GetAll Guide vs a PDF welcome book
The most common thing we replace, and the most honest competitor on this list. A template you buy once has real advantages, and one flaw that matters more than all of them.
A Canva or Etsy welcome book template: a one-off purchase, with nothing to renew · as published at the time of writing, August 2026
| A PDF or printed welcome book | GetAll Guide | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | A one-off purchase, then nothing | Free for one property |
| Correcting a mistake | Every copy already sent stays wrong | Fix once; everyone sees it, including current guests |
| Door codes | Sitting in the file from the moment you send it | Not in the page until the time you set |
| After check-out | The guest keeps it, with the codes in it, forever | The link stops working |
| Guest registration | Not possible | On Pro, with a form that adapts to the document |
| Arrival times | Not possible | Asked per booking, answered in the guide |
| Check-out list | A list to read | A tickable list that rises to the top on the day |
| Finding one answer | Scroll and search a document | Tap the section you want |
| Works offline | Yes, always | Yes, once opened |
| Design freedom | Total | Your logo, cover and colour (Pro) |
The honest case for the PDF
Most comparison pages pretend the alternative is bad. This one will not, because for a lot of hosts the PDF genuinely works.
You buy a template once and that is the end of the spending. There is no subscription. It does not depend on any company staying in business. It opens on any device, forever, with no signal and nothing to load. You can lay it out exactly as you like and have it printed and bound if you want.
That is a real list of advantages, and it is why the PDF is the most common thing in this category — far more common than any of the software.
The flaw
A PDF is a copy.
The second you send it, it leaves your control. It is now a file on somebody else’s phone, and it will never change again.
Which means:
Every correction is a resend. Change the WiFi password and you have to email everyone with a future booking, and hope they open the new one rather than the old one already in their downloads.
Every mistake is permanent. The guest who has the January version has the January version. There is no way to reach it.
It ages silently. You never find out that the file is wrong. Your guests do, at the front door, and then you find out from them.
That last one is the real cost, and it is not obvious until it happens. A printed book is right on the day you print it and slowly becomes fiction, and nobody tells you which paragraph went bad.
The door code problem
This is the part worth thinking about hardest.
If your door code is in the PDF, then every guest you have ever hosted has your door code, in a file, in their downloads, forever. Changing the code does not retrieve it. Forwarding is trivial.
Most hosts handle this by leaving the code out of the file and sending it separately by message — which is the same problem in a different app, plus an extra thing to remember for every single booking.
Here the code lives in the guide but is attached to the booking’s clock. Our server leaves it out of the page entirely until the moment you chose, adds it then, and the whole link stops working after check-out. There is no copy anywhere for anybody to keep.
What a document cannot do at all
Some of it is not about updating. A file cannot ask a question.
It cannot ask what time your guests are arriving. It cannot collect registration details. It cannot let a guest tick off the check-out list on their phone and pick up where they left off. It cannot show your cleaner a different list from your guests. It cannot tell you that this week’s guest has not opened it yet.
The honest recommendation
If you have one property, your guide has been the same for two years, and you would rather own a file than rent software — keep the PDF. Seriously. Print it nicely and put it on the counter.
If anything in your guide changes, or the door code is in that file, the maths is different, and the first property here costs nothing to try. Paste your existing PDF text in and it becomes sections in a couple of minutes, so you are not starting again.
Choose GetAll Guide if
Anything in your guide changes: a router, a code, a bin day, a neighbour, a lock. You have sent the door code in a file to people you have never met and it is still sitting in their downloads. You want to know what time guests are arriving, or you need their registration details. Or you simply want to fix a mistake once instead of resending a file to everyone who has a booking.
Create your guideChoose a PDF if
Your guide almost never changes, you have one property, you would rather pay once than subscribe to anything, and you like having something you fully control that depends on no company at all. That is a coherent position and we will not pretend otherwise — for a stable place with a settled guide, a well-made printed book on the counter is genuinely good hosting.
- You pay once. There is no subscription, nothing to renew and nothing that lapses.
- It depends on no company. If we disappeared tomorrow, your PDF would still open.
- Complete design freedom — any layout, any font, any length, printed as nicely as you like.
- It works with no signal, on any device, forever, with nothing to load.