Getting started with BnB Console

Sign up with your business name, your name, an email and a password — or continue with Google or Facebook. Your business name matters more than it looks: guests see it on your booking pages and it becomes your guest-email identity (for example birchwood-stays@…), so booking confirmations and guest replies all carry your brand, not ours.

There is no trial clock and no card form. The Free plan is the default: unlimited properties, everything for direct bookings, and a 2% fee that collects itself when guests pay online — you only pay when you actually get booked. AI assistance, holding a guest's card until you approve a request, and recording offline payments by hand are Pro features.

The dashboard is your morning coffee screen: the whole business on one page. First comes this month's revenue, occupancy and average nightly rate so far, each set against the same days last month, and what is already on the books for the rest of the month. Under them, one bar splits this month's sold nights between direct bookings and each OTA, so you can see whether direct is growing.

Beside the month, Needs you lists everything waiting on you, and how many things in all: booking requests and failed card payments, overdue invoices, calendar feeds that stopped syncing, low reviews and owner statements still to send. Below them, the next 14 nights of your properties sit on one timeline in the Calendar's colours. Then Today, with its check-ins, check-outs and turnovers, and the guests arriving later this week who still owe money or left no phone number, beside your three latest guest Messages. On a phone it all becomes one column with Needs you first, and every date follows your business's timezone.

Until a property is active, the dashboard shows only a welcome and a setup checklist: your business contact email, your first property and, on the Free plan, online payments, without which no guest can book directly. After that, any step left unfinished waits in Needs you. Co-hosts see the figures, calendar and stays of every property assigned to them, and what needs them only for the ones they manage. Owners get a read-only view of their own properties: the figures, the calendar, the stays and the reviews, with nothing that asks them to act.

bnbconsole.com

Everything you set up once and then leave alone — business profile, portfolio page, integrations, team, promo codes, campaigns, AI credits and your own account — lives under one Settings item, so the menu keeps to the things you do every day.

1. 1Open Properties → Add property and fill in the name, address, bedrooms, bathrooms and guest capacity.
2. 2Upload photos — they are optimized automatically, so phone pictures are fine.
3. 3Set your base nightly price, minimum stay and check-in/check-out times. Everything else (seasonal pricing, discounts, fees, taxes) can come later.
4. 4Review the booking settings: how much notice you need, how far ahead guests can book, how long an unanswered request holds its dates, and whether children, infants or pets are welcome.

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The moment your property is saved with "Accept bookings" on, its public page is live at its free address on sites.bnbconsole.com and guests can request dates with live availability and a full price breakdown. Put the link in your Airbnb profile, your email signature and your Instagram bio — then read the direct bookings guide to customize the page, connect your own domain or embed the widget on a site you already have. Already on Airbnb or Vrbo? Connect their calendars next, as shown in how to sync Airbnb and Vrbo calendars.

You are emailed the moment a guest requests a stay, replies to a message or makes a payment, and when a balance charge fails. Nothing to switch on: every host on the team, and the co-hosts assigned to that property, each get their own copy, and replying to the email answers the guest in the booking's thread.

For alerts that reach you even with the app closed, click the bell at the top of the app and allow notifications. Each device you turn it on for gets a push notification for new requests, guest replies, payments and failed balance charges.

Open Settings → Team → Add member and pick a role:

1. 1Host — runs the business with you: every property, reservation, guest message and payment.
2. 2Co-host — runs only the properties you assign: calendar, pricing, bookings and guest messages, and nothing else in the business.
3. 3Owner — reads only the properties you assign: bookings, calendar and earnings, plus the statements you send.

The new member gets an email saying who added them and with what role, with a one-time link to set their own password. If they already use BnB Console with another business, the form spots it and adds the person you already know instead of creating a second account.

Managing properties for someone else? Set a management fee on each property's Pricing page, record costs such as cleaning or repairs, and Owner statements works out the month: income, your fee, costs, and what each owner is due. Figures stay live while you are still adding costs; issuing a statement freezes it and emails it to the property's owners, so a later change to an old booking never quietly rewrites something an owner has already been paid against. Owners see their copies under My statements.

Under Settings → My account, choose Set up on this device on the Face ID & fingerprint card. From then on the sign-in page offers Sign in with Face ID or fingerprint — no password to type or leak. Add each phone and laptop you use, and remove any you no longer own from the same card. Next: your direct booking website.