SkyRun vs. Four Star: Which Colorado Vacation Rental Manager Delivers More Value?

1. Company focus and business model

SkyRun is engineered for nightly-rental upside, while Four Star is built for year-long certainty.

Before fees or tech even enter the picture, ask what game each firm is built to win.

SkyRun is a short-term-rental specialist. Founded in 2004, the franchise network now operates in more than 40 vacation markets and manages about 1,300 homes nationwide. Each is run by local owner-operators, a model that SkyRun Vacation Rentals says has generated tens of thousands of 5-star guest reviews. That structure marries hometown hustle with headquarters-level marketing and dynamic pricing tools.

Four Star grew up in another arena. Launched in Boulder in 1986, the company manages roughly 6,600 long-term units, including 4,700 student beds, across Colorado, according to Four Star’s website. Its profit engine revolves around 12-month leases, in-house maintenance teams, and asset-management reporting that institutional owners prize.

The incentive gap is stark:

• SkyRun chases higher nightly rates, full calendars, and five-star guest scores.
• Four Star optimizes for minimal vacancy, steady rent collection, and planned capital projects.

If you want your Summit County condo earning peak-season Airbnb rates, SkyRun’s DNA fits. If you own a 20-unit complex near campus and value predictable cash flow, Four Star’s long-term playbook delivers. Recognizing this core difference frames every “SkyRun vs. Four Star” metric that follows—from pricing models to communication style.

2. Geographic coverage and local expertise

Local know-how makes or breaks a short-term rental, and Colorado’s rules can flip between powder resorts and Front Range cities.

SkyRun: statewide vacation reach
According to SkyRun, the franchise lists 30-plus Colorado markets, covering marquee resorts such as Aspen, Breckenridge, Vail, and Steamboat along with city zones like Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs. Every branch is locally owned, so the manager filing your permit also tweaks rates when shoulder season hits and knows details like Summit County’s nightly cap or Estes Park’s occupancy limits.

Four Star: metro depth, mountain gap
Four Star operates from five hubs—Boulder (HQ), Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, and Greeley—across Colorado’s urban corridor, according to the company. The firm serves long-term assets across that stretch but has no staffed presence in resort counties, so owners in Summit or Eagle are referred elsewhere.

Bottom line: choose SkyRun if your ski condo or cabin needs local expertise where travelers book. Pick Four Star for urban or student housing along the I-25 corridor; its metro network runs deeper even if it stops at the foothills.

3. Fee structure and transparency

Short-term rental management fees can make or break your profit, because one percentage point off the top can erase a week’s rent.

SkyRun: one line, all in
Most Colorado owners pay 20–30 percent of gross booking revenue for full-service management that covers listing creation, dynamic pricing, 24/7 guest support, housekeeping coordination, and maintenance dispatch. You face zero onboarding or exit fees, and the 30-day, month-to-month agreement lets you leave if performance drops, according to Awning.

Four Star: lower headline, higher line items
For long-term rentals, Four Star charges 8–12 percent of collected rent plus a leasing fee up to one month’s rent whenever a new tenant signs, according to Four Star’s website. Short-term quotes are custom, so ask in writing about maintenance mark-ups, renovation coordination costs, and the fine print for their “performance guarantee.”

Transparency scorecard

• SkyRun posts commission ranges publicly and works on a 30-day contract.
• Four Star provides a thick management agreement that renews annually; you need to dig for add-ons and cancellation clauses.

Pro tip: Ask each firm for a 12-month pro-forma that lists every projected owner charge—cleaning, linens, maintenance reserves, tech subscriptions—so the “cheaper” headline doesn’t become the costlier reality.

4. Marketing reach and channel management

A glossy listing is useless if travelers never scroll past it, so short-term rental marketing channels matter.

SkyRun: five-channel blast as the default
Every Colorado home publishes to Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Google Travel, and SkyRun.com—a mix that, according to AirDNA, captured 94 percent of U.S. short-term rental bookings in 2024. Franchise owners refresh headlines and hero images whenever booking pace drops, and automated review requests keep fresh social proof in place.

Four Star: built for leases, not leisure
Listings appear on Zillow, Apartments.com, and regional ILS feeds, which work for year-long tenants but stay invisible to vacationers. If Four Star accepts an STR, the property lands on Airbnb only, without the multichannel push or OTA-specific copywriting that fills shoulder-season gaps.

Bottom line: multichannel exposure drives more eyeballs and higher paid-night density. If you want peak-season ADRs plus mid-week filler nights, SkyRun’s wider funnel beats Four Star’s single-channel lane.

4.1 Revenue optimization and owner visibility

Dynamic pricing is the quickest way to raise net income, and SkyRun treats it like a daily lab test.

SkyRun: data-driven rates you can watch move
Each listing feeds into PriceLabs, which digests flight searches, snowfall totals, and rival Airbnb rates, then nudges prices up for powder Saturdays and down for mud-season Tuesdays. SkyRun reports up to 30 percent more revenue and 2.4× more bookings for owners who switch from self-management, according to Awning. You can audit every tweak in real time inside the owner portal, block personal dates in two clicks, and even override a rate. Owners weighing their options can run each company through this vacation-rental manager scorecard to see which firm really updates rates daily and proves the lift.

