While attempting to use the Broadcast feature last night during a tornado warning, I ran into another limitation that made it difficult to quickly send an important message to current guests.
I maintain a number of pre-written message templates for situations like severe weather, freezing conditions, and other safety alerts. Since Broadcast currently does not allow selecting templates directly (I posted a separate feature request about that here), I opened my saved template and copied the message body to paste into the Broadcast editor.
However, after pasting the message, the system displayed a warning that the message exceeded the 1000 character limit, which prevented the message from being sent.
The issue is that Airbnb and Vrbo messages themselves do not have a 1000-character limit, so this restriction prevents us from sending the same templated messages we normally use with guests. The majority of our templated messages exceed 1000 characters and send without any problems. (In this case, I went back to my manual method of sending the templated email and channel message to each current guest and all messages sent just fine.)
Please remove the 1000-character limit on Broadcast messages, or increase it significantly so it better aligns with the messaging limits of Airbnb and Vrbo.
(If the limit exists because of SMS compatibility, the limit should only apply when “Send additional copy via SMS” is enabled, not when sending via channel or email.)
Hey Alece,
We really appreciate the thoughtful feedback here, but I do want to be transparent about our reasoning for the 1,000-character limit, because you're right that it isn't purely about SMS.
The Broadcast tool is intentionally designed as a short-form messaging tool for getting a quick, focused point across to guests — not as a long-form communication channel. Even when sending via Airbnb or Vrbo (where the platforms themselves don't impose a similar cap), sending very lengthy broadcast messages can actually work against you. Platforms like those monitor for bulk messaging behavior, and unusually long messages sent to multiple guests at once can raise flags and potentially put your account at risk. As an integrator, that's something we also have to be mindful of on your behalf.
For situations like severe weather alerts, we'd actually recommend keeping the broadcast message short and action-focused — the key safety instruction or two — and then linking out to a fuller page (your website, a Google Doc, etc.) if guests need more detailed guidance. Something like: "Tornado warning in effect. Please shelter in the interior bathroom on the ground floor immediately. More details: [link]" gets the urgent point across well within 1,000 characters.
Thanks for the thoughtful explanation here, Bri. I appreciate hearing the reasoning and intent behind the choice. It does unfortunately mean that the Broadcast tool won’t be a fit for how we’d typically need to use it — particularly for situations like weather alerts or other time-sensitive communications where more context is important.
I did want to gently push back on one piece of the reasoning, just for clarity.
The concern about platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo flagging longer bulk messages feels a bit inconsistent with how messaging already functions within OwnerRez. Many of us are already sending automated messages (arrival instructions, check-in details, house info, etc.) that go out to multiple guests at the same time — especially on high-turnover days — and those messages easily exceed 1,000 characters.
From that perspective, sending a broadcast message to multiple current guests (for something like a weather alert) doesn’t seem materially different from those existing workflows that OwnerRez already supports.
Totally understand that there may be nuances on the integration side that aren’t visible to us as users — just wanted to highlight that, from the user perspective, the distinction isn’t entirely clear and makes the limitation feel a bit inconsistent with other messaging capabilities in the platform.
For now, I’ll plan to continue using our manual workflow for these types of messages, but I appreciate you taking the time to explain the thinking behind it.
