Getting Started with Airflow: Your First Five Minutes
Five minutes to a calmer business
Airflow is designed to be the simplest tool you set up this year. No complex integrations, no developer required, no multi-day onboarding. Just forward an email and watch the data appear.
Here’s exactly what happens in your first five minutes.
Step 1: Create your account (60 seconds)
Visit our get started page and select a plan with a 14-day free trial. You’ll enter your email and validate your payment method through Stripe (this prevents spam and prepares your billing, but you won’t be charged during the trial).
Once confirmed, you’ll receive a magic link to access your Airflow portal. No passwords to remember — ever.
Step 2: Set up your first resource (90 seconds)
A “resource” in Airflow is anything that gets booked — a villa, a lodge, a guesthouse, a boutique hotel, a safari camp. When you log in for the first time, the setup wizard asks you to name your first resource and give it a category.
Each resource gets its own unique Airflow email address. This is where the magic happens.
Step 3: Forward your first booking email (30 seconds)
Open your inbox, find a recent booking confirmation from Airbnb or a direct booking enquiry. Forward it to your resource’s Airflow email address.
That’s it. That’s the setup.
What happens next
Within seconds, Airflow’s AI reads the email, extracts the guest name, dates, pricing breakdown, platform fees, and payout amount. It creates a clean, structured booking record in your personal ledger.
If you’ve connected Xero (or plan to), a draft invoice is generated automatically with the correct line items, tax categories, and contact details. Your bookkeeper will think you hired an assistant.
Your dashboard comes alive
Open your portal and you’ll see:
- Today’s activity — current guests, upcoming arrivals, recent bookings
- Stats at a glance — revenue this month, bookings processed, actions remaining
- Activity timeline — every email processed, every invoice created, every action logged
What counts as an action?
Each booking email that Airflow processes uses one action. Your Starter plan includes 20 actions per month — enough to see the system work across your bookings. Settings changes, info requests, and general emails to Airflow don’t use actions.
Ready to scale?
Once you’ve seen your first few bookings flow through automatically, you’ll understand why our early users describe Airflow as the tool they didn’t know they needed. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial — see current pricing.
Visit our pricing page to see the full breakdown, or explore how it works for a deeper look at the system.
Questions? Our FAQ covers the most common ones, or get in touch directly.