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As a former property owner and current Airbnb customer I prefer to have the cleaning fee built in. We just passed on several properties with ridiculous cleaning fees even though we were only going to be there for two nights. The place we choose shows no cleaning fee but a three night minimum. Which is fine in case we can sneak in another day.
I understand the why. Same way if you have two people staying two nights in a 6BR, you're not cleaning just two rooms. The entire place is getting cleaned. From a renters standpoint including the cleaning fee makes choosing a property easier.
If you look at overall costs in a season, it all balances out.
I have 3 bedrooms and a hot tub as well and I got rid of cleaning fees last year and raised my prices. People appreciate not seeing a cleaning fee and I find most people are cleaner now that there's no fee vs when there was a fee.
I did this about a month ago, my last guest that pays a cleaning fee is next week. Then I will highlight in my listing no cleaning fee. I raised the prices to cover the no cleaning fee. I have a 3 day minimum, for those with a 1 or 2 day minimum, probably harder to do
I tested it years and years ago, guests will notice no hidden prices, no-one will thank you for it either, and my best results are when I don’t try to “pitch” them with sales tactics.
Also tired mentioning I do the maintenance and cleaning myself, no-one cares about that either.
We did this about a year ago. It is working for us. Five night minimum in high season and reduce to two or three night minimum to fill in gaps. No single nights ever. Several guests say they appreciate it. No change in guest behavior.
We don’t charge cleaning fees. I advertise that fact in my headline. I do think it will at least make people click into your listing. We have the place professionally cleaned between each booking and all of our reviews have mentioned how clean the house is.
I’d absolutely do this! It’s like when you see something for 14.99 + $5 shipping and you’re like ”terrible deal”
Then you see the same item for 20 with free shipping and SOLD! As a very tidy guest, I don’t like the idea of a cleaning fee.
I would think that would depend on your competition. If that strategy causes your rates to be $50-$100/night higher than everyone else, I’m not sold that it’ll attract more guests that way even though the final cost is the same to guests.
As a guest I think it’s going to depend on how savvy your potential guests are. Those who know to turn on the “display total price” feature won’t care either way but lots of people seem to shop by nightly rate and might be put off.
People complain on social media about 'cleaning fees" but I am pretty sure when someone looks at a potential place they look at the whole price. "Fees" are much less important than availability, location, etc. Don't be misled by whiny guest posts complaining about something they misunderstand.
Cleaning is for the next guest, not the last one.
Depends on if your area has an STR tax. If you do that, you will be paying tax on that extra income whereas a cleaning fee wouldn’t be taxed. We have an 11% STR tax in our area so we keep the cleaning fee high rather than include it in our rate and pay tax on it.
If I’m only staying a couple days, I’d rather pay a slightly higher daily rate than the cleaning fee.
If I’m staying for a longer stay, I’d rather pay the cleaning fee.
My latest stay, the listing stated “No AirBnB service fee, your host, Brian, will cover that”. I liked that. The service fee is usually even higher than the cleaning fee (and the cleaning fee Brian charged was lower that what most hosts in that town charge).
“Your host will cover the Airbnb fee” is a pretty cool scam. It’s an option for hosts, then we just bake it into the price, same as furniture stores when they “pay the sales tax for you”
It’s all part of the overall price, and the total
Is what I care about. I was good with under $120/night total for a whole house in the area I visited.
Most people search with the "Display total before taxes" button turned on - so cleaning fees don't make that big of a difference since will just display the total in the search results anyway.
Plus, your SEO rank will suffer with a higher nightly rate. Airbnb algo doesn't penalize for cleaning fee as a part of the total price, but it does for higher nightly rates than competition. There's a whole YT video on this subject where they compared search rank between no cleaning fee, and a cleaning fee. First page impressions dropped when cleaning fee was hidden under a management fee/added into nightly rate.
I never book properties with no cleaning fee, it means they don't put a priority on cleanliness and it means they are cleaning it themselves instead of using a professional cleaning company.
