Northing, front desk software for independent hotels. From $49 a month.
Run by the people who run small places. 3,412 hotels, guesthouses and hostels, in their own words.
Every quote below was sent to us by a customer, with permission, and cut only for length. Northing runs the desk at places with 4 to 60 rooms, from a six room minshuku in Takayama to a 42 bed hostel in Kandy.
Ten customers, in their own words
Each bright star is a customer. Point at one to read a line, click to open the whole quote.Each bright star is a customer. Tap one to read the whole quote.
I’m 61 and not good with software. My daughter set it up in a weekend and I’ve not needed her since. The check in screen is big and plain and I can do it with my glasses off.
We ran the desk off a paper diary and a shared inbox for six years. Northing took an afternoon to set up, and in the first week it found two double bookings we didn’t know we had. The housekeeping list on my phone is the thing I’d miss most.
Honestly I bought it for the channel sync and stayed for the messages. Guests text us about parking at 11pm and whoever is on shift gets it, not just my phone. Rates were fiddly to set up; support fixed them the same evening.
Dorm beds were the problem with everything else we tried. Northing understands that a bed is not a room. 42 beds, three staff, and no spreadsheet any more.
We moved from a system that cost four times as much. We lost two reports I actually used, I said so, and one of them came back three months later. The night audit went from forty minutes to about five.
It does what it says, which after three systems in five years is all I wanted. The calendar is cramped on a phone held sideways. Support answers like people, not a script.
Half our bookings come by phone from people who have stayed before. I can put one in during the call, with the dog and the room they like, in less time than it took to find the diary.
Four small places, one login, and I can finally see them side by side. The owner reports go out on the first of the month without me touching them. Pricing is per property, so do the maths before you add a fourth.
Most guests arrive from the station tired, and we check them in sitting down with tea. Northing lets me do that on a tablet, in Japanese on my side and English on theirs. It feels less like a counter now.
I’m the one on the desk, not the owner, so I’ll say the practical thing: handover notes. Whoever comes in at seven sees what happened in the night without a phone call. That alone.
Counted, not estimated
From live accounts on 1 October 2026. Properties with fewer than four rooms are left out of every figure, and so are trials.
- Properties on Northing
- 3,412
- In 41 countries. 61% have fewer than 20 rooms.
- Rooms and beds checked in last year
- 2.9 million
- A third of them after 6pm, when most desks are one person.
- Customers who renew after year one
- 97%
- Counted on the first renewal date, not on a survey.
- Median time to a support reply
- 4 minutes
- 7am to 11pm UTC, from people who have worked a desk.
Try it on your own calendar
Import your bookings from a spreadsheet or your current system, run Northing for 30 days and pay nothing until you decide. $49 a month for one property, $39 each from the third. No contract; cancel from settings.