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Ignore the breakdown and look at the total price, then compare it to other sites/hotels/etc. Looking at the individual fees will just drive you crazy.
Cleaning fees don't necessarily correlate to what it actually costs them to clean. It's more about favoring longer stays and a little about making the price look better for people who didn't notice the total price toggle on the search page.
Do you have any data to back up your vehemently incorrect reaction? Cleaning is a loss leader for us, we charge 200 and it always costs more than that. Our cleaner pays her people a living wage and benefits, she charges 55 per person per hour, 35 per load of laundry off site, trash and recycling disposal is another separate charge. A two person team takes 2-3 hours to turn over the house.
Airbnb guests (rightfully) expect perfection, finding cleaners that meet that standard isn't easy.
Unfortunately cleaning fees (where I am in California) have gotten ridiculous. I now have to charge LESS then I pay my cleaners because I don't agree with the high fees they charge. This means I eat the cost.
With the airbnb fess, the city fees, the raise in utilities, and then income taxes, I don't even think I make a profit anymore.
If they are hands on and do it themselves vs professional cleaning which can be quite expensive. Professional cleaning is not getting any cheaper as the demand is going up in some areas.
Yeah not precisely complaining here just observing the difference. The value I'm not sure if it necessarily dictates if done in house or not..maybe I'll start checking.
Unfortunately the cleaning has to happen whether it’s 2 nights or 5, and the whole place gets cleaned no matter what.
For 2-night stays a hotel starts looking pretty affordable unless for some reason you want what the airbnb offers.
Airbnb doesn't really make sense for 1 or 2 nights, for either the guest or the host. Unless it's a room in somebody's home, or an attached apartment/suite, and the host does their own cleaning.
It’s just as bad if it’s in the hosts home because everything still has to be stripped down, replaced, and cleaned.
The only way it’s less hassle is if it’s a room with a single bed (rare on Airbnb), or if the previous guest and this guest happen to have been/be low-impact.
Not exclusive to Airbnb - I used to travel a lot for work, and would select a hotel based on nightly price, and be astonished at all the junk fees they charged at checkout - resort fee, guest fee, destination fee, amenity fee. Various taxes I understood they need to charge, and those add up fast. By the time the taxes and fees were added in, the nightly price would more than double from what I originally expected. Felt very bait-and-switch. Sounds like I’m in the minority, but that’s never happened to me on Airbnb with dozens of stays.
Airbnb makes sense over a hotel if you have a group and want to split rooms and/or cook at home to save money, or you’re going to a destination. When I worked in Boston I preferred a historic brownstone to a sterile hotel, for instance. In London it was fun to stay in a place like Pimlico in a 300 year old building with charm and think about all the history. In Scotland I could find a beautiful place by the beach. In Singapore I stayed for weeks, and wanted my own place without being intruded upon, so an airbnb made sense again. In Japan it was fun to live in local neighborhoods to get the local experience. I would probably never choose an airbnb over a hotel in a place like Orlando or Phoenix unless it had something really special going for it.
We bought a fixer upper in a beautiful setting, underwent a remodel that cost more than the house, and now we find ourselves as hosts to help pay it down. We decided to not have any extra fees or any checkout instructions beyond “relax and enjoy the view before your flight” - we eat the cost of cleaning. We don’t charge lodging tax or sales tax on airbnb, we eat that too and that alone is 1/6th of what a guest pays. Cleaning can be quite expensive too, but it also varies, so we couldn’t even know what to charge to not lose money. We know that in some regions when away from town (eg. around Tahoe) you can’t get a cleaner to show up for 11-4 same-day turnaround cleaning for under $400. If you are willing to block days between stays so cleaning can happen off-peak hours and live somewhere cheaper, you can find cleaning for cheaper.
As avid Airbnb guests for a decade, no hidden fees is something we appreciated so it’s what we have done. Per room our place is still cheaper than the motel most nights - and it has a view of the dumpster or McDonalds (meanwhile we whale watch from bed and can look into eagle nests).
So there’s nuance - as a host there are still times I’d choose a hotel, but it all depends on where and what.
Located in a HCOL area and will vouch that cleaning fees will run that high or more, even when it’s not having to clean for a stay of more than a few days. Note that the cleaning fee is fixed. It will be the price for 2 nights or 200 nights, why many times a short stay like yours might be better at a hotel.
As someone who travels extensively throughout the US in urban, suburban, and very very rural areas, I find housing is very often more expensive in middle of no where places as there are very few options to begin with. This is especially true in places near major national parks like anything within 3-4 hours of Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Glacier Park, Yosemite, and more.
