individual housekeepers on mobile, and status updates -- in progress, complete, inspected -- flow back to the front desk dashboard in real time so front desk staff know which rooms are ready for early check-in without calling housekeeping. For properties with a restaurant or F&B operation, POS integration (Toast or Square for restaurant) links F&B charges to the guest folio so the total bill is reconciled at checkout without manual posting. Maintenance requests are prioritised by category (plumbing, HVAC, electrical) and routed to the appropriate maintenance team member with photo evidence attached. Supply inventory tracking for linens, toiletries, and minibar items helps purchasing stay ahead of shortages before they affect guest experience.

Revenue management and reporting

Revenue management dashboards showing occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, and revenue by channel, property, and period. Booking pace reports showing demand trends and advance booking patterns. Channel contribution analysis showing OTA commission costs vs direct booking revenue. Financial reporting integrated with your accounting system. The analytics that help you make pricing and distribution decisions based on your actual data.

The three metrics that matter most in hotel revenue management are RevPAR (revenue per available room), ADR (average daily rate), and OCC (occupancy rate). A custom dashboard tracks all three by property, room type, period, and market segment -- so you see whether a RevPAR improvement is coming from rate growth or occupancy growth, which matters for pricing strategy. Booking pace reports show how far in advance reservations are being made compared to the same period last year, giving your team early signals on whether to hold rate or open discounts. Demand-based dynamic pricing rules can adjust rates automatically based on real-time occupancy thresholds -- for example, increasing rates when a room type crosses 80% occupancy for a given date. GDS production reports show how much volume is coming through Amadeus, Sabre, and Galileo channels versus direct and OTA. Financial exports integrate with your accounting system on a daily reconciliation schedule, eliminating the end-of-month revenue audit that most properties still do manually.

Frequently asked questions

Custom hospitality software makes sense when: (1) Your property type doesn't fit standard PMS assumptions -- serviced apartments with long-stay billing, apart-hotels with apartment-specific inventory, multi-property groups with consolidated management requirements. (2) Your booking workflow has specific requirements the standard platforms don't support -- corporate account management, negotiated rate structures, or group booking workflows. (3) You need deep integration with other systems -- your specific payment processor, accounting software, or channel manager -- that standard PMS APIs don't support well. (4) You want to reduce OTA dependency with a direct booking platform that matches your brand and guest experience. We assess your requirements and tell you honestly whether custom software or a well-configured off-the-shelf platform is the right answer.

Opera Cloud and Mews work well for standard hotel room-night operations with conventional billing. Where they fall short is typically in extended-stay pricing (weekly and monthly rate tiers with different cancellation rules), apartment-type inventory where units differ significantly in layout and pricing, and multi-property management where each location has its own rate structure, accounting code, and operational workflow. If you spend significant time configuring workarounds or exporting to spreadsheets to get the reports you actually need, that is a reliable indicator that the platform doesn't fit your operation. The custom build cost often pays for itself within 18-24 months in reduced platform subscription fees, lower OTA commission on direct bookings, and recovered staff time.

Yes. We build two-way integrations with major OTAs (Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb) and GDS channels using their APIs and XML/HTNG connectivity standards. For properties already using a channel manager (SiteMinder, RateGain, Cloudbeds, or similar), we integrate with those platforms rather than replacing them. Integration scope depends on what's available via API for each channel -- we confirm integration capability during scoping. The goal is a single availability pool that pushes to all channels simultaneously, with reservations from any channel flowing back to your PMS automatically.

SiteMinder's REST API and RateGain's connectivity suite both support push-based availability and rate updates with near-real-time acknowledgement, which is the architecture required to prevent overbooking reliably. Booking.com's Connectivity API and Expedia's EPS Rapid API allow direct rate and availability management for properties with direct OTA relationships. Airbnb's partner API supports availability and pricing synchronisation for properties listed there. GDS distribution via Amadeus, Sabre, and Galileo typically runs through the channel manager's GDS gateway rather than direct API integration. We confirm the integration path for each channel during scoping and document the expected latency and error-handling behaviour.

Yes. We integrate with smart lock platforms (SALTO, Dormakaba, Nuki, August, Schlage) for digital key delivery via the guest app -- guests receive a mobile key before arrival and can access their room without stopping at reception. This is particularly valuable for serviced apartments and extended-stay properties where 24/7 staffed reception isn't practical. Integration scope depends on your existing lock hardware -- we confirm compatibility during scoping and can advise on hardware if you're selecting new locks.

Digital key delivery uses NFC (near-field communication) for tap-to-unlock via the guest's phone, or BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) for hands-free proximity unlock. SALTO KS and Dormakaba ORACODE are the two most common enterprise-grade platforms in serviced apartments and boutique hotels; both offer mobile SDKs that we integrate into the guest app. Key issuance is triggered automatically when check-in is confirmed and payment is cleared -- the guest receives a push notification with the key active in the app. Key expiry is set to check-out time and can be extended remotely by your operations team. Backup physical key codes are available through the app for guests who encounter phone battery or connectivity issues.

A focused booking platform with availability management, payment processing, and basic PMS integration typically runs $25,000--$60,000. A complete hospitality platform with custom PMS, channel management, guest experience app, and operations tooling typically runs $60,000--$150,000. Cost depends on the number of property types, integration complexity, mobile app scope, and the number of channels to connect. We scope every project before pricing it and provide a fixed cost before development starts.

What clients say

What our clients say

Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.

Paula Castro
Paula Castro
Ireland
Co-Founder, City Break Apartments

RaftLabs delivered everything we asked for and more, going above and beyond to meet our expectations throughout the project.

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Talk to us about your hospitality software project.

Tell us your property type, the booking and operations workflows that matter most, and what your current system can't do. We'll scope the right platform and give you a fixed cost.