Scan That Stay vs Touch Stay: an honest comparison
We make Scan That Stay, so read this the way you'd read any maker's comparison. Every Touch Stay claim was checked against their public site, and anything we couldn't verify is flagged, not guessed.
Updated 26 August 2026
The short answer: these are two genuinely different products that happen to share a category. Touch Stay is a mature guest-experience platform: guidebook plus messaging, AI chatbot, upsells and PMS integrations. Scan That Stay is deliberately the opposite: one page per property, one QR code, £6 a month, nothing else to configure. Which is better depends entirely on which of those you actually want.
Side by side
| Scan That Stay | Touch Stay | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | £6 a month per property, flat. Everything included. | Advertised from $8.25 per property per month; final price depends on plan and number of homes (their site prices via a calculator). |
| Pricing model | One price, one bill. Each property is its own page and its own £6. | Scales with property count and chosen plan; billed in USD, GBP, AUD or EUR. |
| Guest experience | Scan the QR, page opens in the browser. No app, no account. | Web-based guidebook via link, QR code or automated delivery. No app for guests. |
| Setup | About 10 minutes to a printable QR code. | Advertises a 14-day free trial, no card required, and being live in minutes; an AI generator can draft the guidebook. |
| PMS / channel integrations | None. You print a code and share a link. | Advertises 40+ PMS and channel manager connections (Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Guesty and others). |
| Guest messaging | Not built in. | Scheduled emails and SMS, auto-replies and a central inbox. |
| AI chatbot | Not built in. | AI chatbot trained on your guidebook, answering guests 24/7. |
| Upsells | Not built in. Guests never pay for anything. | Built-in store for early check-in, transfers, welcome packs and experiences. |
| Automatic translation | Not built in - you write it, guests read it as written. | Advertises guest translation into 30+ languages. |
| Printed QR longevity | The printed code keeps working through every edit, for the life of the property, and can be re-linked to another property without reprinting. | QR codes offered; we could not verify their re-linking behaviour from the public site. |
| If you cancel | Cancel anytime. Pages pause; nothing is ever deleted. Come back and it is all still there. | Advertises cancel anytime, no contracts. |
What Touch Stay does well
Credit where due: Touch Stay has been at this a long time and it shows. The guidebook is web-based with no app for guests, which is the right call and the same one we made. Around it they've built a lot: scheduled email and SMS messaging with a central inbox, an AI chatbot trained on your guidebook, a store for selling early check-in and extras, translation into 30+ languages, and 40+ PMS integrations so delivery happens automatically when a booking lands. If you run many properties through a property management system, that feature set is the product, and the higher price is a fair trade for it.
What Scan That Stay does differently
We built Scan That Stay for a specific host: one to a handful of UK properties, tired of answering the same wifi-bins-checkout questions, not looking for another platform to operate. So we left almost everything out on purpose. What remains:
- One flat price in pounds. £6 a month per property, everything included, each property its own page on one bill.
- Nothing for guests to install or join. Scan the code, the page opens in the browser. Guests never pay, never make an account.
- A printed code that outlives everything. Edit the page daily if you like; the QR code on your wall keeps working, for the life of the property.
- Nothing is ever deleted. Cancel anytime; your pages pause and your content stays exactly as you left it.
- About 10 minutes to set up, because there are six sections and you already know all the answers.
The honest flip side: no PMS integrations, no automated messaging, no chatbot, no upsells, no translation. If you read that list and feel relief, you're our kind of host. If you feel loss, you're probably Touch Stay's.
So which should you pick?
Pick Touch Stay if you run a larger or more automated operation: multiple properties on a PMS, guest messaging you want handled by the same system, or international guests who need translation. They offer a 14-day free trial with no card, so you can judge the fit yourself.
Pick Scan That Stay if what you want is the welcome folder replaced: wifi, getting in, house rules, bins, your favourite places and checkout on one page guests scan and read, for £6 a month, set up in about 10 minutes, with a printed code you never think about again. And if you're starting from paper, our guide on how to create a digital welcome book walks through the whole move, whichever tool you land on.
What we couldn't verify
Touch Stay prices through an interactive calculator, so we could confirm the advertised from $8.25 per property per month headline but not the full tier breakdown, the GBP equivalents, or whether that figure requires annual billing. We also couldn't confirm what happens to a printed QR code when a guidebook is edited, moved or cancelled. None of that is a mark against them; it just isn't stated where we could check it. For current numbers, check touchstay.com directly, and if anything here has drifted, tell us and we'll correct it.