A welcome book sounds like a big project, and it is not. It is six sections and one link, and you can build the whole thing in an evening. The trick is to work in order and to write each section as if a guest is standing at your door with a question. Here is the process, step by step, with a real book to look at as you go. Our live example book follows this same shape, so you can see what each step looks like finished before you write it.
If you want the short version: list your sections, write arrival and wifi first, add house rules and checkout, add your local picks, put it all behind one link and a QR code, and keep the door code out of the book. Each step below is one concrete thing to do.
- List your sections. Before you write a word inside them, write down the sections your book needs: arrival, wifi, house rules, checkout, how things work, and your local picks. That short list is the whole outline, and it keeps you from staring at a blank page. If you want a ready-made structure to copy, the welcome book template lays out the same sections with a one-line prompt for each, and what to put in an Airbnb welcome book goes section by section on what belongs inside.
- Write arrival and wifi first. These two carry most of the weight, so do them first. Write arrival as numbered steps with the parking spot and the landmarks a map will not show, and give wifi its own page with the network name and password exactly as typed. Wifi is the single most searched thing in any welcome book, so it should never be a line buried in a paragraph. Open the arrival and wifi pages in the example bookto see the level of detail that actually stops the “how do I get in?” message.
- Add house rules and checkout. Write your house rules plainly: quiet hours, pets, smoking, the parking limit, trash and recycling day. Make one of those rules the reminder that the door code is never printed in the book, so it is written down where a guest sees it. Then add a three-line checkout list so guests know the time and the short set of things to do before they leave: start the dishwasher, strip the beds or not, where to leave the keys. A short checklist here saves you a message on every stay.
- Add your local picks.Add the handful of nearby places you would send a friend to, with a line on why for each. This is the part a guest cannot get from a search engine, and it is the part they remember, so keep it to your real favorites rather than a long scraped list. Airbnb's built-in guidebook is a recommendations list like this and nothing more, which is exactly why it is one section of your book, not the whole thing.
- Put it behind one link and a QR code. Publish the book so it lives at one link with a QR code. Paste the link into your own check-in message and leave a printed QR at the property, on the fridge or by the door. There is no app for a guest to download, and the book saves to the phone once opened, so arrival works with no signal at the door. The same link works for a guest who booked on Airbnb, on Vrbo, or direct, because it is not tied to any one booking platform.
- Keep the door code out of the book. Never put the live door code, lockbox code, or alarm code in the book itself. A book lives at a link, so the safe place for a code is a private message sent close to arrival. The book tells a guest where the door is and how the lock works; the code changes between stays and stays out of it. FreshLinen has no way to email your guests and never tries to, so sending that code is always your own message, on your own terms.
Why a real book at each step matters
Most welcome book advice stops at a list of sections. The hard part is not knowing that you need a wifi page, it is seeing what a good one reads like so you can match it. That is why the example book is worth opening alongside this guide: it is the finished version of every step above, built the same way you are about to build yours, so you are copying a real book rather than guessing.
What it costs, and what it never does
Building is free, so you can work through all six steps before you decide anything. Publishing is one flat price, $49.99 a year, and it covers every property on your account rather than charging you per listing. Guests never see an ad, a sponsored pick, or anything with a price on it, and there is no guest fee. That last part is not the norm: checked July 2026, Touch Stay ships its upsell store on every tier, and Hostfully injects sponsored recommendations into its free guidebooks that only paid subscribers can remove. FreshLinen keeps the guest's screen clean by design. When you are ready, you can start building free, read the guide for Airbnb hosts for the Airbnb-specific angle, or open the example one more time to copy its shape.