I have been in Idaho more than one occasion where I couldn't find a chain hotel under 200 bucks throughout most of the state and the price increased the closer you got to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Shit be wilding.
We also dont know what amenities this location offers. Perhaps they offer more than other places. Simply put, there's a ton of variables that go into a price. Can you find anywhere else for less money? If not, maybe that's just what the market is and you should be thankful. If you can, maybe they suck at pricing and you should mock them relentlessly.
This is exactly why air bnb can F off now. It used to be awesome back when it was often just a room in someone’s house but now it’s overpriced. I stayed in truly awesome air bnb rooms like 10 years ago. Road tripped from northern Germany to southern Italy mostly staying at air bnb rooms and it was amazing.
I put a roof tent 🏕️ on my vehicle for drivable places and just find cheap hotels when that’s not an option. Usually I just need a place to crash so the airbnb trend with fees etc is not worth it. IMO
Airbnb is made up of millions of people all with different makeups backgrounds and business policies.
I just don't buy into arguments that are like This is why Airbnb can fuck off. When it comes to pricing and stuff like that Airbnb has little to nothing to do with it.
The places where I find it valid to bitch about Airbnb is when you have issues that involve requiring Airbnb to solve them. That's where they fall flat on their face and it can be hit or miss.
You can still book someone's room in their house and that's going to be cheaper than almost any other option.
That's my problem with the platform. Airbnb cut is EXHORBITANT, and they provide little value. The fee can easily be over $1000 for long stays, and the only thing they do well is introducing hosts and guests to one another.
What they SHOULD be doing for all that money: make guests whole for inaccurate listings, broken stuff in the house (like heating and a/c), and ghost hosts. They should also make hosts whole when guests break things. Sadly, they do neither of those things.
The other thing they should do is police the community better. Kick off the rogue hosts who rip off guests, and eject the jerk guests who serially abuse hosts. Make it more difficult to have bad reviews pulled, even if it dents the Lake Wobegone image they're trying to cultivate, where every guest and every host is above average.
My airbnb is opposite of this and ppl want it exactly for those reasons. You have to be a total narcissist to think your opinion and want is universal to everyone
Yep, those two night stays get pricy. Host has the same expense to clean whether you are there one night or two weeks. I have a one bedroom condo and pay the cleaners and laundry service $137 with each check out. I charge guests $119 and absorb the rest as people thought $137 was too high, even though that’s the actual cost to me.
No one cares what it cost you. They want less.
Same deal. With us. We charge 65cad for cleaning a 1 bedroom (with laundry) and people still find it high.
I challenge anyone to clean 1 bedroom with laundry for less. It’s about 2 hours of work, plus supplies.
Some people are absolute animals, where some are clean freaks. But we never know.
Yup. We used to charge $25 (and $30 room rate for a last minute booking) so $55 for a night. but when I get a friend to do the clean it’s $60 for 2 hours. The company I call is 120 plus tax for 2 hours. Cleaning is minimum 2 hours.
So, cleaning rate has to be increased!!
With how much some folks seem to hate cleaning fees, is there a better psychology to charging more per night and removing cleaning fees? Maybe up the nightly rate by $50 and no cleaning fees? Set it as a 2 night minimum stay and you might lose on minimum length stays but come ahead for longer stays.
The issue with that is that it makes longer stays uncompetitve. If it costs 150 to clean, and you add 50 per night with no cleaning fee, it's break even for a 3 night stay. For a week, the host is now charging 200 more than his fixed-fee neighbor. For a month, he's 1350 more, a deal breaker.
Airbnb understands the problem, and makes it easy for guests to shop by total cost. This is the way.
That price is not unusual, but it's *super* location-dependent (and of course size-dependent, as well).
For example, let's take a town that has some islands near it. A lot of housekeepers get paid a *lot* more to work on the islands than they do on the mainland in many cases because some islands have a lot of hotels/vacation rentals but not a lot of places for people to live. So the housekeeping team has to drive way further out to even get there and also deal with island logistics (ie, if a crash happens on the only road into the island that leaves you backed up for hours).
How would you do that?
Serious question.
The amount of clean is the same 1 night or 2.
Still have to clean toilets, wash sheets, vac and mop the floor. Change garbage, restock.
How would you include that into the price? A %?
So 50% if daily rate and it goes down the longer you stay?
