An Airbnb-like app is a two-sided rental marketplace: guests search and book, hosts manage listings and calendars, and you take a commission through an admin dashboard. A web MVP for one city or one property type can start from about $1,500, a mobile MVP with guest and host apps from about $2,000, and a full launch with payments, deposits and store publishing from about $4,000. The hardest parts are availability, money flows (deposits, refunds, host payouts) and trust, not the number of screens.
"I want an app like Airbnb" usually means something much smaller than Airbnb: chalets around one city, furnished apartments for monthly stays, or holiday homes managed by a few owners. You don't need years of Airbnb's features. You need the part that lets a guest find a place, see that it's free on their dates, pay, and get what they were promised, while you take a commission.
This guide breaks a rental marketplace into its features, shows what belongs in the first version, and lists the running costs and rules most quotes leave out. Our example is common in the Gulf: a marketplace for chalets and holiday homes, booked for a day, a night or a weekend.
The three products inside an "app like Airbnb"
| Product | Who uses it | Its job |
|---|---|---|
| Guest app or website | People looking for a stay | Search by area and dates, see photos and price, book, pay, message the host, review |
| Host app or dashboard | Owners and property managers | Add listings, set prices and availability, accept bookings, see payouts |
| Admin dashboard (web) | You and your team | Approve hosts and listings, set commission, handle disputes and refunds, see reports |
Guests and hosts get separate experiences on one shared backend. Many rental marketplaces start with a guest app plus a web dashboard for hosts, who often manage listings from a laptop.
Feature by feature: what it takes and when you need it
Effort is relative: Low is ordinary screen work, Medium involves integrations or money, High is where most engineering time goes.
Guest side
| Feature | MVP? | Effort | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sign-up with phone (OTP) or email | Yes | Low | SMS has a per-message cost |
| Search by area, dates and guests | Yes | Medium | Date search must check real availability, not just list everything |
| Map view of listings | Often | Medium | Map display and place search are billed by usage |
| Listing page: photos, amenities, rules, price | Yes | Low | Arabic and English text if you serve the Gulf |
| Price for the chosen dates | Yes | Medium | Weekend, holiday and seasonal prices, cleaning fees |
| Booking request or instant booking | Yes | Medium | Pick one model first; supporting both adds rules |
| Online payment or deposit | Usually | Medium | Card and local wallets through a gateway in your market |
| Messages with the host | Later | Medium | WhatsApp or a call button is enough at first |
| Reviews after the stay | Yes | Low | Only allow reviews from completed bookings |
Host side
| Feature | MVP? | Effort | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Host sign-up and verification | Yes | Medium | ID, ownership or management proof; admin approves |
| Listing editor with photos | Yes | Medium | Image upload and compression matter on mobile data |
| Availability calendar | Yes | High | Blocking dates, minimum stays, day and night slots |
| Pricing rules | Yes | Medium | Weekday vs weekend, special dates, discounts for longer stays |
| Accept or decline requests | Yes | Low | With a time limit so guests aren't left waiting |
| Earnings and payout history | Yes | Medium | What the host earned, your commission, what is pending |
| Calendar sync with other channels | Later | Medium | Hosts listed elsewhere need iCal import/export to avoid double bookings |
Admin dashboard
| Feature | MVP? | Effort | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approve hosts and listings | Yes | Low | Store each listing's license or permit number where the law requires one |
| Commission settings | Yes | Low | Change the rate without releasing a new app |
| Bookings, cancellations and refunds | Yes | Medium | One screen to see what happened and why |
| Payout management | Yes | Medium | Which hosts to pay, when, and how much |
| Disputes and reports | Yes | Low to medium | Notes, photos, history per booking |
What drives the cost up
Availability. "Is this chalet free on Thursday night?" sounds simple. In practice a property can be booked by day, by night or for 24 hours; it can have a minimum stay on weekends; the host may block dates by phone; and two guests may try to book the last free night at the same second. Getting this right, without double bookings, is the heart of the product and the biggest single piece of work.
Money. A rental marketplace usually handles a booking payment, sometimes a separate refundable security deposit, a cancellation policy with partial refunds, your commission, and a payout to the host. Each of these needs clear rules and a ledger that shows where every amount went. Deposits are common for chalets in the Gulf, and they are exactly where disputes start, so they deserve careful design.
Trust. Guests are paying a stranger for a place they have never seen. Verified hosts, real photos, reviews only from completed stays and a clear refund process are moderate work; skipping them makes every booking harder to win.
A Gulf example: a chalet and holiday-home marketplace
A typical first version for one city might look like this:
- Guests browse chalets by area, see photos, amenities and capacity, and pick a date and a slot (day, night or full 24 hours).
- The price changes on weekends and public holidays, set by the host.
- The guest pays a deposit online to confirm; the rest is paid on arrival or online.