Four Star: built for rent rolls, not rate rolls
The firm’s backbone is Yardi Voyager—great for tracking late fees on a 12-month lease but blind to last-minute demand spikes. If Four Star manages an STR, pricing defaults to a flat nightly rate or Airbnb’s Smart Pricing, tools that often underprice peak dates and overprice lulls, leaving upside on the table and limiting visibility to monthly statements.

Bottom line: SkyRun’s dynamic pricing and live dashboard give revenue-hungry owners a measurable edge, especially when fresh powder hits Breck and nightly rates jump.

5. Guest satisfaction and reviews

Guest review ratings roll check-in, linen quality, and issue resolution into a single trust signal, and the gap between these two managers is wide.

SkyRun: hospitality metrics that sell nights
Across about 1,200 listings, SkyRun averages 4.8 / 5 stars on major OTAs, according to an independent portfolio scrape by SummerOS. High marks flow from 24-hour local support; if a furnace quits at 10 p.m. in Frisco, a franchise tech is minutes away. Those reviews push each listing higher in search results.

Four Star: tenant-grade reviews, not guest-grade
On Zillow, Four Star holds a 1.4 / 5 rating from seven renter reviews. Complaints mention slow maintenance and sparse communication. These ratings come from long-term tenants, yet they still hint at a service culture that values rent collection over five-star hospitality, a stance that can hurt when every weekend stay triggers another public review.

For vacation-rental owners, the math is simple: a 4.8-star home converts clicks into bookings at higher rates. In this matchup, SkyRun’s review engine wins the revenue race.

5.1 Occupancy and revenue lift

Occupancy shows how often a home earns, and revenue per available night (RevPAN) shows how much. SkyRun improves both metrics in ways a long-term manager rarely can.

SkyRun: dynamic pricing that fills weekdays and spikes weekends
Each listing feeds into PriceLabs, which digests flight searches, snowfall totals, and rival rates, then nudges prices up for powder Saturdays and down for mud-season Tuesdays. SkyRun reports up to 30 percent more revenue and 2.4× more bookings for owners who switch from self-management, according to Awning. You can watch every tweak in the owner portal, block personal dates in two clicks, and even override a rate.

Four Star: stability over surge
Four Star’s Yardi system keeps 12-month leases near 100 percent occupancy and pushes rent a predictable three to five percent per year, according to Four Star’s website. That steadiness suits student apartments, but less so a ski condo that could fetch $600 on a powder Saturday.

Bottom line: pick SkyRun if you want shoulder-season weekdays filled and peak-weekend premiums captured. Choose Four Star if fixed monthly rent, and the sleep that comes with it, matters more than upside swings.

6. Regulatory compliance and support

Short-term rental regulations change by county, sometimes even by neighborhood, so a manager who keeps you legal saves fines, neighbor complaints, and lost nights.

SkyRun: STR compliance baked into onboarding
Local franchise owners file the permit, complete the fire-safety checklist, and register lodging taxes for you. They monitor rule changes—such as Summit County’s 2022 cap on new STR licenses in neighborhood zones and Aspen’s escalating per-night STR fees adopted in 2023—then adjust calendars so you stay within nightly limits. SkyRun also collects and remits all state, county, and city taxes, so you never juggle reports from three OTAs at tax time—a process made simpler through short-term rental compliance software like Skyrun, which automates permit tracking and lodging-tax submissions for property owners.

Four Star: landlord law experts, but STR light
Four Star manages thousands of Boulder and Denver rental licenses and schedules required city inspections, excelling at deposit accounting and eviction compliance. Boulder’s short-term rules, for instance, require the property to be the owner’s principal residence and carry a $215 license fee. Four Star will explain that paperwork but will not file it or pay lodging taxes because nightly rentals sit outside its core service area.

Bottom line: choose SkyRun if nightly rentals are your business model. Pick Four Star if you need a long-term manager who knows every clause of Colorado’s landlord-tenant statutes.

7. Client communication and flexibility

Owner communication can matter as much as commission rate, because you feel it every time a faucet leaks or a rate change pops up.

SkyRun: local owner on speed dial
Each franchise is owner-operated, so you text or call the person who signs your statement, not a ticket queue. Monthly statements appear in the online portal in real time, where you can block personal dates or approve repairs. Contracts are month to month with a 30-day notice clause, according to Awning, so performance—not paperwork—keeps you loyal.

Four Star: dedicated team, more layers
Every owner gets an asset manager plus a property accountant, a setup that helps portfolios but can be slower for one-off tweaks during peak leasing season. Reports arrive as Yardi exports on a monthly cycle, and management agreements renew annually with 30- to 60-day notice, according to a sample Four Star agreement. Pivoting mid-year can bring fees or require working around an existing lease.

Bottom line: pick SkyRun if you want a single text thread and contract flexibility. Choose Four Star if you prefer corporate structure and don’t expect rapid strategy shifts.