The Apartment-Stay Index: 8 platforms, scored for the week-long onsite
8 platforms scored · 5 checks · edition 2026-07 · method v1.0 · last ruled · download the data
0 verified score changes since edition 2026-07 · 32 source documents moved and awaiting review. A moved document is an input; only a human ruling moves a score.
Past night three, the hotel room starts costing you, laundry, meals, a desk that isn't. We scored 8 apartment-stay platforms on 15 published commitments for the multi-night business trip. Top score: 87 (Blueground). The gap between operators and marketplaces is the whole story.
Key takeaways
- Blueground leads at 87 of 100, against a field average of 68.
- The widest gap is care & service, where 2 of the 8 platforms publish nothing at all.
- Not one platform scores full marks on 1 dimension: work-ready unit.
- Scored on published commitments only. Unstated is No, a hedge is No, “contact sales” is No.
- Every score below decomposes into named checks with the source document beside it.
Verdict: Blueground scores highest at 87 of 100, and is strongest on 4 of the 5 dimensions. The ranking is not a recommendation: pick by the dimension your trip actually turns on, using the table below.
Which platform is strongest on each dimension?
Direct answer: Blueground is strongest on 4 of the 5 dimensions; known quality → Mint House.
| Dimension | Strongest published commitment |
|---|---|
| Work-ready unit | Blueground: 2 of 3. Every platform publishes something here. |
| Care & service | Blueground: 3 of 3, one of 6 at full marks. 2 of 8 publish nothing on this dimension. |
| Booking & billing | Blueground: 3 of 3, one of 5 at full marks. Every platform publishes something here. |
| Known quality | Mint House: 3 of 3, the only one at full marks. 2 of 8 publish nothing on this dimension. |
| Value & pricing | Blueground: 3 of 3, the only one at full marks. Every platform publishes something here. |
Strongest means highest-scoring on published commitments as of 2026-07. It is not a recommendation, and not a judgement about how a platform actually treats you. It is what the platform has put in writing, which is the only thing this desk will score. Counted from the index data at build time, so it moves when a score moves.
The ranking
| # | Platform | Score /100 | W·C·B·K·V (of 3) | What the public record says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blueground | 87 | 2·3·3·2·3 | Furnished-with-workspace as a stated standard and the exact unit you saw, the month-long onsite's strongest paper. |
| 2 | Mint House | 87 | 2·3·3·3·2 | Built for exactly this reader: workspace in every unit, book-the-exact-unit, corporate program, the operator model with the fullest written promise set. |
| 3 | Kasa | 73 | 1·3·3·2·2 | Professional operations fully committed, 24/7 line, self check-in, business program, without the unit-level workspace promise. |
| 4 | Landing | 73 | 2·3·2·2·2 | Standardized furnished units with real stated commitments; the membership model complicates the value math it publishes. |
| 5 | Placemakr | 73 | 1·3·3·2·2 | Hotel-apartment hybrid with on-site staff stated, operational commitments carrying a thinner unit-level promise. |
| 6 | Sonder | 67 | 1·3·2·2·2 | App-first operations well committed; you book a category, not a unit, the consistency promise stops at the photos. |
| 7 | Airbnb | 47 | 2·0·3·0·2 | The Wi-Fi speed test is the single best work commitment in the category, attached to a marketplace where every other promise is the host's, not Airbnb's. |
| 8 | Vrbo | 33 | 1·0·2·0·2 | Whole homes with total-price display, and essentially no platform-level commitments a business traveler can plan against. |
Source access, checked 2026-09-01. Of 8 entries carrying a recorded source, 7 have at least one document an independent automated reader can retrieve, and 1 has none. 2 sources were refused a fetch — 2 of them by hosts whose own robots.txt permits crawling. A refused page is recorded as unverified, never as an absence of commitment, and no score is affected by it. How we record unreadable sources.
