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Compare for travelers
Vrbo (part of Expedia Group) is a whole-home vacation-rental marketplace with a large family-travel audience. Haven is a direct-booking search: describe the trip, see real availability and totals, and book on the host’s own site with no guest service fee.
Vrbo focuses on entire homes and a family-friendly audience, with a structured destination/date/guest search, map browsing, and Expedia-group loyalty benefits. Its traveler service fee is added at checkout on top of the owner’s price, based on publicly available information as of August 2026.
Book With Haven is the direct-booking platform independent hosts build their own sites on — and /stays is the traveler side of it: search every bookable Haven stay in plain language, see real availability and real totals for your dates, and book on the host’s own site. There is no guest service fee, hosts pay nothing to be found, and the catalog is curated rather than exhaustive, so this page compares honestly on both what Haven does better and where the marketplace is still the right tool.
Type the trip as you’d say it — “Florida Keys, Oct 3–11, roughly, 2 adults and a dog” or “a jungle cabin away from noise in mid-March”. Haven reads the place, the dates and how firm they are, the party, must-haves, and the vibe in one pass.
Destination, dates, and guests are separate structured fields plus filters; the search box looks up places, it does not read a described trip.
“Approximately”, “around”, “flexible”, “a week in July”, or “exact dates” change how strictly dates are applied — and results show the nearest open window (“Available Oct 4–11”) when your literal dates are closed.
Flexible-date options exist in the date picker; “around” or “roughly” typed into the box is not understood.
Results are tiered honestly: exact matches first, then close matches (nearby, or other dates), then similar stays by vibe — with a short concierge note saying what was and wasn’t found.
Zero-result searches suggest widening dates or the map area; no explanatory note about what was and wasn’t found.
Availability comes from the host’s own calendar rules and totals from the host’s own prices — the same number you’ll see at checkout. Prices are never shown without dates.
Real availability and rates; the total with the traveler service fee appears on the listing and at checkout.
Haven adds no guest service fee on top of the host’s price. You pay the host’s rate, their cleaning fee and taxes, and any processing fee the host chooses to pass through — shown before you book.
A traveler service fee is charged on most bookings (varies by booking; commonly cited as roughly 6–15% of the rental amount).
Every result opens the host’s own branded site. You deal with the person who runs the place, and they keep the relationship and the full rate.
You book through Vrbo; messaging and payment stay on the platform, and the owner pays Vrbo a commission or subscription.
Appearing in Haven stay search costs hosts nothing and Haven takes 0% commission on bookings — which is why the host’s direct rate is usually their best rate.
Owners pay a per-booking commission (or an annual subscription) to be listed.
A curated catalog of independently-run stays that book direct — growing, but far smaller than a global marketplace. If a place isn’t on Haven yet, the search says so rather than stretching.
Around two million whole-home listings worldwide via the Expedia Group network.
One versioned search API powers bookwithhaven.com/stays and Haven’s native mobile app, so the web and app understand the same plain-language searches identically.
Web and native apps with the same structured search.
Haven vs Vrbo
Configure your Haven site as long as you like — you only pay when you’re ready to publish and take bookings. No per-booking commissions.
Comparison based on publicly available information about Vrbo as of August 2026. Product features and pricing change frequently — check Vrbo’s public website for their latest details. Vrbo is a trademark of its respective owner; this page is not affiliated with or endorsed by Vrbo.