Evolve vs. Fairly: A Comprehensive Comparison in 2025
Evolve vs Fairly: Overview
As technology and AI continue to advance, vacation rental homeowners now have more options than ever for managing their properties. Gone are the days when homeowners had to choose between hiring a traditional property manager or managing everything themselves. Today, vacation rental management software services are abundant, but with so many options, it can become overwhelming to differentiate between them. Picking the right vacation rental management platform can mean the difference between a well-rated property that consistently meets your goals or one that struggles to attract repeat guests.
In this blog post, we’ll compare two competitive offerings in vacation rental management services: Evolve and Fairly. We’ll break down their key similarities and differences, each platform’s pros and cons, and pricing details to help you determine which solution best aligns with your property management needs and goals.
What is Evolve?
Evolve offers vacation rental management services that include marketing, rate suggestions, guest support, and on-call assistance. Their platform operates similarly to traditional property management companies, with a heavy emphasis on initial property marketing (such as professional photography and channel management across platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo).
Homeowners might be interested in Evolve rental management services if they want to take a more hands-on approach to most aspects of the rental process themselves. In particular, it’s important to note that Evolve does not offer on-the-ground support in case of an emergency (please note: on-call assistance and on-the-ground support are two very different things). As a result, this makes it a lightweight option for owners who want to outsource marketing and guest communication but can handle onsite issues on their own.
Key features
- Marketing and photography services: Professional photography and listing services
- 24/7 guest hotline: A customer support service is available to guests, but not to owners directly.
- Basic pricing suggestions: Evolve provides basic pricing recommendations, though this feature is often considered more basic compared to other platforms.
- No on-site assistance: Owners must handle emergencies or find their own onsite managers if needed.
Pricing
Evolve charges a 10% management fee, which is below the industry average. However, there are a few caveats to keep in mind:
- Additional fees: The 10% fee does not account for other fees owners may face when using Evolve’s platform, such as listing or transaction fees, which ultimately increases the total management cost.
- Limited features: The lower fee correlates with a more basic set of features, especially when compared to newer platforms like Fairly.
- Special offer pricing: The 10% fee is often a special offer, with many users reporting a price increase to 15% after the first few months or the first year of service.
What is Fairly?
Fairly’s caretaker-led model pairs a local 5-star care team dedicated to your home with powerful tech, giving you control and transparency minus the hefty fees.
By combining automation with a dedicated care team, Fairly ensures every detail is covered—from smart pricing and seamless guest communication to hands-on home care. This leads to better guest experiences, stronger reviews, and more repeat bookings, ultimately allowing owners to raise nightly rates with confidence.
Key features:
- Exceptional caretakers: High accountability from a local dedicated team ensures your home is always guest-ready and your guests cared for. Owners can select or switch caretakers with ease, ensuring that they are always paired with the right person to care for their property.
- AI-driven pricing: Fairly uses AI-driven pricing tools that adjust rates based on market demand and competitor pricing. Owners can optimize for goal-driven revenue strategies while retaining full pricing flexibility and control.
- Transparent guest communications: Includes automated tax remittance, guest communication, and caretaker management through a single platform.
- Multi-channel management Effortlessly sync and manage listings across platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo from one centralized platform, ensuring maximum visibility of your home to potential guests.
- Smart lock integration: Automatically generates unique guest entry codes with each new reservation for enhanced security and ease of access.
- Automated accounting: Automatic payouts to you and your caretaker after each stay, with built-in tax handling. No spreadsheets or manual reconciliation required.
- Easy pricing for confidence and control: No long-term contracts. No hidden fees. Just a team that’s on your side, with the transparency and tools to keep you in charge.
- Direct access to Fairly’s customer support: Fairly offers direct access to their customer support team for any assistance, ensuring that owners and their care team always have what they need. Support can be accessed via email (support@fairly.com) or through their Help site.
Transparent, fair pricing
Fairly prioritizes transparency, which is why we made our pricing model incredibly straightforward:
- 20% platform fee: Shared with your Caretaker, ensuring your property is well-maintained and guests receive top-tier service.
- No extra fees: No hidden costs for you or your guests, allowing you to price competitively and keep more of what you earn.
- No onboarding fees: Getting started with Fairly is completely free.
- No long-term contracts: We believe in earning your business every month.
Key differences between Evolve and Fairly
While both Evolve and Fairly offer channel management and marketing services, they differ significantly in their pricing structures, service offerings, and the level of technology integration they provide. As vacation rental management platforms, their range of features and services vary significantly.
At a high level, here are the main differences between Evolve and Fairly:
Feature deep dive
Let’s deep dive into each of these features below to offer more context:
- Access to marketing resources before a listing goes live
- Evolve: Provides professional support to help create high-quality listings. This includes description write ups and professional photography guidance.