The ranking
| # | Platform | Score /100 | W·C·B·K·V (of 3) | What the public record says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blueground | 87 | 2·3·3·2·3 | Furnished-with-workspace as a stated standard and the exact unit you saw, the month-long onsite's strongest paper. |
| 2 | Mint House | 87 | 2·3·3·3·2 | Built for exactly this reader: workspace in every unit, book-the-exact-unit, corporate program, the operator model with the fullest written promise set. |
| 3 | Kasa | 73 | 1·3·3·2·2 | Professional operations fully committed, 24/7 line, self check-in, business program, without the unit-level workspace promise. |
| 4 | Landing | 73 | 2·3·2·2·2 | Standardized furnished units with real stated commitments; the membership model complicates the value math it publishes. |
| 5 | Placemakr | 73 | 1·3·3·2·2 | Hotel-apartment hybrid with on-site staff stated, operational commitments carrying a thinner unit-level promise. |
| 6 | Sonder | 67 | 1·3·2·2·2 | App-first operations well committed; you book a category, not a unit, the consistency promise stops at the photos. |
| 7 | Airbnb | 47 | 2·0·3·0·2 | The Wi-Fi speed test is the single best work commitment in the category, attached to a marketplace where every other promise is the host's, not Airbnb's. |
| 8 | Vrbo | 33 | 1·0·2·0·2 | Whole homes with total-price display, and essentially no platform-level commitments a business traveler can plan against. |
Dimensions: Work Infrastructure · Certainty · Business-Ready · Consistency · Value Clarity. 8 scored · July 2026 · changelog v1.0.
What the Index found
Operators promise units; marketplaces promise filters. Mint House and Blueground commit a workspace in every unit and the exact apartment you booked. Airbnb commits a search checkbox. Both are honest, only one is a promise a seller can build a week on.
Airbnb's best feature is stranded in its model. The listing-level Wi-Fi speed test is the single most work-relevant commitment in this entire index family, verified bandwidth before booking. It sits on a platform where cleaning, check-in, and support all depend on a stranger's diligence.
Book-the-exact-unit is the aisle, again. The same commitment that separates National from the rental pack separates the apartment operators: what you saw is what you get, in writing. Category-based booking (Sonder) is the honest middle; host photos are the gamble.
For the week-long onsite, the math has a break-even. Operators publish length-of-stay discounts and kitchens as standard; a 5-night stay routinely beats the hotel on cost AND on published work infrastructure. The Executive Tier index shows what luxury won't promise, this one shows who will.
Method, in full125 words
Fifteen checks, five dimensions, three each:
- Dedicated workspace stated standard
- Wi-Fi speed stated or testable per unit
- Full kitchen standard
- Professional cleaning standard published
- 24/7 support line stated
- Self check-in committed standard
- Corporate/team booking program
- Itemized invoice support stated
- Flexible-cancellation tier published
- Book the exact unit shown
- Quality standard published across units
- On-site or on-call staff stated
- All-in pricing before checkout
- Deposit/hold policy published
- Length-of-stay discounts published
A check scores Yes only on a documented public commitment: published pricing, stated policies, product documentation, disclosed terms. “Usually,” “varies,” fine print that contradicts the banner, and unpublished practice score No. Operator scores read brand-wide published standards; marketplace scores read platform-level commitments only, never individual listings. This measures the floor a platform will put its name to. It does not grade execution on any given booking; no desk audit can.
Corrections
Every score is correctable with evidence. If a published commitment contradicts a No, send documentation to rachel@thesalestraveler.com, verified corrections update within 7 days and land in the changelog. Scored companies also hold a formal right of reply, including a published 150-word response, verbatim, alongside the entry.
THE INDEX DESK, The US50 · The Executive Tier · Deal-Day Index · The Layover Office · The Road Office · Curb-to-Client · Booking Channels · Apartment-Stay · The Roaming Index · Conference ROI · Expense Velocity · Road-Ready Sales AI · Status Yield, same method, thirteen markets: scored on published commitments only.