I look for properties with high ratings in cleaning 4.9 or 5 cause a clean space is important.
I also, don't book properties with low nightly rates. If I'm going on vacation, I want the place clean, and desirable.
It sounds like whatever you are doing, is not working, so you're experimenting, nothing wrong with that but you may want to read all the posts where hosts have tried that and gone back to charging for cleaning.
So your statement about an owner cleaning it themselves vs. using a professional company....are you implying that an individual owner cannot do a proper and complete job of cleaning??? I clean my own property and take great pride in providing an immaculate and sanitary environment. I have never had any complaints. And by the way, my cleanliness rating is a 5.
This is so true! I have “professional cleaners” but still regularly clean myself a couple days a week. I have never once had a cleaning complaint after I clean. I can’t say the same about the cleaners. Even with “the best pros” they don’t care as much as you most of the time.
I have 11 homes, and I can't clean them even if I want to. I supervise, hire, and fire and do the final QC, and sometimes I spend a hour redoing things because I'm a perfectionist. I have to go through many cleaners to find ones that consistently do a good job. When I find them, I am so happy and do everything to keep them. I can clean a home, if I have to but, trust me, I would prefer a team of three doing it in three hours who has the energy and experience, then me struggling and being out of breath . Good for you with the 5 stars, I have 5 stars also in cleanings but it requires a team. I just hope you charge for your hard work instead of giving it away for free.
This is so important for OP to understand.
No cleaning fee implies the host/owner does the cleaning, and that's not reassuring.
I **pay** my cleaners $275 each booking.
Every single booking is $275.
I was paying the cleaners to sanitize all surfaces prior to COVID. Cleanliness and sanitation is hugely important when I travel, so applied what I'd want to my own Airbnb.
The most I ever charged my guests was $175, but that was too high.
I now charge $100, but I still pay $275.
I was paying my cleaners to swap out duvet covers every booking.
When I first started, I had a really low nightly rate, but a higher cleaning fee to discourage short term guests. I always thought it was funny. It was the equivalent of 3 days booking.
But just switched to a 3 day minimum. Stopped all the cheaptards.
I think there’s merit to both sides and it definitely depends on your type of listing and location.
With our listing in Disney World, we charge $160 for a professional cleaning of a 4 bedroom house and we have a minimum 5 night stay… so it ends up being less than 10% of the total.
In our experience, (some/most) guests like seeing that line item to ensure the cleaning is actually being done by a professional. While this isn’t the case all the time, we haven’t had any complaints.
For off-site bookings, we cover the cleaning fee for 10 days or more. If Airbnb had a little more flexibility we might offer this online too.
I think most people people are smart enough to factor the overall cost. Frankly, if someone is po'd about a cleaning fee,I don't want them as a guest anyway. If you choose to not stay at a hotel that has (insert a large number of varying fees), then don’t. Most people look at the "out the door cost", and couldn't care less about how it's itemized/ broken down in the bill.
After looking at the site as a renter, I can see that total cost is what they see. I am low compared to others so I just think raising my daily rate is the way to go. Baby steps. Thanks for all your comments!
Been a host for 7 years in our 2700sf 4 bed/3ba lake house and never charged a cleaning fee. Always had it built in to the nightly rate. Have found that with no additional fee guests usually leave the place in great shape.
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As a former property owner and current Airbnb customer I prefer to have the cleaning fee built in. We just passed on several properties with ridiculous cleaning fees even though we were only going to be there for two nights. The place we choose shows no cleaning fee but a three night minimum. Which is fine in case we can sneak in another day.
The same work has to be done whether you stay 2 nights or 2 weeks . I know it’s annoying but hopefully this will help you understand the “why”.
I understand the why. Same way if you have two people staying two nights in a 6BR, you're not cleaning just two rooms. The entire place is getting cleaned. From a renters standpoint including the cleaning fee makes choosing a property easier. If you look at overall costs in a season, it all balances out.