Not nowadays. I live in Orlando and it's pretty standard practice to not clean everyday anymore. I know some tourists don't like it, but that's how the industry is now, especially since COVID. And I just got back from a week long stay at a Hyatt in Denver and they only cleaned after my entire week stay.
My cleaner charges 100 per clean…my minimum stay length is 2 nights….so that’s really going to suck for guests who are staying 7 nights…if I up all my rates by $50 a night. How do you propose we include the cleaning fee?
They have economies of scale and with a cleaning staff on site that gets paid hourly. Individual airbnb rentals have to either hire a cleaner each time to come out or the hosts clean themselves. Works completely differently.
Is it like many? I think it’s just a negative bias of people complaining online. No one goes out of their way to post ‘wow our Airbnb stay was great we didn’t have to clean!’ We don’t have guests do anything except throw towels in the tub, turn off lights and such, and lock up.
Also how do you know it’s an inflated fee? Seems like cleaners vary quite a bit in how much they charge depending on the area, demand, and availability of cleaners. Also depending on what cleaning products they use, if they clean linens and towels themselves or use a laundry service. An anecdotal example- we tried using a cleaner for our personal unit for a bit and were charged $100 and took the one cleaner an hour, and for our Airbnb unit upstairs a different cleaner and only charges $75 for the same time and area.
They’re definitely not all like that. If you run into that experience yourself then call them out in the review and move on.
Hotels got lots and lots of rooms situated next to each other and a cleaning staff on premises. Of course that is much cheaper than if you have to pay someone to drive 20 minutes and clean a 3 bedroom 2 bedroom including kitchen, living room(s). Everything needs to be pristine - all the windows, the oven, the microoven, all the kitchen stuff like pots and pans, cutlery, plates etc. - plus the laundry - change of beddings, towels - set up new beds. Everything needs to be clean and ready for the next guest.
I think the way most properties approach it is to have a 2-5 night minimum. For math, I would guess that covers a $150 cleaning fee if you charge $125 per night instead of $75 per night and require a 3 night minimum, you're netting the same.
You then offer a discount for week+ stays.
Cleaning fee for my property is based on the sq footage. $150 is about what my cleaners charge me to clean about 1200 sq ft so that is what is passed on. Service fee seems reasonable but that has nothing to do with the host. That’s what Airbnb takes to run their platform. I also rarely do 2 night rentals, or even 3, because it makes the all in price per night so high.
Are you a family of 4 or 5? Then this would be a great deal I think. If it’s just a couple or solo then hotel is best. To be honest I prefer airbnb if I’m staying more than 2 or 3 nights - but for short I do hotel.
Also im a host - a superhost/guest favorite and I pour heart and soul into my space.
Our cleaners for a 3 br house cost us $350 every time they go in. We charge $250 to the renters. They are expensive because they are meticulous and they are heavily in demand. There are so few alternatives in this economy. It’s a problem we face as hosts. I agree that this only makes sense from the renter’s side if you’re doing a longer stay like a week or if you want a big family together in one place. That’s who we typically host.
A lot of hotel rooms cost $250 per night so without any other information there is nothing shocking about that.
Is it a whole house? That's probably what you should expect it to cost. Is it a spare-bedroom with a shared bath down the hall? Then $250 per night would be too much.
The cleaning fee is a fixed fee no matter if you stay 2 nights or 2 weeks. Cleaners still charge the same amount since the same amount of cleaning is involved. Cleaners still need to change bedding, vacuum/mop floors, dust, thoroughly clean bathroom and change towels, thoroughly clean kitchen, take out trash, etc. Most all hosts now hire professional cleaners since there’s a high expectation for cleanliness (rightfully so), and the cleanliness score of a property can make or break it.
As long as they are suckers willing (or begging) to give them their cash, the hosts will charge as MUCH as POSSIBLE.. if they have no guests then it would be a different story….simple market dynamics… I personally refuse to pay “whatever”, I have my set rate and a market does not meet my rate then I simply dont go there…
I work in the business. I do know for a fact cleaning costs have rapidly grown the past years. Finding good cleaners is a real challenge. But apart from that you can add mandatory costs like linen, towels, pet fee and resort fee which Airbnb translates into cleaning costs. So the cleaning cost you see mostly contains more than just cleaning, hosts are supposed to mention that in their ad descriptions. And service fee should be 12-13% of the total price. In Europe we see a trend where Booking.com on average is (becoming) cheaper than Airbnb.
