Choosing a PMS for an independent hotel: a manager’s guide

By Brian Sinclair · 7 min read · Updated 5 August 2026

Before I wrote software I spent eight years as a group general manager in hospitality, running multiple properties. I have done night audit. I have run hotels on Opera, Rezlynx, Cloudbeds, Newbook and Brilliant, and I have been let down by every one of them in a different way.

That experience is why I eventually built Arrivé, a PMS for independent hotels. But this page is not a sales pitch for it. It is the checklist I would hand any independent hotelier choosing a PMS, whoever they end up buying from.

Start with the money, not the features

Every PMS demo looks good. The differences that matter show up on your invoice twelve months later. Before you compare a single feature, get written answers to these:

What is the all-in monthly cost for your room count, including the booking engine, channel manager and payment processing? Vendors love quoting these as separate line items.
Is there commission on direct bookings? Some booking engines take a percentage of the bookings that came through your own website. That is your best margin being taxed.
What does leaving cost? Ask how you get your reservations and guest history out, in what format, and at what price. The answer tells you how confident they are in keeping you by merit.

The operational tests that actually matter

These are the things I judged every system on after years of living inside them, and where most fall down:

Night audit. Can it run without a ritual? Systems that need a manual audit ceremony at 2am were designed decades ago and it shows everywhere else too.
Housekeeping. Does room status update in real time on something a housekeeper can hold, or does the head housekeeper still print a sheet at 8am?
The 9am test. A guest at the desk wants to extend, move rooms and split the bill. Count the clicks. Your receptionist will do this dance thousands of times a year.
Guest messaging. Confirmations, pre-arrival messages and post-stay follow-ups should be automatic. If the front desk sends these by hand, the PMS is making work rather than removing it.
Group bookings. Weddings and tour groups are where independents make real money and where cheap systems collapse. Make them show you, on a live screen, not a slide.

Questions to ask on the demo

Vendors control demos tightly. Take the control back by bringing your own scenarios: your most awkward rate plan, your messiest recent group booking, your real housekeeping rota. Ask them to model those live. A vendor who cannot handle your real cases on a demo will not handle them in February either.

Ask who answers support at 11pm on a Saturday, because that is when hotels break. Ask what the last three things they shipped were, which tells you whether the product is alive. Ask for two reference customers of your size, not their flagship.

Where Arrivé fits, and where it does not

I built Arrivé for boutique and independent properties: reservations, housekeeping, night audit, rate management, group bookings and automated guest messaging in one system, at a flat monthly price from £149 with zero commission on direct bookings.

It is deliberately not for everyone. If you are a 300-room chain property with corporate rate desks and a revenue management team, you need the enterprise systems and their enterprise complexity. If you are an independent tired of paying commission on your own direct bookings, that is exactly who it is for, and you can try the live demo without a signup.

Common questions

How much should a PMS cost for a small independent hotel?

Get the all-in figure: PMS, booking engine, channel manager and payments together. For independents, flat pricing (Arrivé starts at £149 a month) is easier to budget than per-room pricing plus commission, and commission on direct bookings is worth avoiding entirely.

What is the biggest mistake independent hotels make choosing a PMS?

Comparing feature lists instead of testing their own real scenarios. Bring your messiest group booking and your most awkward rate plan to the demo and make the vendor model them live. Feature lists all look the same; the click-by-click reality does not.

Should an independent hotel pay commission on direct bookings?

No. OTA commission is the cost of their marketing reach, but a booking that came through your own website is your margin. A booking engine that takes a cut of direct bookings is taxing your best channel.

How hard is it to switch PMS?

The hard part is data: future reservations, rates and guest history. Before you sign with any vendor, ask in writing how data comes out and what it costs. A good vendor will also help you bring data in from the old system.

Want a number for your build?

Fifteen minutes is enough. Tell me the problem, and I will tell you honestly whether custom software is the answer and roughly what it would cost.

Book a call