How Roostr's Auto/Manual toggles keep STR hosts in control overnight

Every Roostr automation comes with a switch. Pricing, guest replies, turnovers, maintenance — each one ships with a per-surface Auto/Manual toggle, a default badge that tells the host what posture it ships in, and a flip that survives the next nightly run. The point is not to remove the host from the work; the point is to remove the host from the routine runway and keep the host on the non-routine decisions. This pillar walks through what each toggle actually does, where the defaults come from, and how the host stays in the loop on every action the crew takes overnight.

What "Auto/Manual per surface" actually means

Auto/Manual per surface is not a global switch. It is one toggle per row on the operations crew, so the host can run pricing on the nightly cadence while keeping guest replies on a queue, or run turnover dispatch on auto while holding maintenance signals for a pre-triage review. Each surface ships with a default badge — Pricing defaults to Auto, Inbox defaults to Manual, Turnovers default to Auto, and Maintenance ships at Manual with the pretriage threshold deciding which signal graduates to a ticket. Flips are durable: marking a single pricing night Manual preserves that night's rate through the next nightly run, and the host flips back when the math no longer applies.

• Per row, not per app. The four toggles live on the same workspace but are independent switches. A host running 30 keys can flip Pricing to Auto for the routine Tuesday-through-Thursday cadence, leave Turnovers on Auto for every checkout, hold Maintenance at Manual until the pretriage threshold reaches a level they trust, and keep Guest Replies on Manual for the entire first quarter — without any of those choices forcing the others. Each surface runs the cadence that fits the work, not the cadence the app defaults to.
• The default badge ships day one. Pricing = Auto. Inbox = Manual. Turnovers = Auto. Maintenance = Auto above the pre-flag threshold, Manual below it. The defaults follow the line the host cares about most — routine, reversible work inverts to Auto; anything that touches refund dollars, schedule changes, or new listings ships in Manual. The default badge is the starting posture, not the only posture. A host who wants a different posture on any row flips it on day one.
• Flips survive the next nightly run. A host who marks the Friday-night-before-the-half-marathon Manual does not need to re-mark it after the run completes. The flip persists: the agent stops recomputing that night, the rate surface is preserved across the next nightly run, and the host flips back when the lift decays. Routine runway is automatic; non-routine nights stay host-owned. The same pattern holds for inbox categories, turnover briefs, and maintenance signals — every flip is durable until the host flips it back.
• Where to flip the switch. Settings → Automation → Pricing → Auto ↔ Manual. Settings → Automation → Inbox → Auto-send categories. Settings → Automation → Turnover → Dispatch on checkout. Settings → Automation → Maintenance → Pretriage threshold. The path is the same on every workspace — same four screens, same row order, same default badge on the right rail. A host who knows one row knows all four.

The four automations, side by side

Each row on the operations crew ships with three columns of behavior — what the surface does on Auto, what it looks like on Manual, and where the host opens the switch. The full row-by-row matrix — with the default badge on every row, the override path in plain English, and the screen-by-screen Settings walkthrough — lives on the Auto/Manual control deep dive. The four rows below cover the day-to-day shape of each surface; the deep dive adds the screen-by-screen detail on where to flip the toggle inside Settings.

• Pricing. Auto rewrites the next 90 days of nightly rates against fresh comps and the local events calendar — logged inline with the comps and events that moved each rate. Manual drafts a recommended change and parks it on a tap-or-skip card; nothing goes live until the host sees the comps and approves. Default: Auto. Flip path: Settings → Automation → Pricing → Auto ↔ Manual.
• Guest replies. Auto sends factual replies on its own — door code, Wi-Fi, parking, pet fee, arrival instructions — inside the host-set policy and tone. Refunds, complaints, and schedule changes always queue for the host's sign-off in /dashboard/suggestions, no matter how the toggle is set. Default: Manual for anything that touches refund dollars or guest refunds; Auto for the routine factual categories. Flip path: Settings → Automation → Inbox → Auto-send categories.
• Turnovers. Auto dispatches the nearest vetted cleaner the second a checkout lands, with a verification photo on completion and no spreadsheet. Manual holds a brief for the host to send — no Roostr-managed marketplace, the contractor relationship stays yours. Default: Auto. Flip path: Settings → Automation → Turnover → Dispatch on checkout.
• Maintenance. Auto accepts the fix recommendation when the signal crosses the pre-flag threshold — slow drain, scuffed countertop, AC fatigue, the kind of long-tail complaint the listing's review stream will surface. Manual queues a review-for-ticket suggestion in the tap-or-skip feed for every pre-flag signal below the threshold. Default: Manual, with the threshold set low enough that the host reviews the queue before any ticket is filed. Flip path: Settings → Automation → Maintenance → Pretriage threshold.

Where the host stays in the loop

The host is never removed from the work — the host is removed from the routine runway. Every Manual-mode action lands on a unified tap-or-skip feed: the pricing agent's rate drafts, the inbox agent's escalations, and the maintenance agent's review-for-ticket suggestions. Refunds, complaints, and schedule changes always queue for sign-off in /dashboard/suggestions — Inbox ships Manual by default for exactly that reason, and the row badge makes the bias visible. The host's job is the bigger calls: raise and lower the ceilings, decide which signals move from pretriage to dispatch, flip a row Auto the moment the trust is there, and flip a single night back to Manual when the math changes.

• Tap-or-skip queue. One row per pending recommendation, grouped by source agent. The pricing row shows the proposed rate, the comps and event that moved it, and the floor/ceiling band it lives inside. The inbox row shows the message category, the proposed reply, and the reason it queued — refund, complaint, schedule change. The maintenance row shows the signal, the threshold it lives below, and the suggested ticket. The host reviews, locks in, or skips in a tap — nothing publishes without the host's tap on the approve button.
• /dashboard/suggestions sign-off. All three suggestion streams land in the review feed. A host who opens the queue twice a day is in the loop on every non-routine action without monitoring every conversation or every nightly run. The queue is searchable, grouped by agent, and per-row dismissable — missed-by-the-host false positives are not a failure mode of the system, they are signal for the next threshold adjustment.
• Per-row default bias. Pricing, Turnovers, and Maintenance above the pre-flag threshold flip Auto. Inbox stays Manual for anything that touches refund dollars, complaints, or schedule changes; Auto-send is limited to factual categories (door code, Wi-Fi, parking, pet fee, arrivals). A host who wants a different posture flips each row individually — the global All-Auto switch does not exist on purpose, because a single switch would collapse the differences between the row that ships with a queue and the row that ships with a verification photo.
• The host raises and lowers ceilings; the agent walks the comps. The night-to-night rate recompute is the agent's work. The floor and ceiling on each pricing surface is the host's. A host who disagrees with the comp walk adjusts the comparable set in Settings; a host who disagrees with a single night's lift overrides that night. The agent never writes outside the band; the host never gets asked to write inside it. The pattern — automated routine, queued review on the borderline, manual sign-off on the money — is the same on every surface.

Closing — Auto where it helps, Manual where it matters

The full four-row matrix — every default badge, every flip path, every Manual-mode queue — lives on the Auto/Manual control deep dive. The full breakdown of how the pricing, inbox, turnover, and maintenance crew interact overnight lives on how Roostr runs the week, while the review-to-queue handoff has its own review-driven maintenance deep dive. Plans are on pricing, and you can see the dashboard live on /demo. For the factual comparison with separately managed tools, visit /compare.

If you want the four automations running on your roster — defaults set to Auto where it helps, Manual where the money is — [Join the Roostr waitlist →](/waitlist).