- The host confirms from a simple dashboard and sees upcoming bookings.
- You approve every host before their listings go live and keep each listing's license number on file.
That last point is not optional in every market. In Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of Tourism instructed local and international booking platforms to remove unlicensed hospitality listings from 1 January 2025, with fines of up to SAR 1 million for platforms that don't comply. In Dubai, renting a home short-term requires a holiday home permit from the Department of Economy and Tourism. Rules differ by country and change, so check your regulator before you build, and design the admin to record and check licenses from day one.
Arabic matters too: a proper right-to-left interface and search that handles different spellings of the same area. Our Arabic RTL checklist covers the details.
What it costs
These are our real starting prices in USD; the final price comes from a written scope you approve before paying anything.
| Scope | What it typically covers | Starts from | Typical time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web marketplace MVP | Guest booking site, host dashboard, admin; one property type, one city, booking requests, basic payments or pay-on-arrival | About $1,500 | About 3 weeks |
| Mobile MVP | Guest app for iOS and Android, host dashboard, admin, backend; availability, pricing rules, reviews | About $2,000 | About 2–6 weeks |
| Full launch | Online payments and deposits, host payouts, user roles, push notifications, publishing on both stores | About $4,000 | Depends on scope |
| Later phases | Calendar sync, messaging, co-hosts, promotions, more cities or countries | Quoted per phase | Agreed per phase |
In local currency, roughly: a $2,000 mobile MVP is about SAR 7,500, AED 7,340 or KWD 620; a $4,000 full launch is about SAR 15,000, AED 14,680 or KWD 1,240. A web MVP at $1,500 is about SAR 5,600.
Projects over $500 start with a 30% down payment, then 40% and 30% at milestones, each paid after you have seen that milestone working. You see a first working preview within 72 hours of the down payment. For a quick estimate of your own feature list, try the app cost calculator.
Running costs after launch
| Item | How it is charged | Tip |
|---|---|---|
| Maps and place search | Free monthly allowance per service, then per request | Load the map only when the guest asks for it |
| SMS for OTP | Per message, varies by country | Limit resends; use email or push where you can |
| Payment gateway | Per transaction | Agree on who carries the fee: guest, host or you |
| Hosting and database | Low at the start | Grows with traffic, not with listings alone |
| Apple Developer Program | $99 per year | One account can publish guest and host apps |
| Google Play developer account | $25 one-time |
You don't pay Apple or Google a cut of bookings. Their rules require stays and other services used outside the app to be paid through your own payment flow (a card gateway, a wallet, or cash), not through in-app purchase.
How you make money, and what that means for the build
Most rental marketplaces take a commission; Airbnb, for reference, charges most hosts a single fee of about 15.5% of the booking. A small local marketplace might start lower, or charge hosts a monthly listing fee instead. The models are not equal to build: a commission collected online needs payments and payouts, a listing fee only needs a subscription, and pay-on-arrival needs a way to invoice hosts for your share. Decide this before the scope is written.
What we've built, and what we haven't
We haven't published a holiday-rental marketplace in our portfolio. We have shipped the pieces it is made of: Lawh Academy books sessions against tutor availability and calendars in live student and tutor apps; DriveX is a two-sided platform with a wallet and earnings, live on both stores; and On Time Express, a courier system we built for an Egyptian client, pays out to traders on a schedule from an audited money ledger.
When we're not the right fit
- You want a full copy of Airbnb across many countries on day one. We'd start with one city and grow; if that isn't your plan, a large team is a better match.
- You need a channel manager that connects to dozens of booking platforms. That is a product in itself, and an existing tool may serve you better.
Where to go from here
See how we build booking apps and reservation systems, compare this with another two-sided product in the cost to build an app like Uber, or cut your first version down with how much an MVP costs. When you're ready, the project planner turns your idea into a brief, and we reply with a written scope and fixed price within 24 hours.
FAQ
How much does it cost to build an app like Airbnb?
With Q Studio, a web MVP of a rental marketplace starts from about $1,500 (about 3 weeks), a mobile MVP with a guest app, host dashboard and admin from about $2,000 (about 2–6 weeks), and a full launch with online payments, deposits, payouts and store publishing from about $4,000. Running costs such as maps, SMS, payment fees and store accounts are paid directly to the providers, in your name.
Can the app take a deposit and refund it later?
Yes. A security deposit can be collected with the booking and refunded after check-out, fully or partly, with the reason recorded. It needs clear rules for who decides and how quickly, which we write into the scope.
How do I stop double bookings?
The system locks dates the moment a booking is confirmed, so two guests can't book the same night. If hosts also list on other platforms, calendar sync through iCal links reduces the risk, though it isn't instant, so many marketplaces ask hosts to keep their calendars up to date as a listing rule.
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