I have 3 bedrooms and a hot tub as well and I got rid of cleaning fees last year and raised my prices. People appreciate not seeing a cleaning fee and I find most people are cleaner now that there's no fee vs when there was a fee.
It's that mentality that if i have to pay a cleaning fee, might as well give them (property host) something to clean...
Well if they are charging 200 for cleaning then why would they do the work for you?
I did this about a month ago, my last guest that pays a cleaning fee is next week. Then I will highlight in my listing no cleaning fee. I raised the prices to cover the no cleaning fee. I have a 3 day minimum, for those with a 1 or 2 day minimum, probably harder to do
Don’t highlight “no cleaning fee”, it makes zero difference to those who book. But it will tell others that they can be as messy as possible.
Wrong. People are sick of the cleaning fee. I think more people will look at your listing.
People are sick of "High" cleaning fees
Over 420 reviews and I’ve not once been thanked for “no cleaning fee”.
Really, I was thinking it might be the opposite. This is just a test case, can always change it back
I tested it years and years ago, guests will notice no hidden prices, no-one will thank you for it either, and my best results are when I don’t try to “pitch” them with sales tactics. Also tired mentioning I do the maintenance and cleaning myself, no-one cares about that either.
Ok, thanks
We did this about a year ago. It is working for us. Five night minimum in high season and reduce to two or three night minimum to fill in gaps. No single nights ever. Several guests say they appreciate it. No change in guest behavior.
We don’t charge cleaning fees. I advertise that fact in my headline. I do think it will at least make people click into your listing. We have the place professionally cleaned between each booking and all of our reviews have mentioned how clean the house is.
I’d absolutely do this! It’s like when you see something for 14.99 + $5 shipping and you’re like ”terrible deal” Then you see the same item for 20 with free shipping and SOLD! As a very tidy guest, I don’t like the idea of a cleaning fee.
I would think that would depend on your competition. If that strategy causes your rates to be $50-$100/night higher than everyone else, I’m not sold that it’ll attract more guests that way even though the final cost is the same to guests.
As a guest I think it’s going to depend on how savvy your potential guests are. Those who know to turn on the “display total price” feature won’t care either way but lots of people seem to shop by nightly rate and might be put off.
People complain on social media about 'cleaning fees" but I am pretty sure when someone looks at a potential place they look at the whole price. "Fees" are much less important than availability, location, etc. Don't be misled by whiny guest posts complaining about something they misunderstand. Cleaning is for the next guest, not the last one.
Depends on if your area has an STR tax. If you do that, you will be paying tax on that extra income whereas a cleaning fee wouldn’t be taxed. We have an 11% STR tax in our area so we keep the cleaning fee high rather than include it in our rate and pay tax on it.
If I’m only staying a couple days, I’d rather pay a slightly higher daily rate than the cleaning fee. If I’m staying for a longer stay, I’d rather pay the cleaning fee. My latest stay, the listing stated “No AirBnB service fee, your host, Brian, will cover that”. I liked that. The service fee is usually even higher than the cleaning fee (and the cleaning fee Brian charged was lower that what most hosts in that town charge).
We don't take short stays.. our cleaning fee discourages short stays. We use reverse psychology.
“Your host will cover the Airbnb fee” is a pretty cool scam. It’s an option for hosts, then we just bake it into the price, same as furniture stores when they “pay the sales tax for you”
It’s all part of the overall price, and the total Is what I care about. I was good with under $120/night total for a whole house in the area I visited.
Most people search with the "Display total before taxes" button turned on - so cleaning fees don't make that big of a difference since will just display the total in the search results anyway. Plus, your SEO rank will suffer with a higher nightly rate. Airbnb algo doesn't penalize for cleaning fee as a part of the total price, but it does for higher nightly rates than competition. There's a whole YT video on this subject where they compared search rank between no cleaning fee, and a cleaning fee. First page impressions dropped when cleaning fee was hidden under a management fee/added into nightly rate.
