Hostel Cloud is a hostel management product from Staurax, and it is one of the few in this market that competes with BedShift on the same ground: Pakistani hostels, Pakistani workflows, Pakistani payment habits. Its own site names Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi and describes itself as built for private hostels and student accommodation. That makes it a genuine alternative rather than a generic one, and it deserves a straight comparison.
At a glance
Everything in the Hostel Cloud column below was read from the two pages listed in the Sources section at the bottom of this page.
| BedShift | Hostel Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | ANUBRIS (PRIVATE) LIMITED | Staurax |
| Published prices | Plans and limits published; amounts shown in your local currency at checkout | Yes — three paid tiers plus a free listing plan |
| Free option | Free plan, no time limit, no card required | "Always Free" public directory listing |
| Bed or room caps | Published per plan | Not stated on the pricing page |
| Wallet payments | Records and reconciles JazzCash, Easypaisa, Raast, bank transfer and cash by channel and reference | Verifies student-submitted EasyPaisa, JazzCash and bank transfer receipts |
| Card checkout | Safepay (Pakistan) and Stripe (Global) | Not advertised |
| CNIC records | Front and back stored on the resident profile; verified by staff at check-in | CNIC profiles and ID document handling advertised |
| QR gate entry | Gate passes with QR verification | Smart gate attendance with QR check-in and check-out |
| Mess | Meal charges as invoice line items | Daily and weekly mess menu publishing |
| Mobile | Native Android and iOS app advertised | Site offers an install-to-home-screen web app |
| Multi-property | Yes, capped per plan | Not advertised as a distinct feature |
Positioning
Hostel Cloud leads with the physical operation of a hostel building. Its homepage foregrounds gate attendance, QR student cards, warden and accountant roles, visitor logs, complaint routing, mess menus and student ID cards. That is a coherent product for a warden-run hostel where the recurring pain is knowing who is in the building and who has paid this month.
BedShift leads with the money and the portfolio. Its twelve modules cover property management, bookings, invoicing, payments, a resident portal, staff management, complaints, housekeeping, analytics, a marketplace listing, notifications and a mobile app. Gate passes and CNIC records exist, but they sit inside a system whose centre of gravity is the monthly invoice cycle across more than one building.
Neither framing is wrong. They are answers to different questions.
Pricing transparency
This is where Hostel Cloud does something most of its competitors do not: it publishes figures. On the pricing page, Plan 01 Basic is listed at 1,700 per month, Plan 02 Pro at 2,500 per month and Plan 03 Enterprise at 2,600 per month, alongside an "Always Free" listing plan for appearing in a public directory and receiving WhatsApp and phone inquiries. There is also an introductory two-month offer on each paid tier.
Two honest caveats. First, the page writes "Rs." throughout and never writes "PKR" or the rupee symbol, so we quote the figures exactly as shown rather than asserting a currency the vendor has not stated. Second, the introductory offer on the top tier is priced within a single rupee of the regular two-month total, which reads like a page error rather than an offer, so we have not built any part of this comparison on it.
BedShift also publishes its plans and limits, but deliberately shows no fixed figure on this page. Prices are set in Paddle and localised per country, so the only accurate number is the one on the pricing page for your own location. BedShift's free plan carries no time limit and needs no card, and paid plans open with a 15-day trial.
Payment rails
It is worth being precise here, because it is the claim most often overstated in this market by everyone.
Hostel Cloud's site describes "Bank Proof Verification" and verifying "student-submitted bank receipts (EasyPaisa / JazzCash / Bank Transfer)", with students uploading transaction proof screenshots. That is reconciliation: the student pays through their own wallet app, then evidences it in the system. BedShift does the same thing and says so explicitly — it does not replace those rails, it records what arrived with the channel and reference number against the right invoice line.
So on wallets, these two products are closer to parity than either marketing page might suggest. The difference is at the card layer: BedShift additionally integrates Safepay for Pakistan and Stripe globally for card checkout, which Hostel Cloud does not advertise. Neither site mentions Raast.
Market fit
Hostel Cloud is Pakistan-only by design and reads that way, which is a strength for a Pakistani operator. BedShift is Pakistan-first but ships country pages for Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and bills subscriptions through a merchant of record that handles many currencies. If you operate in one country and intend to stay there, the narrower product carries less that you will never use.
On mobile the two differ in kind. Hostel Cloud's site presents its app through an install prompt that adds the site to your home screen. BedShift advertises a native Android and iOS app with role-based shells, offline mode with background sync, and QR scanning for gate passes.
When to choose Hostel Cloud instead
Choose Hostel Cloud if:
- You want to know the price before you talk to anyone. It publishes per-tier monthly figures, and its pricing page states no bed or room caps. BedShift's plans are capped by beds, properties and staff, so a large single hostel could land on a higher tier than the flat pricing above would cost.
- Your bottleneck is the gate, not the ledger. QR check-in and check-out, visitor logs and printed student ID cards are front and centre of its product, and it has clearly been built for warden-led daily operations.
- You want a published mess menu. Hostel Cloud publishes daily and weekly mess menus as a first-class feature. In BedShift, meals are a billable line on an invoice, not a menu residents browse.
- You run one hostel and want the smaller tool. A twelve-module platform is overhead you have to ignore if you only ever needed three of them.
- You want a free public directory listing today. Its always-free tier does exactly that. BedShift's marketplace listing sits on the paid plans.
Choose BedShift if you run more than one property, if arrears and invoicing are your real problem, if you want residents self-serving through their own portal and app, or if you want card checkout alongside wallet reconciliation.
Frequently asked questions
Does Hostel Cloud publish its pricing?
Yes. Its pricing page lists three paid tiers plus an always-free public listing plan, with monthly figures shown as Rs. amounts. That is more transparent than most products in this category, several of which publish no figures at all.
Can Hostel Cloud take EasyPaisa or JazzCash payments directly?
Its site describes verifying student-submitted EasyPaisa, JazzCash and bank transfer receipts, which is reconciliation of a payment made elsewhere rather than a checkout inside the product. BedShift works the same way for wallet rails.
Which one should a single small hostel choose?
If the daily problem is gate entries, CNIC records and a mess menu for one building, Hostel Cloud is aimed squarely at that. If the problem is invoicing, arrears and staff across more than one property, BedShift is the closer fit.