Waivo Review
Waivo replaces the security deposit with a no-deductible guest damage waiver that pays hosts directly and keeps guests out of the claims process entirely — though you won't find out what it costs until you ask.
Pros
- No deductible on any protection plan — hosts are reimbursed "from the first dollar," per Waivo's own FAQ, unlike security deposits that often get partially withheld or disputed
- Coverage is broader than a typical accidental-damage waiver: it protects against both accidental and intentional guest damage and pet damage, plus guest theft backed by a valid police report
- Guests are never contacted during a claim — the host submits photos and booking details through Waivo's own portal, removing the awkward guest confrontation a security-deposit dispute usually creates
- Waivo is contractually committed to responding to a damage notice within 2 business days, and says most claims get a same-business-day response
- Founded by a team with direct, named experience launching Proper Insurance, a well-established vacation rental insurance provider — real STR-industry pedigree behind the product
- Two tracks scale with the business: WaivoNow for self-serve individual hosts (1–3 properties, instant online purchase) and an enterprise/white-label track for property managers and booking platforms/OTAs with a dedicated account manager
Cons
- Pricing is not published anywhere on Waivo's own site — homepage, FAQ, and both the host and property-manager pages withhold every dollar figure, and Waivo has told a third-party publication outright that it does not publicly display pricing
- Explicitly not liability insurance — Waivo's own FAQ states "liability coverage is not part of this program," so hosts still need a separate policy, and Waivo itself points hosts to Proper Insurance or Wister Insurance for that
- Self-serve WaivoNow tops out at $5,000 in coverage and is restricted to hosts with 1–3 properties or under 10 bookings a month — larger operators are routed straight to a sales conversation for the full $20,000 limit
- No G2 or Capterra listing we could find for Waivo on either platform, so its homepage claim of being "the highest-rated provider in the short-term rental industry" can't be checked against an independent, aggregated review score the way most other tools in this category can
- The live checkout instance we reviewed enforces specific exclusions and a 14-day window to report damage after checkout, so hosts need a prompt post-stay inspection routine or risk missing the reporting deadline
Waivo is a guest damage-waiver product for short-term rental hosts and property managers — not a booking tool, a messaging tool, or a PMS, but a no-deductible replacement for the traditional security deposit. When a guest damages a unit, Waivo says it never contacts the guest at all: the host files a claim through Waivo's own portal and gets reimbursed directly, for accidental damage, intentional damage, pet damage, and guest theft backed by a police report. The company was founded by a team with direct experience launching Proper Insurance, a well-known vacation rental insurance provider, and Waivo is explicit that it is not that kind of policy: "liability coverage is not part of this program," per its own FAQ.
Pricing
Waivo does not publish pricing anywhere on its own site. We checked the homepage, the FAQ page, the property-manager page and the individual-host (WaivoNow) page — none list a dollar figure, and a third-party host-resource site quotes Waivo directly saying "we do not publicly display our pricing as that is determined based on various factors specific to each client." What is published: coverage limits run $500 to $20,000, with $1,500 and $5,000 the most commonly selected; WaivoNow, the self-serve track for hosts running 1–3 properties or fewer than 10 bookings a month, caps out at $1,500–$5,000 with instant online purchase; the enterprise/property-manager track scales to the full $20,000 and is "volume-based, so the more bookings you have, the better pricing you get," per Waivo's own FAQ. There are no deductibles on any plan, and hosts are told they can pass the fee on to guests in place of a security deposit. For a ballpark only: a third-party STR tools directory (STR Hub, not Waivo) estimates rates starting around $15 per booking with typical guest-facing markups of $39–$79 — that figure is STR Hub's own estimate, not confirmed anywhere on Waivo's site, so treat it as directional, not authoritative.
Who it's for
Waivo fits a host or property manager who wants to drop the security-deposit routine — the pre-authorization holds, the disputed charges, the awkward guest-facing collections conversation — without giving up damage recourse. The WaivoNow self-serve track is built for very small operators (1–3 units, under 10 bookings a month); everyone larger, including booking platforms and OTAs that want a white-labeled version of the product, is routed to the enterprise sales track instead. It's a poor fit if you specifically need liability insurance, since Waivo says outright that isn't included, or if you need a firm number before you'll evaluate a vendor, since Waivo won't give you one without a consultation form.
What we could verify
Waivo's own site backs up its core pitch: the FAQ commits the damage team to responding to a claim "within 2 business days," and says most damage gets a same-business-day response. We also opened a live, white-labeled Waivo checkout instance built for a property management client and confirmed real-world guest-facing tiers of $1,500, $5,000 and $10,000 in coverage, plus a 14-day post-checkout window to report damage — concrete detail that matches what the FAQ describes in the abstract. Waivo's homepage calls it "the highest-rated provider in the short-term rental industry" and displays nine named five-star testimonials, but attaches no review platform, star count, or review total to that claim. We looked for Waivo on both G2 and Capterra and found no listing for the company on either platform, so unlike most tools in this category, there's no independent aggregate rating to check that self-reported claim against. That's a real gap in what we could confirm, not a claim we're making either way.
How it compares to our top pick
BnBGenius and Waivo aren't really in the same category, so this isn't a head-to-head. BnBGenius is a flat $10/month AI layer (free for your first 500 messages) built around guest messaging, an AI phone concierge, a task automation loop, review generation and gap-night upsells — it doesn't touch damage claims or insurance at all, and needs no PMS to run. Waivo is a damage-waiver product: it protects your unit and its contents after the fact, but it doesn't talk to guests during their stay, take a phone call, or fill an empty night on your calendar. A host running both would use BnBGenius to run the stay and Waivo to cover what happens if the stay goes wrong. For the full field of guest-communication and operations tools we've evaluated side by side, see our best Airbnb host software ranking.