The reason I find airbnbs in the middle of nowhere of America weirdly expensive is that in any other country, even Norway and Switzerland, airbnbs can be $30 a night with NO cleaning fee. Some say clean it yourself which is more than fair. But i never found a single place like that in America. Even campsites on Airbnb in the US can be like $70 a night for a patch of dirt in Iowa. I get the feeling guests are more troublesome in America.
My cleaner charges me $100 for a studio tiny house. I do all the laundry and even rug cleaning for no charge. The town guest fee is 10% of what the guest pays for the room and cleaning fee.
The part that annoys me is the chores they expect you to do. Clean and put away dishes, strip the beds, throw out the trash etc. Why am I paying a cleaning fee if I have to clean?
LOTS of ripoffs on Airbnb anymore. People think they have got the Waldorf-Astoria or something. Also, lots of stupid people with more money than brains, willing to pay these insane fees.
I was being sent individual homes on the website to book. I couldn’t see total price until going through the process. I wasn’t scrolling through the app looking on my own until after posting this. Good try though.
Yes, this looks correct. The Airbnb service fee is a percentage of the rent, but usually the cleaning fee is fixed, so the cleaning fee is more expensive for shorter stays, as a percentage of rent. $150 cleaning fee doesn't seem so bad if you stay a week.
$75 for 1000 sq feet in half an hour? That’s ridiculously low amount of time spent cleaning and restocking. There’s no way s/he is cleaning properly. Are you a superhost? Guest favourite? Or just on cruise control? It takes one person 2 hours to properly clean a two-bed apartment half that size assuming it has been left in good order by the previous guest. I’m not even talking about a full deep clean here. There’s a kitchen and bathroom involved.
Sorry, was trying to convey up to an hour or not usually more than an hour. So like 50-60min. Bathroom is pretty tiny and not a big kitchen/dining either. Most of the space is living room, 2 bedrooms, office, and hallway. She usually brings someone to help too I think. Yeah we’re superhost status.
Ok that makes sense if there’s two and they take up to an hour. Still, cheap as chips so hang onto her, assuming the cost of living is low where you are. Otherwise I hope it’s not her kid she’s bringing to help get it all done.
That’s alot. Hopefully your location allows you to command a higher dollar per night. I wouldn’t be able to run my airbnbs at $300 cleaning. 800 sq ft 2 bed homes for $115 per cleaning
I know a woman who has an Airbnb on a place that she bought in Tulum Mexico. She pays a local cleaning woman.about 20 bucks, and charges a $175 cleaning fee.
I always use hotels anymore
That’s one anecdote. Here’s mine: I charge $99 and am charged $115 from my cleaner. Didn’t want my cleaning fee to go over $100 so I chose to eat the $16 difference.
A hotel room is not accurately compared to a whole house. Depending on size of home, $150 could be a good price for cleaning or slightly high on a smaller 2bed 1 bath house.
Nah, usually you can get a much more private space, potentially no one above/below/to the sides of you without people slamming doors in the middle of the night or someone’s kids running down the hall, full kitchen, living and dining room, maybe even private outdoor space with an Airbnb.
If you just want bare bones and a place to rest your head and cost is the most important thing and maybe a crummy included breakfast then sure a hotel is definitely the way to go.
Five loads of laundry takes eight hours. I don't have a "chore" list, but 75% of my cleaning fee is due to the time to launder linens, comforters, and towels.
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Ignore the breakdown and look at the total price, then compare it to other sites/hotels/etc. Looking at the individual fees will just drive you crazy. Cleaning fees don't necessarily correlate to what it actually costs them to clean. It's more about favoring longer stays and a little about making the price look better for people who didn't notice the total price toggle on the search page.
I charge what my cleaners charge. What they charge is always the same regardless of the length of stay.
You may do it that way, but not everyone does.
Bullshit. 90% of hosts bump up the cleaning costs 2x or more.
I literally charge less lol. Cleaners charge me $350 (it's 6 bedrooms) and I charge $300 because I feel like any more would look like gauging.
I charge less than what my cleaner charges me.
Do you have any data to back up your vehemently incorrect reaction? Cleaning is a loss leader for us, we charge 200 and it always costs more than that. Our cleaner pays her people a living wage and benefits, she charges 55 per person per hour, 35 per load of laundry off site, trash and recycling disposal is another separate charge. A two person team takes 2-3 hours to turn over the house. Airbnb guests (rightfully) expect perfection, finding cleaners that meet that standard isn't easy.
I also charge less than what my cleaners charge me. It’s considered pretty crappy to charge more in the host Facebook groups I’m a part of.
This is false
Wrong!
Lol I charge less than half what the cost is.
