Answers · Hotels · 6 questions
Updated 25 Oct 2026 · Reviewed by Mohammad Shakir, Co-founder & CEO
New to rate shopping, or explaining it to someone who is? These answers define the core terms - rate shopper, scraper, ARI, BAR, LOS, final payable price - and clear up the questions hotels ask most before they start.
A rate shopper is software that collects the prices competitors show on OTAs, metasearch and their own sites, so you can compare them with yours. It replaces manual price checking.
For each competitor it returns the rate for a set of dates, usually with room type, meal plan and cancellation terms. The output is a dashboard, or data piped into your revenue management system, PMS or BI tool.
A scraper is the technique of reading a web page. A rate shopper is a product built on that technique, with comp sets, room matching, scheduling, history and delivery. You buy the second so you don't maintain the first.
A script that fetches one price is easy to write and hard to keep alive, because sites change layouts, add bot checks and personalise prices. A rate shopper handles matching, retries, tax and fee normalisation and stored history. The hard part is not fetching a price; it is trusting it.
ARI is availability, rates and inventory, the data a hotel pushes to its channels. BAR is the best available rate, the lowest flexible public price for a room. LOS is length of stay, which changes the price a guest sees.
A rate shopper reads the result of your ARI as guests see it on each channel. Compare BAR to BAR, and fix LOS and occupancy so you are comparing the same stay.
It is the amount the guest pays at the end of checkout, after taxes, fees and discounts. Guests compare this number, so it is the one to benchmark.
Two hotels with the same list price can differ by taxes, service charges or an OTA coupon. Shopping only the list price can hide who is genuinely cheaper.
An anonymous rate is what any visitor sees. A logged-in rate is what a signed-in member sees, which can be lower because of loyalty or member programmes. Guests who are logged in compare you against that price.
If you watch only anonymous rates, you can believe you are the cheapest while a member sees a competitor cheaper. Knowing both prices exist, and checking them where you can see them, shows whether a gap is a public-price problem or a member-price problem.
Collecting publicly visible prices is a widely used industry practice, but sites have terms of use. Work with a provider that handles this responsibly and take legal advice for your situation.
This is general information, not legal advice. Ask any vendor how it collects data and what it does about site terms.
ScrapeGuys builds and operates production scraping APIs that return clean, structured JSON - and takes custom targets live in 48-72 hours.