What does a hotel rate shopper do?
A rate shopper replaces the manual habit of opening an OTA, changing the stay date and writing competitor prices into a spreadsheet. It collects public prices and puts them into a view that is easier to compare.
Most tools begin with a compset: a short list of hotels that resemble your property. That is useful when you need to watch named rivals closely. Bed&Market begins with a different question: what is the wider accommodation market asking for this night?
What Bed&Market measures
Bed&Market reads public asking prices for hotels, apartments, guesthouses and rentals returned for a city search. Every stay night is measured separately. A Friday price never fills a missing Tuesday, and an unmeasured night never becomes zero.
The result includes the median, percentile ranges, the number of properties checked, the number that returned a price and the measurement date. Public city and month pages expose the same evidence in visible tables and downloadable data.
- Median asking price for the selected night
- Middle price range, including p25 to p75
- Number of properties checked and priced
- Weekend and weekday comparisons when the samples allow it
- Sourced local events shown separately from the price measurement
Why look beyond five competitors?
A small compset can be precise, but it can also miss what is happening outside that group. A concert may fill budget hotels first. A trade fair may move apartments as well as branded properties. A citywide view helps an independent operator notice dates when the wider market shifts together.
The wider view is not a replacement for knowing your closest rivals. It is a second lens. Use it to understand market position, then apply what you know about your room, restrictions, reputation and bookings.
What this tool cannot tell you
An asking price is not booked ADR. Bed&Market cannot see the final price a guest paid, your pickup, your occupancy or the value of a particular room type unless you provide that context yourself.
It also does not claim that an event caused a price change. The product shows the event date beside the measured curve and compares similar nearby nights. That gives you evidence to investigate, not a causal forecast.
A practical weekly routine
Choose your city, scan the coming window and start with the nights that sit outside the usual range. Check the sample and scan date. Look at nearby weekdays or weekends, then review any sourced event on the same date.
Finally, compare your own price with the city range. If you change it, record why. The purpose of a rate shopper is to shorten the research, not to remove judgment from pricing.