Free Vacation Rental Software for Villas and Holiday Homes in India
You have a villa in Goa or a homestay in Coorg listed on Airbnb and Booking.com. A direct booking comes in on WhatsApp the same weekend. Keeping track of which dates are sold, to whom, and what each guest owes is harder than the hospitality itself. OnlineHotelier PMS gives you one calendar, one billing screen, and GST invoices built in. Free to use. No subscription.
OnlineHotelier PMS is free vacation rental management software for Indian villas, holiday homes and homestays. It gives you one availability calendar for Airbnb, Booking.com and your direct bookings, handles guest check-in and billing, and generates GST invoices at the correct slab where it applies to your property. The optional paid add-on is the channel manager, which syncs your availability and rates to OTAs automatically. Everything else is free.
At a glance
| Product | OnlineHotelier PMS, cloud-based reservation and billing software |
|---|---|
| Price | Free. No subscription, no trial period |
| Paid add-on | Channel manager that syncs availability and rates to OTAs. Pricing shared on WhatsApp |
| Built for | Indian villas, holiday homes, homestays and short-term rental properties |
| Channels | Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda and direct bookings (phone, WhatsApp, website) |
| GST | 5% for stays up to ₹7,500/night, 18% above ₹7,500/night (effective 22 Sept 2025), where it applies to your property |
| Includes | One availability calendar, guest check-in and check-out, billing, GST invoices, daily reports |
| Runs on | Any web browser. No app to install |
| Guest export | Available on request |
All your booking channels, one place
Most Indian villa and homestay owners list on two or three platforms. A Goa villa might take bookings from Airbnb, Booking.com and Agoda, plus direct enquiries on WhatsApp. Each platform has its own calendar. Direct bookings live in a WhatsApp thread. When a request comes in for the same dates on two platforms, you have to remember which one you confirmed first.
The PMS gives you one screen for all of it. You enter each booking, wherever it came from, into the same calendar. At a glance you see which dates are taken and which are open.
Airbnb bookings
Enter Airbnb reservations into the PMS calendar as they come in. All guest details, dates and rates in one place alongside your other channels.
Booking.com and Agoda
OTA bookings from Booking.com and Agoda go into the same calendar. No switching between platforms to check availability.
Direct bookings
WhatsApp enquiries, phone calls, your own website bookings: enter them directly into the PMS. Direct bookings are always a channel worth protecting.
Walk-in guests
Someone arrives without a prior booking. Add the reservation on the spot, assign a room or villa unit, and start the folio immediately.
Want bookings to flow in automatically? The free PMS requires you to enter each booking manually. If you want your Airbnb and Booking.com calendars to update in real time, and your rates to push out to all OTAs at once, that is the optional paid channel manager add-on. It is not needed to get started, but it saves a lot of manual work once you are on two or more platforms.
One calendar, no double bookings
A double booking happens when the same dates are sold on two different channels without anyone noticing. It is the fastest way to get a bad review and lose a guest permanently.
The PMS calendar shows every unit's availability by night. When a date is blocked in the PMS, you see it immediately before confirming another booking. For properties running manual calendars across multiple OTAs, this single view alone removes the main source of booking errors.
You choose the rate for each booking, so peak Goa season (October to March), a Diwali weekend and the monsoon off-season can each be priced differently. If you use the channel manager add-on, rate changes you make also push to your OTA listings.
GST invoices for Indian villa rentals
Whether your villa needs to charge GST depends on your registration status and turnover. If you are GST-registered, the current rates (effective 22 September 2025) are:
- 5% GST on stays priced up to ₹7,500 per night. No input tax credit (ITC) at this slab.
- 18% GST on stays priced above ₹7,500 per night. ITC is allowed at this slab.
The old 0% and 12% slabs were removed. "Declared tariff" is no longer the basis for the calculation. GST now applies to the actual price you charge the guest, after any discount.
The PMS applies the correct slab automatically when you generate a bill. Your guest gets a proper GST invoice. For the full picture on GST registration thresholds and what applies to short-term rental properties, read our guide to GST on hotel rooms.
Not sure if your property needs to be GST-registered? This page cannot give you legal advice on that. The GST guide covers the registration threshold and how the slab applies. Talk to your CA for a ruling specific to your property.
Guest check-in and billing
When a guest arrives at your villa, check-in takes a few minutes in the PMS. You record their details, confirm the dates and rate, and open a folio (a running tab of what the guest owes). Any extra charges, such as an airport transfer or a breakfast arrangement, go onto the folio during their stay.
At check-out, the folio becomes the guest's bill. The PMS generates a GST invoice from the same screen. The guest gets their tax invoice. You have a record of the transaction.
The PMS runs in any web browser, so check-in can happen on a laptop at the front desk or on a tablet if that is how your property works. No app to install on any device.
Guest profiles
Store guest details so repeat visitors are recognised at next check-in. Useful for building a loyal base of guests who come back season after season.
Folio and billing
Post room charges, additional services and payments to the guest's folio. Review the full bill at check-out and issue a tax invoice in one step.
Daily reports
Occupancy and revenue for the day. Know at a glance how your property performed and what is coming in over the next week.
GST invoices
Generated automatically from the folio at check-out. Correct slab applied based on the nightly rate, where GST applies to your property.
Who this is for, and what it does not cover
Honest positioning: not every vacation rental owner needs this, and some need more than it offers.
- Indian villa or holiday home owners listing on Airbnb, Booking.com or Agoda
- Homestay owners who have outgrown a WhatsApp-and-notebook system
- Properties taking direct bookings alongside OTA bookings
- GST-registered properties that need compliant invoices
- Single-property owners and those running a few units
- Owner statements and owner payouts (not included)
- Damage deposit management (not included)
- Automated cleaning schedules (not included)
- Payment processing or payment gateway integration
- Offline mode: requires an internet connection
If you manage properties on behalf of multiple owners and need automated owner payouts, this is not the right tool. If your main need is managing bookings, check-in, check-out and GST billing across your channels, it covers that well and costs nothing.
The optional channel manager add-on
The free PMS is a manual system. You enter bookings as they come in. That works well for properties with a manageable volume of bookings. The limitation appears when you are listed on three or more OTAs and updating rates frequently: logging into each OTA extranet separately to close dates or change prices takes time, and mistakes lead to double bookings.
The optional paid channel manager add-on removes that manual step. It connects your PMS directly to your OTA listings so:
- When a booking comes in on Airbnb, that date blocks automatically on Booking.com and Agoda.
- When you change a rate in the PMS, it pushes to all your OTA listings at once.
- You manage everything from one screen instead of three or four OTA extranets.
The channel manager is an optional paid add-on. Pricing is shared on WhatsApp. It also includes hands-on support from the OnlineHotelier team on your OTA listings and rate strategy.
To understand whether you need a channel manager now or later, read our guide to hotel channel managers.
Ask us on WhatsApp for the channel manager add-on. We will walk you through what it covers and what it costs before you decide.
Ask on WhatsAppGetting your villa listed on the right OTAs
Before you connect a channel manager, the first step is making sure your villa is listed correctly on the OTAs that matter for your property type. A poorly set up Airbnb or Booking.com listing will under-perform no matter how well you manage the calendar behind it.
OnlineHotelier also offers a vacation rental OTA listing service for Indian properties: we set up or optimise your listings on Airbnb, Booking.com and Agoda so your villa shows up for the right searches and converts browsers into bookings.
For more on which platforms work best for Indian homestays and villas, see our guide to the best OTAs for homestays in India.