{
  "id": 12646688,
  "title": "I benchmarked seven hotel price APIs on the same Rome room, and the prices were 16% apart because of tax",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/i-benchmarked-seven-hotel-price-apis-on-the-same-rome-room-and-the",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-07T14:52:15.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/matanrabi/i-benchmarked-seven-hotel-price-apis-on-the-same-rome-room-and-the-prices-were-16-apart-because-3480"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "I benchmarked seven hotel price APIs on a single room in Rome and discovered a 16% price discrepancy among them, primarily due to tax differences. The investigation involved three separate queries each, using the same stay details: check-in on 2026-11-20, check-out on 2026-11-23, for two adults in one room, with USD currency. The searches were conducted at Lisbon, using a named hotel called Hotel Artemide in Rome, from both US and German servers, and through free tiers.\n\nThe APIs compared included SearchApi, HasData, SerpApi, FlightPowers, Apify voyager/booking-scraper, and Xotelo. The results showed significant differences in their pricing methods and whether they included taxes in the price. For instance, HasData listed the price as $914.64 plus $142.12 tax, while StayAPI, when queried from the US, showed a total price of $914.64 without tax and $1,061.71 with included tax. SearchApi provided a price of $915 without a specific tax field, and FlightPowers, when queried from the US, showed a price of $1,057.\n\nThe key takeaway was that the API used and the market it sourced the price from significantly impacted the final price. StayAPI's total_price field indicated the price before tax in one market and after tax in another, highlighting the importance of normalising prices to a single tax-inclusive total for accurate comparisons. The cheapest options were found through SearchApi and HasData, while FlightPowers had the highest cost due to its tax-inclusive pricing method. The investigation concluded with a reminder to standardise tax inclusion when comparing hotel prices across APIs.",
  "summary": "I run FlightPowers, a small API that reads live Booking.com rates, so I'm biased about one row of this table. I wanted to know how it holds up next to the APIs people usually compare it with, so I spent an afternoon sending them all the same questions and kept every response. The setup Same stay for everyone: check-in 2026-11-20, check-out 2026-11-23, 2 adults, 1 room, USD. Three questions, three…",
  "key_points": [
    "Seven hotel price APIs benchmarked for same Rome room",
    "16% price discrepancy found among APIs, primarily due to tax differences",
    "API choice and market sourcing significantly impact final price"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Dev.to",
        "title": "I benchmarked four Google Flights APIs on the same searches, and the fares matched to the dollar",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/i-benchmarked-four-google-flights-apis-on-the-same-searches-and-the",
        "published": "2026-10-07T14:50:55.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}