We're building the operating
system for African hospitality.
Hundreds of thousands of hotels, shortlets, and guesthouses across Africa still run on WhatsApp messages, paper registers, and gut instinct. UseLodger exists to change that — one property at a time.
Our story
The problem was right in front of us.
A hotel owner in Ikeja managing 14 rooms was tracking bookings in a spiral notebook. A shortlet operator in Lekki was coordinating 4 apartments purely through WhatsApp. A guesthouse in Port Harcourt was losing 20% of its revenue to unrecorded walk-ins.
The tools that existed were either built for European hotel chains with complex setup and dollar-denominated subscriptions, or too basic to handle the realities of the Nigerian market — Paystack payments, Naira pricing, NDPR compliance, Nigerian SMS providers, and multi-property setups on tight margins.
UseLodger was built to fill that gap. A complete, modern hotel management platform — free to use, earning only when you earn — built specifically for the African hospitality market from the ground up.
Our mission
"To give every African property owner access to the same technology as the world's best hotels — at a price that makes sense."
Free to use — 5% only on transactions
Built for Naira, Paystack, and Nigerian banks
NDPR-compliant from day one
No English-only hotel assumptions
What we believe
Our values
Aligned incentives
We charge 5% only when a guest pays you. If you don't earn, neither do we. That's not a marketing line — it's how the architecture works.
Built for context
Paystack payments, Naira pricing, KudiSMS, NDPR compliance, Nigerian bank integrations. No feature requires a dollar card or a foreign bank account.
Radical transparency
The changelog is public, the pricing is one number (5%), and we document every bug we fix. Property owners deserve to know exactly what they're using.
Ship relentlessly
We deploy multiple times per week. Every piece of feedback from property owners goes directly into the roadmap. The product improves constantly.
Privacy by default
NDPR compliance is not a checkbox. Your guest data stays on Nigerian servers, never sold, and always under your control.
Africa-first, globally ready
Everything works perfectly for Nigeria first. Then Ghana, Kenya, and beyond. Not the other way around.
The journey
How we got here
The idea
After watching a Lagos hotel lose bookings to double-entry errors and WhatsApp confusion, the decision was made to build something better.
Architecture & research
Spoke with 40+ hotel and shortlet operators across Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. Multi-tenant Laravel backend and Next.js frontend designed from scratch.
Core platform built
Bookings, rooms, staff, finance, restaurant, inventory, AI features, and Paystack integration all built and tested.
Private beta
20 properties onboarded across Lagos and Abuja. Feedback loop drove major UI improvements to the booking flow and housekeeping dashboard.
Public launch
UseLodger opens to all property owners in Nigeria. Commission model goes live with Paystack subaccount splits.
WhatsApp & Stripe
WhatsApp Business notifications and Stripe for international guests — expanding the payment and communication stack.
Ghana & Kenya expansion
LocaliseD for Ghanaian Cedis, Kenyan Shillings, MTN Mobile Money, and M-Pesa payment rails.
Press & media
Writing about UseLodger?
We're early — no press mentions to point to yet, but we're happy to talk. Reach us at press@uselodger.com for interviews, data, or product access.
Ready to be part of it?
List your property free.
Free to use, 5% only when you earn — or 0% on a subscription — and built specifically for the African hospitality market.