Following up on the email I shared with all hosts today. To recap, Peerspace is now enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for off-platform bookings under its Peerspace Services Agreement:
Inquiries and bookings that originate on Peerspace must be completed and paid through Peerspace. This covers all charges, including space rental, overtime, and add-on items and services.
Peerspace’s system automatically flags attempts to move bookings off-platform, and these messages may be blocked.
Hosts who steer guests off Peerspace, or whose activity shows a pattern of off-platform booking, will be flagged and may face consequences up to suspension, fines, and permanent removal.
As a reminder, please keep your conversations with guests on the Peerspace platform. It’s how we protect both sides of every booking, and it’s the record our team relies on when something goes wrong. If part of a conversation happens offline, such as a site visit, the booking and payment still need to come back through Peerspace. If your bookings already run through the platform, none of this changes anything for you.
Enforcement at this scale isn’t perfect, and the system may occasionally flag legitimate activity. If that happens to you, reply to the original email and we’ll sort it out quickly. We’re also investing in better ways to communicate with guests on Peerspace, so as those systems improve, hosts with a strong track record should see less friction and more bookings.
Hi @Scott_S, you are allowed to share your address to schedule a site visit. Currently there is a bug preventing address sharing on the mobile app which we are fixing, in the meantime you can share your address using messaging on web or mobile web. As always, when the guest is ready to book we ask that you run that through Peerspace. Best, Rony
Hi Rony, so far this implementation is so clunky. I attempted to direct a guest to email Peerspace about a financial issue and the app blocked me from being able to share Peerspace’s email address with them. And it’s giving me warnings and accusing me of off-platform communication when we need to be able to share some information to schedule location scouts. There has got to be a better way? Or the ai you’re using is dumb?
Hi there! For the sake of it, while I’ve got a discussion going on with Host Support, I also want to flag this here.
Automated enforcement is messy because it can create false positives, prevent reasonable host interactions, etc. We obviously all want to make sure we’re engaging in best practice, but I worry that the automated enforcement is ratcheted up so high that it’s going to create more problems than it solves. There’s a balance between automated systems that do nothing, or those that are so aggressive they grind down legitimate activity.
As a host, I currently use Peerspace as my primary booking platform. If I’m worried about the effects of false positives and the potential loss of Peerspace as a booking platform, or if hosts are facing a lot of friction in how they operate, it may increase interest in other platforms-- which really isn’t good for anyone.
hi @Brad_B thanks for flagging this. you should be able to include a Peerspace email in your messaging and we’re currently working on a fix. Thanks for your patience as we work to improve the messaging experience. Best, Rony
Hi @Evan_L , I appreciate your feedback. I agree with you and we are working on dialing in the warnings so there are less false positives. I appreciate your patience as we make these improvements. Best, Rony
I also have only had two bookings total, as I am brand new to this platform. All of my communications have gone through this platform only, no other communication. And I received one of the flag massages on my profile. Which seems incredibly inaccurate. I hope this gets fixed.
Hey just adding to the convo - yes Im having the same issues here and completely agree with everyone in this chain. The messages feel aggressive especially for people who have been on the platform for a while without any issues.
I also use peerspace as my primary booking platform, but often prospective clients want email correspondence for clarity to their teams or bosses, etc. Or they want to come in and view the space before they even decide to book.
Im in NYC and our space is nice, especially for prime manhattan location. Clients are shrewd and they want to know exactly what the space is before they bring their team or their own clients in. They dont know or care about the ins and outs of the peerspace platform and theyll go elsewhere if they feel friction points.
I escalated this to one of their teams, and it sounds like they’re making some changes to the bot. The ask was ‘give us a week to fix this,’ basically. It’s a bit of an own goal, and I think the bot’s parameters are possibly overly aggressive to prevent attempts by folks to get around the moving-conversations-off-platform proscription, but it is what it is. This is still honestly the best platform for this sort of connection-building, aside from a lottttt of direct client work oriented toward production folk in your metro.
Thank you Roni. I’m glad this discussion is being reviewed and updates are coming. I booked a client through Peerspace and the next couple of days I received the warning that I’ve been off-platform booking.
Hi, I didn’t get an email but I did get the popup: “Keep bookings on PeerspaceOn-platform bookings come with guaranteed payouts, $1M liability insurance for your space, damage protection, and support if a guest dispute comes up. Booking off Peerspace means you lose those protections and can lead to removal from the platform.”
Sometimes inquiries come in with a booking already requested, but they still want a site visit. I have asked them to cancel the booking until they do the site visit and make a decision. Is this the wrong way to handle it? Am I getting flagged for asking them to cancel the request until they’ve made a final decision? Many of these are a year in advance, so didn’t want the booking confirmed and then have to go back and modify or cancel and rebook later. Please advise.
@Rony_C Have you considered implementing a maximum cap on guest booking fees instead of charging a percentage with no fixed limit?
As a host, I receive a lot of inquiries that come from other platforms like TikTok and Instagram and word of mouth. I’d actually prefer to direct those guests to book through Peerspace because of the protections it provides for both hosts and guests. However, when they’re coming from another platform, the guest booking fees are often the biggest reason they decide not to complete the booking through Peerspace.
I think a reasonable cap on booking fees could encourage more hosts to bring outside leads onto the platform, which could ultimately increase the total number of bookings processed through Peerspace. Has Peerspace ever considered something like this? The cost for Peerspace to process a $6,000 booking isn’t several times higher than a $1,000 booking, yet the guest ends up paying substantially more.
We have received the booking email about all contacts to be made through peerspace. That is unrealistic. Our studio is in a shared building in a business park. We have always given a contact number to give customers instructions and to let them into the locked building. Meeting them at the proper building entrance. Which can get confusing when all the buildings look the same. We do this to avoid non appointment show ups as well.
We have seen this as well. We always ask for a phone number or give one for safety and to help give directions. Me personally, I would never book without talking to someone on the phone.
My event size actually got smaller but my hourly rate changed drastically. Most of our events are weddings so the early $150/hr rate is long gone. We are up to $600/hr