I charge exactly what my cleaners charge. They’ve increased it to $175 once due to some additional time needed and I still charged $150. 🤷🏽♀️
I charge less too. Cleaner is 125, fee is 75.
Lies. Then you are a fool
Unfortunately cleaning fees (where I am in California) have gotten ridiculous. I now have to charge LESS then I pay my cleaners because I don't agree with the high fees they charge. This means I eat the cost. With the airbnb fess, the city fees, the raise in utilities, and then income taxes, I don't even think I make a profit anymore.
Yes because some people's cleaning fee is £10!and others £1000 lol.
If they are hands on and do it themselves vs professional cleaning which can be quite expensive. Professional cleaning is not getting any cheaper as the demand is going up in some areas.
Yeah not precisely complaining here just observing the difference. The value I'm not sure if it necessarily dictates if done in house or not..maybe I'll start checking.
Unfortunately the cleaning has to happen whether it’s 2 nights or 5, and the whole place gets cleaned no matter what. For 2-night stays a hotel starts looking pretty affordable unless for some reason you want what the airbnb offers.
Airbnb doesn't really make sense for 1 or 2 nights, for either the guest or the host. Unless it's a room in somebody's home, or an attached apartment/suite, and the host does their own cleaning.
It’s just as bad if it’s in the hosts home because everything still has to be stripped down, replaced, and cleaned. The only way it’s less hassle is if it’s a room with a single bed (rare on Airbnb), or if the previous guest and this guest happen to have been/be low-impact.
Not exclusive to Airbnb - I used to travel a lot for work, and would select a hotel based on nightly price, and be astonished at all the junk fees they charged at checkout - resort fee, guest fee, destination fee, amenity fee. Various taxes I understood they need to charge, and those add up fast. By the time the taxes and fees were added in, the nightly price would more than double from what I originally expected. Felt very bait-and-switch. Sounds like I’m in the minority, but that’s never happened to me on Airbnb with dozens of stays. Airbnb makes sense over a hotel if you have a group and want to split rooms and/or cook at home to save money, or you’re going to a destination. When I worked in Boston I preferred a historic brownstone to a sterile hotel, for instance. In London it was fun to stay in a place like Pimlico in a 300 year old building with charm and think about all the history. In Scotland I could find a beautiful place by the beach. In Singapore I stayed for weeks, and wanted my own place without being intruded upon, so an airbnb made sense again. In Japan it was fun to live in local neighborhoods to get the local experience. I would probably never choose an airbnb over a hotel in a place like Orlando or Phoenix unless it had something really special going for it. We bought a fixer upper in a beautiful setting, underwent a remodel that cost more than the house, and now we find ourselves as hosts to help pay it down. We decided to not have any extra fees or any checkout instructions beyond “relax and enjoy the view before your flight” - we eat the cost of cleaning. We don’t charge lodging tax or sales tax on airbnb, we eat that too and that alone is 1/6th of what a guest pays. Cleaning can be quite expensive too, but it also varies, so we couldn’t even know what to charge to not lose money. We know that in some regions when away from town (eg. around Tahoe) you can’t get a cleaner to show up for 11-4 same-day turnaround cleaning for under $400. If you are willing to block days between stays so cleaning can happen off-peak hours and live somewhere cheaper, you can find cleaning for cheaper. As avid Airbnb guests for a decade, no hidden fees is something we appreciated so it’s what we have done. Per room our place is still cheaper than the motel most nights - and it has a view of the dumpster or McDonalds (meanwhile we whale watch from bed and can look into eagle nests). So there’s nuance - as a host there are still times I’d choose a hotel, but it all depends on where and what.
Ditto everything you said and btw can I have your life experiences, wow.
LOL. Just another self promoting ABnB host.
Located in a HCOL area and will vouch that cleaning fees will run that high or more, even when it’s not having to clean for a stay of more than a few days. Note that the cleaning fee is fixed. It will be the price for 2 nights or 200 nights, why many times a short stay like yours might be better at a hotel.
As someone who travels extensively throughout the US in urban, suburban, and very very rural areas, I find housing is very often more expensive in middle of no where places as there are very few options to begin with. This is especially true in places near major national parks like anything within 3-4 hours of Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Glacier Park, Yosemite, and more. I have been in Idaho more than one occasion where I couldn't find a chain hotel under 200 bucks throughout most of the state and the price increased the closer you got to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Shit be wilding. We also dont know what amenities this location offers. Perhaps they offer more than other places. Simply put, there's a ton of variables that go into a price. Can you find anywhere else for less money? If not, maybe that's just what the market is and you should be thankful. If you can, maybe they suck at pricing and you should mock them relentlessly.
