Vachr Short-Term Rental Reservations

Vachr Short-Term Rental Reservations is a free WordPress booking engine for vacation rentals. Take direct bookings without commission, keep Airbnb, Booking.com and other calendars in sync, collect payments online and let the plugin handle the repetitive work of running your rentals.

100% FREE — Unlimited properties — No commission on direct bookings. Apartments, holiday homes, rooms, cottages, glamping: manage everything from one WordPress site.

What problems does it solve?

• Double bookings – two-way iCal sync with Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO and any iCal-compatible platform keeps availability aligned.
• Cancellation handling – guests can cancel direct reservations from the guest portal, with configurable day-based Stripe refund percentages and automatic availability release.
• Commission fees – guests book directly on your website and you keep the full price.
• Chasing payments – card payments, bank transfer with QR code, deposits, balance reminders and automatic matching of bank emails.
• Endless emails – confirmations, arrival instructions, payment reminders and staff notifications are sent automatically.
• Paperwork – guest registration with ID photos for tourist tax records, invoices and a complete reservation overview.
• Chaotic teamwork – cleaners, managers and repair staff get their own tasks, calendars and reminders.

Direct bookings that convert

• Booking calendar and reservation form with live price quote, services, extras and discount codes.
• Accommodation search: guests enter dates and guests, see free properties with photo galleries, prices and key facts, and continue straight to booking. Six ready-made templates.
• Availability calendar, apartment photo gallery with lightbox and captions, property details and amenities.
• Works with the Block editor and Elementor (native widgets), plus shortcodes for any theme.
• Apartment page wizard creates a complete, editable page for each property in minutes.
• 14 form designs, including dark mode, with live desktop and mobile preview.
• Customize booking validation notices in Styling: warnings and errors share configurable background, text and border colors plus corner radius, without writing CSS.
• Multilingual: forms, emails and apartment content in several languages and currencies.

Airbnb, Booking.com and iCal sync

Import external reservations and export your own availability. Imported bookings appear next to direct ones, cancellations are detected, and a failed feed never wipes existing reservations. Optionally read platform confirmation emails to attach guest contacts to iCal reservations.

Payments and invoices

• Card payments through Stripe or Mollie, bank transfer, cash.
• Advance-payment schedule by days before arrival (for example 10% a year ahead, 50% three weeks before, full amount close to arrival), with per-apartment overrides.
• Partial payments, remaining balance, automatic balance requests and unpaid-reservation reminders.
• Optional automatic card charge of the balance, with the guest’s consent.
• Czech SPD QR payment codes and payment references for bank transfers.
• Bank payment emails read from a dedicated mailbox are matched to reservations automatically.
• Transactions overview and invoices.

Guest portal and automation

• Guest portal: a secure link in every reservation email shows booking and payment status, registration progress, payment options and arrival instructions.
• Arrival instructions with door codes, Wi-Fi and other custom placeholders, sent automatically before check-in or shown when the guest is allowed to see them.
• Guest registration and ID document photos collected through a public form and matched to direct or imported bookings.
• Custom contact fields, terms and consent checkboxes.

Team and operations

• Notify owners, cleaners, managers and repair staff about new bookings, arrivals, departures, registrations, unpaid reservations and iCal cancellations.
• Turn arrivals and departures into tasks with confirmation links and email escalation to the next person.
• Colour-coded staff duty calendars and booking lists on protected pages.
• Admin price offers with manual discounts and a public offer link.

Pricing engine

Seasonal and weekend rates, stay-length discounts, discounts by number of guests, child and disabled-guest rules, per-person services and tourist taxes, refundable deposits, closures, date-specific minimum stays, and reusable discount codes restricted to selected arrival dates and stay lengths.

For developers and integrators

Authenticated REST API for reservations, price offers, payments and invoices (Application Passwords, idempotency keys, audit log), public availability endpoint and webhooks for payments.

Pro add-on

The optional Vachr Short-Term Rental Reservations Pro adds an AI content generator for local posts, invoicing tools and Google VacationRental structured data.

Documentation

Every shortcode, parameter, placeholder and how-to guide is available inside the plugin under Bookings -> Documentation.

Video tutorial

Video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1sXajxPurg

The plugin is free and supports unlimited apartments. Donations help fund continued development.

Optional setup assistance

Need help with setup? I offer one-time WordPress setup for short-term rentals, including connection to Booking.com, Airbnb, and more for 100 EUR, plus optional yearly light support for 20 EUR.