Swimply app helps you find pool time on a budget or make money by renting out your own pool
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- If you are looking for a budget-friendly pool day for you and your friends or family, we have found just the thing.
And if you own a swimming pool, you could be sitting on a gold mine. An app can help pool owners make hundreds, even thousands of dollars this summer!
Swimply is basically the Airbnb for private pools.
Swimming pool owners can make money by renting out their backyards by the hour. Renters can get a local, budget-friendly escape with a few taps on their phone.
John Donnelly of Aldan, Pennsylvania has a pool that's 30 feet long, 15 feet wide, and three to six feet deep. It's one of more than 250 pools in our area that you can rent through the Swimply app.
Swimply rentals begin for as little as $40 an hour, with an average of $50 an hour. Users can search by neighborhood and filter by guest number, whether it's pet-friendly, and by amenities.
"For instance, we have a Blackstone grill, you can list that as amenity. We also have an inflatable 35 foot water slide that you can put on. You can add in towels. You can add on a speaker. You can add a fire pit," says Donnely.
Donnelly started out as a Swimply guest, then decided to be a host. Swimply takes a flat 20% from all rentals and Donnelly makes more than $13,000 per summer! Top earners on the platform can earn over $40,000 a year or more.
"I've met an owner that's earned over a half a million dollars on the app," said Swimply founder and CEO, Bunim Laskin.
Laskin also shared how he started the company.
"I thought of the idea in 2018, after my mom had my 12th sibling. I'm the oldest of 12, nine sisters, two brothers," he said.
He says his family didn't have a pool or the means to send him and his siblings to camp or on vacation, so when their neighbor in Lakewood, New Jersey, put in a pool, Laskin offered to help her with the expenses in exchange for pool time.
"I started going on Google Earth and finding people with pools and knocking on their doors and I knocked on 80 doors. I got four people to agree to let me rent them out," he said.
The rest is Swimply history!
Now the Swimply app offers access to more than 15,000 pools in 45 states in the U.S., plus Australia and Canada. You can also rent backyards with pickleball, tennis, and basketball courts on the Swimply app.
Laskin says Swimply vets all owners, requires guests to sign a waiver, and has a two-sided review system so you can see reviews for both owners and users.
And Swimply promises to covers all injuries and property damage up to $1 million.