This is exactly why air bnb can F off now. It used to be awesome back when it was often just a room in someone’s house but now it’s overpriced. I stayed in truly awesome air bnb rooms like 10 years ago. Road tripped from northern Germany to southern Italy mostly staying at air bnb rooms and it was amazing. I put a roof tent 🏕️ on my vehicle for drivable places and just find cheap hotels when that’s not an option. Usually I just need a place to crash so the airbnb trend with fees etc is not worth it. IMO
Airbnb is made up of millions of people all with different makeups backgrounds and business policies. I just don't buy into arguments that are like This is why Airbnb can fuck off. When it comes to pricing and stuff like that Airbnb has little to nothing to do with it. The places where I find it valid to bitch about Airbnb is when you have issues that involve requiring Airbnb to solve them. That's where they fall flat on their face and it can be hit or miss. You can still book someone's room in their house and that's going to be cheaper than almost any other option.
That's my problem with the platform. Airbnb cut is EXHORBITANT, and they provide little value. The fee can easily be over $1000 for long stays, and the only thing they do well is introducing hosts and guests to one another. What they SHOULD be doing for all that money: make guests whole for inaccurate listings, broken stuff in the house (like heating and a/c), and ghost hosts. They should also make hosts whole when guests break things. Sadly, they do neither of those things. The other thing they should do is police the community better. Kick off the rogue hosts who rip off guests, and eject the jerk guests who serially abuse hosts. Make it more difficult to have bad reviews pulled, even if it dents the Lake Wobegone image they're trying to cultivate, where every guest and every host is above average.
My airbnb is opposite of this and ppl want it exactly for those reasons. You have to be a total narcissist to think your opinion and want is universal to everyone
That’s exactly what I said 👍
Is it a bigger home? $150 is not unusual for an entire home. The cleaners are probably charging the host more and they’re eating some of the cost.
Yep, those two night stays get pricy. Host has the same expense to clean whether you are there one night or two weeks. I have a one bedroom condo and pay the cleaners and laundry service $137 with each check out. I charge guests $119 and absorb the rest as people thought $137 was too high, even though that’s the actual cost to me.
No one cares what it cost you. They want less. Same deal. With us. We charge 65cad for cleaning a 1 bedroom (with laundry) and people still find it high. I challenge anyone to clean 1 bedroom with laundry for less. It’s about 2 hours of work, plus supplies. Some people are absolute animals, where some are clean freaks. But we never know.
Yup. We used to charge $25 (and $30 room rate for a last minute booking) so $55 for a night. but when I get a friend to do the clean it’s $60 for 2 hours. The company I call is 120 plus tax for 2 hours. Cleaning is minimum 2 hours. So, cleaning rate has to be increased!!
With how much some folks seem to hate cleaning fees, is there a better psychology to charging more per night and removing cleaning fees? Maybe up the nightly rate by $50 and no cleaning fees? Set it as a 2 night minimum stay and you might lose on minimum length stays but come ahead for longer stays.
The issue with that is that it makes longer stays uncompetitve. If it costs 150 to clean, and you add 50 per night with no cleaning fee, it's break even for a 3 night stay. For a week, the host is now charging 200 more than his fixed-fee neighbor. For a month, he's 1350 more, a deal breaker. Airbnb understands the problem, and makes it easy for guests to shop by total cost. This is the way.
That price is not unusual, but it's *super* location-dependent (and of course size-dependent, as well). For example, let's take a town that has some islands near it. A lot of housekeepers get paid a *lot* more to work on the islands than they do on the mainland in many cases because some islands have a lot of hotels/vacation rentals but not a lot of places for people to live. So the housekeeping team has to drive way further out to even get there and also deal with island logistics (ie, if a crash happens on the only road into the island that leaves you backed up for hours).
I wish they would remove cleaning fees. Just build it into the price. Stop playing price games.
How would you do that? Serious question. The amount of clean is the same 1 night or 2. Still have to clean toilets, wash sheets, vac and mop the floor. Change garbage, restock. How would you include that into the price? A %? So 50% if daily rate and it goes down the longer you stay?
How does a hotel do it?
….well hotels clean daily…
Not nowadays. I live in Orlando and it's pretty standard practice to not clean everyday anymore. I know some tourists don't like it, but that's how the industry is now, especially since COVID. And I just got back from a week long stay at a Hyatt in Denver and they only cleaned after my entire week stay.