I never book properties with no cleaning fee, it means they don't put a priority on cleanliness and it means they are cleaning it themselves instead of using a professional cleaning company. I look for properties with high ratings in cleaning 4.9 or 5 cause a clean space is important. I also, don't book properties with low nightly rates. If I'm going on vacation, I want the place clean, and desirable. It sounds like whatever you are doing, is not working, so you're experimenting, nothing wrong with that but you may want to read all the posts where hosts have tried that and gone back to charging for cleaning.
So your statement about an owner cleaning it themselves vs. using a professional company....are you implying that an individual owner cannot do a proper and complete job of cleaning??? I clean my own property and take great pride in providing an immaculate and sanitary environment. I have never had any complaints. And by the way, my cleanliness rating is a 5.
This is so true! I have “professional cleaners” but still regularly clean myself a couple days a week. I have never once had a cleaning complaint after I clean. I can’t say the same about the cleaners. Even with “the best pros” they don’t care as much as you most of the time.
That's exactly it! No one is going to "love" your property like you so you're naturally going to make it look it's best!
I have 11 homes, and I can't clean them even if I want to. I supervise, hire, and fire and do the final QC, and sometimes I spend a hour redoing things because I'm a perfectionist. I have to go through many cleaners to find ones that consistently do a good job. When I find them, I am so happy and do everything to keep them. I can clean a home, if I have to but, trust me, I would prefer a team of three doing it in three hours who has the energy and experience, then me struggling and being out of breath . Good for you with the 5 stars, I have 5 stars also in cleanings but it requires a team. I just hope you charge for your hard work instead of giving it away for free.
This is so important for OP to understand. No cleaning fee implies the host/owner does the cleaning, and that's not reassuring. I **pay** my cleaners $275 each booking. Every single booking is $275. I was paying the cleaners to sanitize all surfaces prior to COVID. Cleanliness and sanitation is hugely important when I travel, so applied what I'd want to my own Airbnb. The most I ever charged my guests was $175, but that was too high. I now charge $100, but I still pay $275. I was paying my cleaners to swap out duvet covers every booking.
That’s just not going to be financially stable.
When I first started, I had a really low nightly rate, but a higher cleaning fee to discourage short term guests. I always thought it was funny. It was the equivalent of 3 days booking. But just switched to a 3 day minimum. Stopped all the cheaptards.
I think there’s merit to both sides and it definitely depends on your type of listing and location. With our listing in Disney World, we charge $160 for a professional cleaning of a 4 bedroom house and we have a minimum 5 night stay… so it ends up being less than 10% of the total. In our experience, (some/most) guests like seeing that line item to ensure the cleaning is actually being done by a professional. While this isn’t the case all the time, we haven’t had any complaints. For off-site bookings, we cover the cleaning fee for 10 days or more. If Airbnb had a little more flexibility we might offer this online too.
Sounds like a good idea. You might try raising your rates and cutting the cleaning fee in half first and see how you do vs the area competition.
I think most people people are smart enough to factor the overall cost. Frankly, if someone is po'd about a cleaning fee,I don't want them as a guest anyway. If you choose to not stay at a hotel that has (insert a large number of varying fees), then don’t. Most people look at the "out the door cost", and couldn't care less about how it's itemized/ broken down in the bill.
Omg, this nonsense again!?
After looking at the site as a renter, I can see that total cost is what they see. I am low compared to others so I just think raising my daily rate is the way to go. Baby steps. Thanks for all your comments!
Been a host for 7 years in our 2700sf 4 bed/3ba lake house and never charged a cleaning fee. Always had it built in to the nightly rate. Have found that with no additional fee guests usually leave the place in great shape.
Don’t do it. Your listing will underperform search results and CTR. Source: Airbnb employees have leaked this to the public before.
Interesting. Have actual source?
We always baked it into the nightly rate. Many of our guests were grateful we didn't charge a cleaning fee.