Guest Driven (merged with Porter & Sail) vs. STAY Guest App:
Which Is Right for You?

The Decision

When choosing between Guest Driven and STAY Guest App, you’re selecting a platform to enhance guest engagement, streamline operations, and boost revenue. Both products target similar needs but differ significantly in their features, scale, and support. Guest Driven focuses on personalized mobile interactions, while STAY offers a broader suite of digital services designed to digitize and optimize hotel operations. Which platform aligns better with your hotel’s goals?

Are you looking for a more established, feature-rich solution with extensive integrations, or a straightforward, highly rated platform with a proven track record? Let’s explore their differences.

Is Guest Driven or STAY Better for Hotels?

Guest Driven is a mobile engagement platform designed to foster personalized communication with guests through a dedicated app. It emphasizes capturing guest preferences, offering targeted campaigns, and providing real-time insights, primarily benefitting boutique and independent hotels. However, it has a limited review base—only 2 reviews in total—and lacks recent feedback, making its performance and support less transparent.

STAY, by contrast, is a more mature platform with over 200 recent reviews and a high overall rating of 3/5, with a score of 46.64 on HTTR’s scale. It covers a wide range of features like room service, local recommendations, multi-lingual support, and extensive integrations, making it suitable for large chains and resorts. Its recent reviews praise its ease of use, support, and functionality, reflecting a more reliable choice.

Given the contrast in review activity and recent feedback, STAY’s larger presence and higher rating make it the more trustworthy option. But which platform truly fits your needs?

STAY vs Guest Driven: Which Should Your Hotel Choose?

If your hotel needs a comprehensive, operational platform that integrates seamlessly with your existing systems, STAY is the clear choice. Its 20 verified integrations—including Mews, Oracle Hospitality, and SiteMinder—make it versatile for larger properties or chains looking for a unified solution.

On the other hand, if your hotel prioritizes mobile guest engagement with personalized messaging and campaigns, Guest Driven might appeal—though its limited reviews and lack of recent feedback are concerning. Hotels that seek a plug-and-play app for guest communication and are less focused on extensive integrations should consider Guest Driven, but be aware of its limited track record.

In summary, choose STAY if you want broad features, proven support, and extensive integrations. Opt for Guest Driven only if your focus is solely on personalized guest mobile engagement and your property is small or independent.

Is Guest Driven or STAY Easier to Use?

Guest Driven boasts a high ease-of-use rating of 4.5/5 based on limited reviews, with users highlighting its simple platform for adding and editing pre-arrival options. However, its sluggish load times and front-end design issues have been cited as drawbacks, and there’s little recent feedback confirming ongoing support quality.

STAY, with a 4.78/5 ease rating from over 200 reviews, is praised for its intuitive interface, straightforward CMS, and quick onboarding. Reviewers often mention how simple it is for staff to manage content and for guests to navigate the app.

Edge: STAY.

Which Has Better Features: Guest Driven or STAY?

Guest Driven offers a limited feature set, focusing mainly on mobile guest engagement and personalization. It lacks additional functionalities like messaging, request management, or multi-lingual support, which are only available in STAY’s 14 core features.

STAY’s platform includes mobile app access, chatbots, automated replies, message routing, guest messaging, room service ordering, local recommendations, a hotel directory, app downloads, multi-lingual translation, mobile checkout, and guest profiles. These features collectively enable a more comprehensive digital guest experience.

Edge: STAY.

Which Has Better Customer Support: Guest Driven or STAY?

Guest Driven’s customer support has been rated just 1.5/5, with reviews indicating sluggish responsiveness and limited assistance. One reviewer describes its support as “weak engineering,” which raises concerns about ongoing assistance.

STAY, with a 4.83/5 support rating, receives praise for its responsiveness and helpfulness. Multiple reviews mention how the team is quick to resolve issues and provide valuable onboarding support, making it a more dependable partner.

Edge: STAY.

Which Has More Integrations: Guest Driven or STAY?

Guest Driven has no verified integration partners, limiting its ability to connect with property management, revenue management, or CRM systems. This restricts its usefulness for larger hotels requiring automation and data sharing.

STAY boasts 20 verified integrations with major PMS, channel managers, and other hotel systems, including Hotelkit, apaleo, Unifocus, Winhotel, and SiteMinder. These integrations streamline operations and data management, making STAY more adaptable for larger or multi-property hotels.

Edge: STAY.

Which Do Hoteliers Rate Higher: Guest Driven or STAY?

With only 2 reviews, Guest Driven’s ratings are not recent or comprehensive, but they average around 3.75/5. Its limited feedback makes it difficult to gauge current hotel sentiment, and recent data is unavailable.

STAY, by contrast, has 206 reviews in the past 6 months, with an overall rating of 3/5 but a highly positive NPS score of 9.59/10, and 96% likelihood to recommend. Hoteliers in diverse segments—from luxury to resorts—praise its operational benefits and ease of use.

Edge: STAY.

How Much Do Guest Driven and STAY Cost?

Guest Driven does not publicly disclose pricing, suggesting a custom quote model possibly suited for larger clients or enterprise accounts. Its lack of transparency makes budgeting difficult.

STAY’s platform costs $300 per month, with no setup or implementation fees reported. It’s a straightforward subscription model, making costs predictable for hotels of various sizes.

What Type of Hotel Should Use Guest Driven?

• Hotels that prioritize personalized mobile guest engagement and targeted marketing campaigns.
• Boutique hotels or small independent properties seeking to improve guest communication.
• Teams aiming for a simple, easy-to-manage app without complex integrations.
• Not ideal if you need extensive operational tools, integrations, or multi-lingual support.
• Not ideal if your hotel requires a proven track record, large-scale deployment, or extensive customer support.

Guest Driven works best for small properties that want to enhance guest interaction without overhauling their existing systems and can accept limited features and support.

What Type of Hotel Should Use STAY?

• Hotels aiming to digitize their entire guest experience, including service requests, local info, and checkouts.
• Large hotel chains or resorts needing extensive integrations and operational tools.
• Properties wanting robust analytics, multi-lingual support, and a broad feature set.
• Teams that value dedicated support with quick onboarding and ongoing assistance.
• Not ideal if your hotel is very small, has tight budgets, or prefers simple, standalone apps without complex integrations.

STAY is ideal for properties looking for a comprehensive, scalable platform that improves operational efficiency and guest satisfaction.

The Bottom Line for Hotels

Guest Driven offers a focused mobile engagement experience tailored for small to medium properties, emphasizing guest personalization. Its limited reviews and lack of recent feedback, however, raise questions about ongoing support and feature development.

STAY, with its extensive features, high recent review count, and verified integrations, is better suited for larger hotels and chains seeking to digitize and streamline operations. Its strong support, positive hotel feedback, and proven track record make it the safer, more reliable choice.

If your hotel needs a flexible, all-in-one platform to boost operational efficiency and guest satisfaction, STAY is the clear winner. For smaller hotels prioritizing guest engagement over operational integrations, Guest Driven can be considered but with caution. Overall, STAY’s recent reviews and broad feature set make it the recommended platform for most hotels evaluating these options today.