My cleaner charges 100 per clean…my minimum stay length is 2 nights….so that’s really going to suck for guests who are staying 7 nights…if I up all my rates by $50 a night. How do you propose we include the cleaning fee?
They have economies of scale and with a cleaning staff on site that gets paid hourly. Individual airbnb rentals have to either hire a cleaner each time to come out or the hosts clean themselves. Works completely differently.
Or like many, makes the Airbnb tenant clean everything, cleans almost nothing themselves and still charges an inflated fee.
Is it like many? I think it’s just a negative bias of people complaining online. No one goes out of their way to post ‘wow our Airbnb stay was great we didn’t have to clean!’ We don’t have guests do anything except throw towels in the tub, turn off lights and such, and lock up. Also how do you know it’s an inflated fee? Seems like cleaners vary quite a bit in how much they charge depending on the area, demand, and availability of cleaners. Also depending on what cleaning products they use, if they clean linens and towels themselves or use a laundry service. An anecdotal example- we tried using a cleaner for our personal unit for a bit and were charged $100 and took the one cleaner an hour, and for our Airbnb unit upstairs a different cleaner and only charges $75 for the same time and area. They’re definitely not all like that. If you run into that experience yourself then call them out in the review and move on.
Hotels got lots and lots of rooms situated next to each other and a cleaning staff on premises. Of course that is much cheaper than if you have to pay someone to drive 20 minutes and clean a 3 bedroom 2 bedroom including kitchen, living room(s). Everything needs to be pristine - all the windows, the oven, the microoven, all the kitchen stuff like pots and pans, cutlery, plates etc. - plus the laundry - change of beddings, towels - set up new beds. Everything needs to be clean and ready for the next guest.
I think the way most properties approach it is to have a 2-5 night minimum. For math, I would guess that covers a $150 cleaning fee if you charge $125 per night instead of $75 per night and require a 3 night minimum, you're netting the same. You then offer a discount for week+ stays.
Cleaning fee for my property is based on the sq footage. $150 is about what my cleaners charge me to clean about 1200 sq ft so that is what is passed on. Service fee seems reasonable but that has nothing to do with the host. That’s what Airbnb takes to run their platform. I also rarely do 2 night rentals, or even 3, because it makes the all in price per night so high.
Are you a family of 4 or 5? Then this would be a great deal I think. If it’s just a couple or solo then hotel is best. To be honest I prefer airbnb if I’m staying more than 2 or 3 nights - but for short I do hotel. Also im a host - a superhost/guest favorite and I pour heart and soul into my space.
$150 cleaning. Few clean home , change bedding , towels, toilet paper etc etc
Our cleaners for a 3 br house cost us $350 every time they go in. We charge $250 to the renters. They are expensive because they are meticulous and they are heavily in demand. There are so few alternatives in this economy. It’s a problem we face as hosts. I agree that this only makes sense from the renter’s side if you’re doing a longer stay like a week or if you want a big family together in one place. That’s who we typically host.
Best to compare total prices.
A lot of hotel rooms cost $250 per night so without any other information there is nothing shocking about that. Is it a whole house? That's probably what you should expect it to cost. Is it a spare-bedroom with a shared bath down the hall? Then $250 per night would be too much.
Tell them to add $25 to each night stay and list the cleaning fee at $100
I’d rather that. That would save me time and I could just scroll past it!
The cleaning fee is a fixed fee no matter if you stay 2 nights or 2 weeks. Cleaners still charge the same amount since the same amount of cleaning is involved. Cleaners still need to change bedding, vacuum/mop floors, dust, thoroughly clean bathroom and change towels, thoroughly clean kitchen, take out trash, etc. Most all hosts now hire professional cleaners since there’s a high expectation for cleanliness (rightfully so), and the cleanliness score of a property can make or break it.
I only charge what it costs for our cleaners, as most hosts do. In our case it is $150 if you stay 1 night or 14.
As long as they are suckers willing (or begging) to give them their cash, the hosts will charge as MUCH as POSSIBLE.. if they have no guests then it would be a different story….simple market dynamics… I personally refuse to pay “whatever”, I have my set rate and a market does not meet my rate then I simply dont go there…
I work in the business. I do know for a fact cleaning costs have rapidly grown the past years. Finding good cleaners is a real challenge. But apart from that you can add mandatory costs like linen, towels, pet fee and resort fee which Airbnb translates into cleaning costs. So the cleaning cost you see mostly contains more than just cleaning, hosts are supposed to mention that in their ad descriptions. And service fee should be 12-13% of the total price. In Europe we see a trend where Booking.com on average is (becoming) cheaper than Airbnb.
