AirDNA vs Mashvisor 2026: Which One an STR Operator Should Actually Pay For

Mashvisor Professional lists at $99.99 a month billed annually. AirDNA Research gives 36 months of history. Which one earns its keep depends on whether you are buying doors or running them.

Pay for Mashvisor if you are still shopping for doors and need MLS for-sale inventory screened against both long-term and short-term rent estimates in the same view. Pay for AirDNA if you already own doors and need short-term rental performance data, comp sets you control, and 36 months of history to read seasonality.

Mashvisor Professional lists at $99.99 per month billed annually and $119.99 per month billed quarterly. AirDNA does not publish plan prices on its public help pages at all, routing you to an in-app pricing screen instead. The two products barely overlap in what they measure, which is why this comparison keeps getting written as a feature-count contest when it is really a question about which stage of the business you are in.

Key takeaways

• Mashvisor's three investor plans list at $49.99, $74.99, and $99.99 per month billed annually, rising to $49.99, $99.99, and $119.99 per month on quarterly billing, per Mashvisor's published pricing page.
• AirDNA's free tier carries 12 months of history, Research carries 36 months, and only the enterprise-level Advanced tier reaches back to 2017, per AirDNA's own subscription documentation.
• CSV export is paywalled on AirDNA: the free tier cannot export a single row, which matters if you intend to build your own comp models in a spreadsheet.
• Mashvisor pulls from the MLS, Zillow, Rentometer, Airbnb, and the Census Bureau, making it an acquisition screen; AirDNA is built on short-term rental listing and booking performance, making it an operating benchmark.
• Custom data exports cost $35 each on Mashvisor Standard and $30 each on Professional, so a heavy research month can add $300 to $600 on top of the subscription.

AirDNA vs Mashvisor: the comparison

Six dimensions decide this for an operator. Same order for both tools so you can read down the column that matters to you.

• AirDNA, core job: benchmark short-term rental performance in a market you operate in or are about to enter, with market and submarket views, custom draw-on-map markets, comp sets, and pacing insights in a performance dashboard.
• AirDNA, price: no published list price on the help centre; Research is sold monthly or annually, Advanced annually only, and the free tier is permanent.
• AirDNA, data source: short-term rental listing and booking data across Airbnb and Vrbo, which is why its revenue figures are estimates of observed performance rather than models built from long-term rent comps.
• AirDNA, history depth: 12 months free, 36 months on Research, back to 2017 on Advanced, with year-over-year market analysis and a Repeat Rent Index available at the top tier.
• AirDNA, export: CSV export on paid tiers only, plus unlimited Rentalizer PDF reports on Research.
• AirDNA, best for: an operator with doors already earning, who needs to know whether a soft month was the property or the market.
• Mashvisor, core job: screen properties for sale nationwide and compare long-term rental against Airbnb returns on the same address, with cap rate and cash-on-cash estimates attached to live listings.
• Mashvisor, price: Lite $49.99, Standard $74.99, Professional $99.99 per month billed annually; $49.99, $99.99 and $119.99 respectively on quarterly billing.
• Mashvisor, data source: MLS, Zillow, Rentometer, Airbnb, and the Census Bureau, updated in most cases daily, with claimed coverage across 95% of US markets.
• Mashvisor, history depth: not a headline feature on investor plans; up to 10 years of historical data is an Enterprise item sold on request.
• Mashvisor, export: 10 Excel exports per month on Standard, 30 on Professional, plus custom data exports at $35 and $30 each respectively.
• Mashvisor, best for: a buyer comparing three markets and forty addresses who has not yet decided where to put the money.

Every Mashvisor figure above comes from Mashvisor's own pricing page, which is the only place worth checking, because the review sites quoting $17.99 Lite plans are years out of date and still ranking.

What AirDNA does better

AirDNA measures short-term rental behaviour directly, so its outputs answer operating questions rather than acquisition questions. Comp sets you build yourself, pacing against your closest competitors, and nightly rates plus cleaning fees for the listings you actually lose bookings to are all Research-tier features.

The history depth is the underrated part. AirDNA's subscription documentation puts 12 months on the free tier and 36 on Research. Twelve months cannot separate a seasonal trough from a decline, because you have exactly one observation of each month. Thirty-six months gives you three, which is the minimum for a trend claim you would put in front of an owner.

Benchmarking against the market is the easy half. The harder comparison is your own door against itself, and it is the one owners ask about. MagicBNB ships YoY comparison as a first-class mode rather than a report: every KPI carries a period-corrected delta pill against the same window last year, and it flows through Portfolio Overview, Property Detail, and channel mix. When AirDNA says the market grew 8% and your ADR moved 1.2%, you have a specific conversation instead of a vague one.

Where AirDNA gets oversold is property-level precision. Rentalizer estimates an address by comping it, and comp quality collapses on unusual stock, thin submarkets, and anything with an amenity profile the neighbours do not share. Treat the market number as reliable and the single-address number as a starting bracket.

What Mashvisor does better

Mashvisor is an acquisition product wearing short-term rental clothing, and that is a compliment if buying is what you are doing. It is the only one of the two that puts a for-sale listing, a long-term rent estimate, an Airbnb income estimate, a cap rate, and a cash-on-cash return on one screen.

• Nationwide for-sale property search with investment filters is available on every paid tier including Lite at $49.99 per month annually, so the cheapest plan already does the core job.
• Short-term rental regulatory highlights for 500 or more cities ship on all three tiers, with links through to the municipal ordinances, which saves a real half-day per market you screen.
• Heatmaps for listing price, rental income, cash-on-cash return, and Airbnb occupancy start at Standard ($74.99 per month annually) and are the fastest way to eliminate two thirds of a metro.

