Ten questions, and why each one matters
- How does your software recognise the same booking from one day to the next? Booking.com sometimes drops a booking and lists it again under a new reference. Software that relies on that reference will cancel the cleaner's job and create a new one. Lemon's answer: by property, calendar and checkout date.
- When a booking disappears from the calendar, what happens and how fast? Immediate cancellation is the wrong answer. Lemon's answer: flag, wait 24 hours (2 hours near checkout), never inside 24 hours of checkout.
- What happens if the calendar comes back empty? It should be treated as a failed read. Lemon's answer: nothing changes.
- How often do you read the calendar? Lemon: every 5 minutes, keeping a copy of every read for 30 days.
- Do cleaners need an app or an account? Every install step is a cleaner who does not use it. Lemon: a link on Telegram, WhatsApp, SMS or email.
- How are photos required? "Upload some photos" produces three photos of the sofa. Lemon: one per named area, with a reference photo, approval and comments.
- What happens when a cleaner declines or goes silent? Lemon: offer expires after 60 minutes (10 urgent), next cleaner, then host alert, then broadcast.
- What does it cost per property, and what does messaging cost on top? Lemon: €18 for the first property, €14 each for properties 2 to 20, €10 each for 21 to 50, VAT included; Telegram, email and Messenger free; SMS (20 credits, €0.20, per segment) and WhatsApp (3 credits, €0.03, per message) on prepaid credits.
- Where is my data and is there a record of every decision? Lemon: EU hosting, every calendar decision logged with a reason, every message logged with delivery status.
- Can I see your real numbers? Lemon: yes — the feed integrity report is published monthly.
How to test any tool in an afternoon
Connect one Booking.com calendar with a stay in progress and one Airbnb calendar with a block. Watch for a day. Count the messages your cleaner receives. A tool built for what these calendars actually do sends one.
Technical details
- In iCal terms, the reference in question 1 is the event's UID. Booking.com changes UIDs (a re-key), so a tool that uses the UID as a booking's identity cancels and recreates jobs. Lemon's identity is property, feed and checkout date.
- Every fetch of a feed is snapshotted and kept for 30 days. An empty feed is treated as a failed fetch.