Frequently asked questions

StayOS is a workspace for short-stay operators — shortlet agents, apartment and serviced-apartment managers, and vacation rental hosts. It replaces the WhatsApp-chat-plus-spreadsheet workflow with one system: list your houses and units, onboard guests through self-service KYC links, collect payments via virtual accounts and checkout links, generate agreements and receipts automatically, and publish units on your own branded discovery page. It's built on one core model that extends to hotels and long-term rentals as you grow.

Individual operators, agencies and small-to-mid property management companies in Nigeria and West Africa — anyone who rents furnished units for short stays, from a single shortlet to a portfolio of apartments, vacation rentals or serviced units. It is designed to grow with you: from a free Starter plan to Pro for multi-house agencies, and Enterprise for fully white-labelled operations.

Yes. The guest-facing pages are built for mobile first — your guests never need an app or an account. The workspace app is a PWA-style web app designed for agents working from their phone on-site, with WhatsApp as a primary channel.

We are in private beta. Join the waitlist to get early access and a launch discount — we're onboarding the first workspaces before the public launch.

Yes. On Pro and Enterprise we help you migrate from spreadsheets and WhatsApp histories. Guest records, upcoming bookings and unit calendars can be imported, and Enterprise includes a dedicated onboarding session.

Starter is free forever and includes up to 10 units and 3 houses with the core feature set. Instead of a monthly fee, we charge a 5% commission on each paid booking. If you have no paid bookings in a month, you pay nothing.

Any booking where a payment is collected through the platform — virtual account, invoice or checkout link. Refunds and cancelled bookings are excluded. The 5% is on the amount collected, excluding security deposits that are returned.

Unlimited units, houses and team members; iCal sync with Airbnb and Booking.com; custom KYC fields; advanced pricing rules; partial and installment payments; SMS notifications; CSV exports; and 0% commission.

No setup fees and no lock-in on Starter or Pro — cancel anytime, month to month. Enterprise is an annual contract with volume pricing and a dedicated team.

At launch billing is in NGN. The platform itself is multi-currency-ready, so agencies that charge guests in USD or other currencies can do so from day one, with international billing following shortly.

Three ways, chosen per booking: a generated bank account number (virtual account) for the exact amount that auto-reconciles, an invoice with a hosted payment page, or a direct self-checkout link for card, bank transfer or USSD. The payment link or account number is sent to the guest automatically on WhatsApp.

We integrate with Nigerian payment providers like Paystack and Flutterwave behind a single interface, so adding more providers later doesn't change how the workspace works. Provider processing fees are passed through at cost.

Yes. Set a deposit now and balance before check-in, or any schedule you choose, with automated reminders before each due date. The dashboard shows who has paid, who is partially paid and who is overdue.

Collect the deposit at booking, hold it flagged separately from rent revenue, and process the refund after checkout — full, partial or with deductions and a logged reason. A refund receipt is sent to the guest automatically.

Cash and offline payments are supported: mark a booking as paid manually, and the action is logged with who did it and when, so your accountant can reconcile against bank records.

You start with the default checklist: government ID, selfie/liveness, proof of address and an emergency contact. Every item can be required or waived per workspace, house or unit, and you can add custom fields and documents.

Through a single-use self-service link you send on WhatsApp, SMS or email. The link expires after a configurable period (48 hours by default) and can be re-issued. Your agent can also fill the same form on the guest's behalf for walk-ins.

No. KYC is stored on the guest's profile and stays valid until it expires, so a returning guest books in seconds — the agent just confirms their details.

KYC documents are stored encrypted, accessed only through signed, expiring URLs, and every review decision is logged. Data is isolated per workspace and retention policies are built in, aligned with Nigeria's NDPR and structured for GDPR.

Discovery is two things. First, every workspace can publish units to its own public, SEO-friendly discovery site — under your brand and optionally your own domain (or a URL path like /discover/your-agency). Second, opted-in units appear in the platform-wide discovery search, where guests browse shortlets, apartments and vacation rentals across every agency on the system, filtered by location, dates, price and capacity. Bookings always route back through the listing workspace's own KYC and payment flow.

That's the point. Public unit pages are server-rendered and indexable, with sitemaps and structured data. Guests searching 'shortlet in Lekki' can find your unit directly — through your own page or through the platform-wide discovery search — without paying an OTA commission.

iCal is the standard calendar format used by Airbnb, Booking.com and Google Calendar. Import and export iCal feeds so a booking on Airbnb automatically blocks the dates in your StayOS calendar and vice versa — eliminating double bookings across channels.

Absolutely — many Pro customers do exactly that. StayOS becomes your system of record, and iCal keeps every channel in sync. Direct bookings through your discovery page carry no OTA commission at all.

Yes. Every row in the database is scoped to a workspace and enforced in the data-access layer, not just the UI. What your accountant sees, what your agents see and what other agencies see are strictly separated.

Starter includes email support. Pro adds priority chat support, and Enterprise includes a dedicated support channel with a response SLA, plus onboarding and migration help.

Yes — Starter and Pro are month-to-month with no lock-in. Your data remains yours: export it any time, and we keep workspace data for a grace period after cancellation.