• Side-by-side property comparison and customisable expense assumptions start at Standard; on Lite you take the default expense profile or nothing.
• Multifamily filters, foreclosure filters, and client-ready PDF analysis reports are Professional-only at $99.99 per month annually.

The catch is what it is built on. MLS, Zillow, Rentometer, and Census data produce an excellent long-term rental model and an inferred short-term rental one. If you are underwriting a property whose entire thesis is a nightly rate premium, you are trusting a model rather than observed booking behaviour.

This is the same failure mode that separates every estimate vendor from every other one. We ran the numbers on how far two of them can diverge on a single address in Airbtics vs AirDNA.

An estimate tool is worth paying for exactly until you own the door. After that you have better data than the vendor does, and you are paying them to be less accurate than your own bank statement.

The cost math at 2, 6, and 12 doors

Run the annual numbers before the feature comparison, because the answer changes shape at each portfolio size.

• At 2 doors in one market: Mashvisor Lite at $599.88 a year is defensible if you are actively hunting a third; AirDNA at any tier is hard to justify, because two properties in one market already tell you more about that market than a benchmark will.
• At 6 doors across two markets: AirDNA Research earns its keep, because you now need to attribute a soft quarter to a market rather than to a listing, and 36 months of history is the only way to do that credibly.
• At 12 doors and actively acquiring: both, at roughly $1,200 a year combined for Mashvisor Standard plus an AirDNA Research seat, which is under 0.2% of gross on a portfolio that size and cheap next to one avoided bad purchase.

Neither subscription underwrites the deal for you, and this is where operators quietly lose money to spreadsheet drift. MagicBNB's Property Analyzer runs purchase and lease modes with your own down payment, loan terms, interest rate, property tax, insurance, and HOA figures, and returns ROI, cap rate, and a fixed-versus-variable cash flow breakdown with the calculation methodology written out. Take the revenue estimate from Mashvisor or AirDNA, put your real financing against it, and see whether the deal survives your numbers rather than the vendor's defaults.

A composite from operators we work with: a five-door operator in two Tennessee markets paid for Mashvisor Professional for eleven months at $1,099.89 while buying nothing, because the plan was doing acquisition screening for a portfolio that had stopped acquiring. Dropping to AirDNA Research and reallocating the difference to a pricing tool moved RevPAN more than any market report did.

Where both tools stop being useful

Both products end at the same wall: they publish estimates, and estimates cannot be reconciled. AirDNA infers performance from observable listing and booking signals. Mashvisor models income from comps and rent data. Neither one knows that your March payout was short $1,840 because a channel held a security deposit, or that one door absorbed two cleanings you never billed.

That gap is why an operating portfolio needs a second system rather than a bigger data subscription. MagicBNB's Listings table sorts every door by net revenue, occupancy, profit, and margin with health-coloured occupancy pills at 80% and 60% thresholds, built from PMS reservations and reconciled bank deposits rather than from a market model. The worst property in a twelve-door portfolio should take three seconds to find, not a quarterly review.

If neither tool fits the budget, the free layer is better than it was two years ago. We mapped the full field in our guide to AirDNA alternatives and STR analytics tools for 2026, including which free tiers produce a usable market read.

Frequently asked questions

Is Mashvisor better than AirDNA?

Mashvisor is better for buying and AirDNA is better for operating, and no single ranking survives that split. Mashvisor puts MLS for-sale inventory, long-term rent, Airbnb income, cap rate, and cash-on-cash on one screen; AirDNA measures short-term rental performance directly and gives you comp sets, pacing, and 36 months of history on its Research tier.

How much does Mashvisor cost per month?

Mashvisor costs $49.99, $74.99, or $99.99 per month on annual billing for Lite, Standard, and Professional, and $49.99, $99.99, or $119.99 per month on quarterly billing. Custom data exports are billed separately at $35 each on Standard and $30 each on Professional, and Enterprise access to raw granular data is quoted on request.

Does Mashvisor have Airbnb occupancy data?

Yes, Mashvisor publishes Airbnb occupancy estimates including neighbourhood-level occupancy heatmaps starting on the Standard plan. The figures are modelled from rental comps across MLS, Zillow, Rentometer, Airbnb, and Census data rather than measured from booking behaviour, so treat them as a screening range rather than a forecast for one address.

Can I use AirDNA for free?

AirDNA runs a permanently free tier covering every global market with 12 months of history, Rentalizer address lookups, and the ability to connect one property for 30 rolling days of pricing recommendations. CSV export, submarket views, custom draw-on-map markets, comp sets you control, and the jump to 36 months of history all require a paid plan.

Which tool do co-hosts and property managers use?

Property managers lean AirDNA, because the questions they are asked are operating questions: is this door underperforming its comp set, and is the market or the listing to blame. Mashvisor only becomes relevant to a manager when an owner asks whether to buy another property, at which point the MLS and cash-on-cash side is the faster answer.

Is a market data subscription worth it once you own the properties?

It stays worth roughly one seat per market you operate in, and stops scaling past that. Once you hold five or more doors in a metro, your own booking pace and pickup curve are a better leading indicator than any vendor estimate of the market around you, and the subscription is buying context rather than information.

Market data tells you what the market did. Connect your PMS and your bank to MagicBNB and see what your doors actually returned, reconciled to the deposit. See your reconciled portfolio numbers →

About MagicBNB

MagicBNB is the portfolio intelligence platform that sits on top of your PMS and your bank. Portfolio Overview tracks occupancy, ADR, RevPAN, and net payout across every door with shareable URLs an owner can open. The Deal Analyzer keeps every underwrite you have run in one repository with side-by-side comparison and scoring against your own risk tolerance and target ROI. The Net Payout source of truth means the number on the dashboard, the monthly report, and the owner statement are the same computation, so nobody has to reconcile your reconciliation. See it at magicbnb.io.