From Reactive Pricing to Proactive Planning: How Fluent Is Scaling to 900 Units in Cape Town

When Gerrit, Head of Revenue at Fluent, was asked what his favorite PriceLabs feature is, he didn't mention dynamic pricing or market dashboards. He said: the people behind the tool. That answer tells you a lot about how this partnership works.

Cape Town's short-term rental market is competitive, seasonal, and fast-moving. Fluent currently manages a significant apartment portfolio across the city, with plans to reach close to 900 units within two years. At that scale, revenue management isn't something you wing — it's a discipline.

"We are a growing company," Gerrit says, "and luckily we're making use of PriceLabs."

The Challenge: Reactive Pricing at Scale

Before modern revenue management tools, most property managers operated the same way: set a rate, wait for bookings, and react when things fell short.

"The old school way is people putting up pricing, waiting for the bookings to come in, and then reacting — having last-minute specials because the rate was too high. They didn't look at the actual budget. Or they don't even have a budget, some of them."

At a small portfolio, reactive pricing is inconvenient. At the scale Fluent operates — and plans to operate — it's costly. Last-minute discounts erode margins, owners get nervous, and relationships suffer.

The goal wasn't just to price better. It was to plan better — months out, with data and confidence.

"The correct price at the right time. Not panicking just before you're not getting the bookings."

Why Fluent Chose PriceLabs

For a revenue manager overseeing a growing portfolio, evaluating new properties matters just as much as optimizing existing ones. Gerrit needed a tool that could do both — accurately.

What stood out immediately was Revenue Estimator Pro. Most comp tools pull from one source. Revenue Estimator Pro pulls from multiple, including hotel data alongside short-term rental data, giving a fuller picture of any market.

"They take into consideration not just Airbnb data, but also hotel data and things like that."

Combined with granular filtering by bedroom count, bathroom count, and price percentile, Fluent can model a new property's realistic revenue potential before signing a management agreement — a meaningful edge when presenting to prospective owners.

How Fluent Uses PriceLabs

Revenue Estimator Pro: Confidence Before Commitment

New business development at Fluent depends on answering one question accurately: what can this property realistically earn? Revenue Estimator Pro lets Gerrit filter to the exact comparable set — same bedrooms, bathrooms, price range, and percentile — so projections reflect reality, not assumptions.

"You can really drill down into a very accurate figure on what you're going to be doing, which obviously helps with owners that would like to make use of our management services."

Dynamic Pricing: From Reactive to Proactive

Dynamic pricing is where Fluent shifted from reactive to strategic. Instead of adjusting rates after demand signals appeared, the team now prices ahead of them — capturing demand at its peak and filling gaps before they become last-minute problems.

"You're actually picking up on what the demand is and giving you the flexibility to do a lot more — be dynamic with the pricing, but also with your orphan dates that are there."

Budgeting Tools: Setting Targets, Tracking Performance

PriceLabs' budgeting tools let the team set revenue targets in advance, then track actual performance throughout the booking window. When results track ahead or behind, the team can act — not react.

"You can always compare how well you're doing with what you set out to do. At the end of the day, STR for me is what the owner ends up with in their bank account — because that's the first step: keeping that owner happy. Keep the owner happy, you'll get more owners."

Yielding Strategy: Granular Control Across the Portfolio

At portfolio scale, one-size-fits-all pricing doesn't work. Fluent uses PriceLabs' yielding tools to set occupancy-based pricing strategies at the listing, property, group, and sub-group level — so high-demand properties can be managed differently from slower ones, and clusters in the same building can be treated as a strategic unit.

"Per listing, per property, per group, you can go and set your yielding strategy in place based on occupancy — either per unit, or group of units, or a sub-group of units that you can create."

The Results

Since implementing PriceLabs, Fluent has moved from reactive to proactive revenue management. While Gerrit is candid that there's more of the system to learn, the operational shift is already evident:

• New property evaluations are faster, more defensible, and grounded in multi-source market data
• Pricing decisions are driven by forward-looking demand signals, not last-minute adjustments
• Owner relationships are supported by clear budget targets and performance tracking
• Portfolio strategy is enabled through group and sub-group yielding controls
• Ongoing feature adoption is supported by PriceLabs' training resources and support team

"Every day there's something new that I learn that the system can offer me. The system is so integrated and so versatile — it will take quite a bit of time to learn it all."

Advice for Other Operators

Plan forward, not backward.

"Start planning forward and put those things in — using budgeting tools within there. You can always compare how well you're doing with what you set out to do."

Know your data.

"If you don't know how to read and use your data, you're gonna struggle. History repeats itself — so use your historic data."

Keep learning.

“The system will keep showing you something new. Lean into the education resources — the YouTube channel, the live sessions, the feature updates.”

Remember who you're serving.

"STR, for me, is what the owner ends up with in their bank account. That's the first step. Keep that owner happy, you'll get more owners."

Looking Ahead

Fluent is building something ambitious in Cape Town — systematically. With a clear revenue philosophy, data-driven property evaluation, and a platform flexible enough to manage hundreds of units across multiple groups and sub-groups, the path to 900 apartments is a plan, not just a target.

What gives Gerrit confidence isn't just the features. It's knowing that when he asks "I'd like to do this" — the answer is never "you can't." It's "let me show you how."

"There's always a way. That's what I like about it. There's always a way."