- Fairly: Will help find and pay for a photographer and cover the costs of photos, help with listing details, and publish your listing to channels like Airbnb and Vrbo for maximum visibility.
- Care team to provide on-the-ground support
- Evolve: Does not offer an on-the-ground care team. Owners must manage this aspect themselves or arrange for outside services.
- Fairly: Provides a dedicated care team for on-the-ground support, ensuring that your property is well-cared for and any issues are promptly addressed.
- Includes an on-site contact in case of emergencies
- Evolve: Does not include an on-site emergency contact. Owners are responsible for handling emergencies on their own or through third-party services.
- Fairly: Caretakers are the on-site contact for emergencies, giving owners peace of mind that someone is always available to handle urgent situations.
- Update photos and listing details directly
- Evolve: Owners cannot update their photos or listing details directly. All updates must go through a representative, which can be a slower process.
- Fairly: Owners have the ability to update photos, listing details, and availability directly at any time. Those changes will automatically update on Airbnb and Vrbo, giving owners complete control over their property listing.
- Set pricing on a per-night basis
- Evolve: Does not allow owners to set nightly rates directly. Pricing is handled automatically based on the platform's algorithms.
- Fairly: Provides AI-suggested rates and allows owners to customize per-night pricing, giving them flexibility to adjust rates based on demand, special events, or seasonal trends.
- Set home availability
- Evolve: Owners can set home availability and block off dates for their property.
- Fairly: Similarly, owners can manage availability, allowing them to keep their calendars up-to-date with ease.
- Access to dedicated caretakers / cleaners
- Evolve: Does not provide access to dedicated caretakers or cleaners. Owners are required to manage this aspect of their property on their own.
- Fairly: Partners with exceptional, local caretakers in your area whose top priority is caring for your home, so owners never have a rotating cast of contract cleaners, remote call centers, or managers who have never set foot in your home.
- Automated tax remittance
- Evolve: Offers limited automation for taxes. Owners must manually manage tax compliance, which can be time-consuming and prone to error.
- Fairly: Automates tax remittance, handling lodging taxes and submitting them directly to the appropriate authorities on the owner’s behalf, ensuring compliance with local regulations.
- Automated accounting system
- Evolve: Does not provide an automated accounting system. Owners are responsible for manually managing finances, which can be cumbersome.
- Fairly: Features a fully automated accounting system that manages guest payments, caretaker fees, and payouts, providing a seamless financial experience for owners.
- Smart lock integration
- Evolve: Does not integrate with smart locks. Owners must handle guest access through separate systems or manage keys manually.
- Fairly: Integrates with smart locks, automatically generating new entry codes for each guest, which enhances security and convenience for both guests and owners.
- Guest Messaging
- Evolve: Evolve manages communication directly with guests. If owners want to communicate with guests during their stay, they must take over the entire guest interaction for that reservation.
- Fairly: Caretakers handle guest messaging, and owners can choose to participate if they wish.
- Visibility into guest communications
- Evolve: Owners do not have visibility into guest communications unless they take over the entire conversation. This limits the ability to monitor and engage with guests directly.
- Fairly: Provides owners full visibility into guest communications, allowing them to monitor, chime in, or respond directly as needed.
- Pricing
- Evolve: Starts at a 10% management fee, but may increase after the initial contract period. Does not include additional fees.
- Fairly: 20% flat fee that does not change. No fees, and half of that is split with the local care team.
Evolve vs Fairly: Which option should you choose?
In short, Fairly offers more value for your investment, with a robust set of tools and a collaborative care team that works toward your property's long-term success. As one of many Evolve rental management competitors, Fairly goes above and beyond in the features they provide owners. If you're looking for vacation rental management services that blends technology, personalized service, and revenue optimization, Fairly emerges as the clear winner in this comparison.
Fairly: The most comprehensive vacation rental management software in 2025
After a thorough evaluation of both platforms, it's clear that Fairly stands out as the more comprehensive and innovative option for vacation rental owners. With its all-in-one approach, Fairly not only offers the essential tools for marketing and channel management but also integrates advanced technology like AI-driven dynamic pricing, smart lock systems, and automated tax remittance. These features are designed to help owners maximize their revenue potential, streamline operations, and provide a seamless guest experience, making it a strong contender amongst Evolve competitors.
But Fairly is not just a vacation rental management software. Their revenue share model ensures that your caretakers and advisors are equally invested in your property's success, leading to higher-quality service and, ultimately, better reviews, and repeat bookings. By combining automation with personalized care, Fairly enables owners to maintain control while benefiting from professional support every step of the way.
Want to try it out for yourself? Sign up at fairly.com or connect with us below.
