For hosts · South Africa
Mekavo Stay is free software for anyone who rents out a room, a flat, a house or a guest house: your page in your guests' languages, your calendar linked with Airbnb and Booking.com, and your whole day on one screen.
Start hosting — freeNo card. Keep Airbnb and Booking.com if you use them.
In South Africa there is no national short-let licence: your municipality's zoning decides. In Cape Town, the city's biggest short-let market, a dwelling may host transient guests for up to 30 consecutive days at a time, and a larger operation needs guest-house consent use. In a sectional title scheme, the body corporate's conduct rules can restrict short lets, for example with a minimum stay, if the rules are reasonable, apply to all owners and are approved by CSOS. Mekavo Stay lets you set a minimum stay per place and turns away shorter bookings, here and when you add one by hand.
Mekavo is software, not a regulator. Zoning is your municipality's; conduct rules are your body corporate's or HOA's. Under the Immigration Act, guest houses and lodges keep a register of lodgers — names, ID or passport copy, address — for two years, shown to the police or immigration on request. Income tax and, above the turnover threshold, VAT are yours to declare to SARS.
Mekavo earns from the tools other businesses pay for. Stay is free for hosts — every feature, every place, your whole team. If that ever changes, we will tell you well ahead of time.
Guests pay you directly — cash, bank transfer or the payment apps people use where you are. Mekavo takes nothing.
Your page, your guests' phone numbers, your reviews on your own Google listing. Nothing is hidden behind a platform.
Photos, rooms, price a night, house times. Choose whether guests see the street, or only the area until you accept them.
Paste your Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo calendar link once. A night booked anywhere is closed everywhere.
Switch your booking page on and send the link. Guests ask to book in their own language — no account needed.
Accept on your phone and send your answer on WhatsApp — already written in the guest's language — then the arrival info.
Open Today and see who arrives, who leaves, who is staying and which place to clean — across every place you have.
Each guest with their check-in time; each place to make ready, with "next guest from 15:00 today" when it is tight.
Your list or ours, ticked on their phone, with photos of the place ready — and you see who marked it ready, and when.
Co-host, cleaner, receptionist, front desk, bookkeeper: a cleaner never sees guests' phone numbers or your money.
The day's arrivals, departures and turnovers in one message, and every new request as it comes.
Keep the sites you already use. Mekavo reads their calendars and shares yours, so every night is in one place.
We read their calendars every 30 minutes and give you one link to paste back. It says which nights are taken — never a guest's name.
Booked, blocked, or taken on another site — all your rooms and flats in one view.
A different price for high season or holidays; the total is suggested for every new booking.
If your city limits how many nights a year you may let, set it once: we count every booking we know and warn you before you pass it.
Everything a guest needs, in their language, on the WhatsApp or Telegram they already use.
How to get in, Wi-Fi, house rules and your tips nearby — sent from your phone in one tap. Door codes stay private until you send them.
Photos of the place as the guest found it and their signature on your phone. They get their own copy by a private link.
Take the bags with photos, give the guest a receipt, and give them back with photos — your fee, or free.
After check-out, your thank-you in their language with a link to review you on your own Google listing.
Write down what was agreed and what was paid, and let guests pay online straight to you.
Each on its own line of the guest's receipt. The tourist tax only if your city charges one, at the rate your city publishes.
Your own rule, shown to the guest before they pay. When they cancel, it says what to refund.
Guests worry a place is not what the photos show. Each proof carries its date; the on-the-spot check and the filming fade after a year unless you renew them.
You stand at the place with your phone. We keep only the result, never your location.
Short clips filmed in the app at the address — the street, the way to the door, the rooms — checked before the tick shows.
Connect the Google account that manages your listing, so guests see the place is really yours.
Guests see the town and area until you accept them; the full address goes in their arrival info.
Yes. Every feature, every place and as many people on your team as you need, with no commission on your bookings. Mekavo is paid for by its other software. If that ever changes, we will tell you well ahead of time.
No. Link their calendars and a night booked there is closed on your page, and the other way round. Many hosts keep them and take direct bookings with no commission on the side.
You. In cash, by bank transfer, or online through your own payment account where one works in your country. Mekavo never holds your guests' money.
Yes. Invite them as a cleaner: they see the places and the times to clean, and their checklist — never guests' phone numbers, bookings or money.
Only if you choose. By default guests see the town and area; the full address is sent to a guest once you accept them.
No. Where your country requires a guest report or a registration number, Stay reminds you and keeps the record, but you file it yourself, on the official service.
Not a national one. Your municipality's zoning applies: in Cape Town a home may host guests for up to 30 consecutive days at a time, and a bigger operation needs guest-house consent use.
It can restrict them through conduct rules — a minimum stay, for example — if the rules are reasonable, apply equally to all owners and are approved by CSOS. HOA estates have their own rules too.
No statutory one. The TOMSA levy is voluntary and run by the private sector; some places add it to the invoice. Mekavo can show it on its own line if you choose to charge it.
Add your first place in a few minutes. Free, no card, no commission.
Start hosting — free