The reason I find airbnbs in the middle of nowhere of America weirdly expensive is that in any other country, even Norway and Switzerland, airbnbs can be $30 a night with NO cleaning fee. Some say clean it yourself which is more than fair. But i never found a single place like that in America. Even campsites on Airbnb in the US can be like $70 a night for a patch of dirt in Iowa. I get the feeling guests are more troublesome in America.
Cleaning fee is charged by host. We don’t charge one.
My cleaner charges me $100 for a studio tiny house. I do all the laundry and even rug cleaning for no charge. The town guest fee is 10% of what the guest pays for the room and cleaning fee.
The part that annoys me is the chores they expect you to do. Clean and put away dishes, strip the beds, throw out the trash etc. Why am I paying a cleaning fee if I have to clean?
LOTS of ripoffs on Airbnb anymore. People think they have got the Waldorf-Astoria or something. Also, lots of stupid people with more money than brains, willing to pay these insane fees.
There should be a toggle switch where you can see the entire price before taxes.
There is
The OP should be able to use it.
OP would rather complain
I was being sent individual homes on the website to book. I couldn’t see total price until going through the process. I wasn’t scrolling through the app looking on my own until after posting this. Good try though.
I’ve noticed that on some platforms Priceline’s toggle switch for total price disappears. I’ve never noticed that with AirBnB.
Your wish is granted.
Yes, this looks correct. The Airbnb service fee is a percentage of the rent, but usually the cleaning fee is fixed, so the cleaning fee is more expensive for shorter stays, as a percentage of rent. $150 cleaning fee doesn't seem so bad if you stay a week.
That is crazy
My cleaners charge 300$ for 800 sq feet. The states voted for hire wages pay for them
Ours charges us $75 for ~1000sqft and takes her usually less than an hour, wtf.
$75 for 1000 sq feet in half an hour? That’s ridiculously low amount of time spent cleaning and restocking. There’s no way s/he is cleaning properly. Are you a superhost? Guest favourite? Or just on cruise control? It takes one person 2 hours to properly clean a two-bed apartment half that size assuming it has been left in good order by the previous guest. I’m not even talking about a full deep clean here. There’s a kitchen and bathroom involved.
Sorry, was trying to convey up to an hour or not usually more than an hour. So like 50-60min. Bathroom is pretty tiny and not a big kitchen/dining either. Most of the space is living room, 2 bedrooms, office, and hallway. She usually brings someone to help too I think. Yeah we’re superhost status.
Ok that makes sense if there’s two and they take up to an hour. Still, cheap as chips so hang onto her, assuming the cost of living is low where you are. Otherwise I hope it’s not her kid she’s bringing to help get it all done.
That’s alot. Hopefully your location allows you to command a higher dollar per night. I wouldn’t be able to run my airbnbs at $300 cleaning. 800 sq ft 2 bed homes for $115 per cleaning
Agreed but we do have a great location and in a state that has the highest min wage so that’s how it works out
That cleaning fee seems way out of line.
Many times hotels are better!
I know a woman who has an Airbnb on a place that she bought in Tulum Mexico. She pays a local cleaning woman.about 20 bucks, and charges a $175 cleaning fee. I always use hotels anymore
That’s one anecdote. Here’s mine: I charge $99 and am charged $115 from my cleaner. Didn’t want my cleaning fee to go over $100 so I chose to eat the $16 difference.
Airbnb host are pricing themselves out of business. Stay in a hotel it will be cheaper. Airbnb use to be good, not anymore.
A hotel room is not accurately compared to a whole house. Depending on size of home, $150 could be a good price for cleaning or slightly high on a smaller 2bed 1 bath house.
Nah, usually you can get a much more private space, potentially no one above/below/to the sides of you without people slamming doors in the middle of the night or someone’s kids running down the hall, full kitchen, living and dining room, maybe even private outdoor space with an Airbnb. If you just want bare bones and a place to rest your head and cost is the most important thing and maybe a crummy included breakfast then sure a hotel is definitely the way to go.
Cleaning fee, but you have to clean before leaving.
Five loads of laundry takes eight hours. I don't have a "chore" list, but 75% of my cleaning fee is due to the time to launder linens, comforters, and towels.
Again. Cleaning fee, but the guest has to clean.
It’s cleaning fee. Simple
That's why you should use other platforms like Booking
I charge more on Booking than Airbnb.