How much should I charge for an Airbnb cleaning fee?

The basics

A cost-covering cleaning fee starts with your real turnover cost, not with what other listings charge. Add up what you pay for each turnover, then adjust for the platform's cut if it applies to the cleaning fee. The result is the lowest fee that leaves your cleaning costs fully paid.

You can charge more or less than that. But you should know the number before you decide.

Step 1: Add up one turnover

1. Cleaner pay. Your flat rate per turnover, or hourly rate times typical hours.
2. Laundry. Per-load or per-set fees if you send it out. Detergent, water and power if you wash on site.
3. Supplies and restock. Toilet paper, soap, dish soap, trash bags, coffee and anything else you replace each stay.
4. Other per-turnover costs. A linen wear allowance, a scheduling app fee spread over your stays, or a trip charge.

Our turnover cost guide walks through each line in more detail.

Step 2: Gross it up for the platform fee

If the platform takes a percentage of the cleaning fee, a fee equal to your cost leaves you short. Use this formula:

Cleaning fee = turnover cost ÷ (1 − fee rate)

Round the result up, so the fee always covers the cost.

On Airbnb, the service fee page (opens in a new tab) says most hosts on the single fee, where the host pays the whole fee, pay 15.5%. Airbnb is moving all home hosts to the single fee; until a host is switched, most on the older split fee pay 3%. Under the split fee, the host fee is a percentage of the nightly price and any fees charged by the host, which includes a cleaning fee you set. Your rate may differ, so check your own payout breakdown or your platform's current fee settings.

A worked example

Hypothetical costs for one turnover:

Now the gross-up at two example fee rates:

At 15.5%, charging a flat $108 would leave you about $16.74 short on every stay. Over a busy month, that adds up.

How the fee looks to guests

Guests compare the full price of a stay, not only the nightly rate. A high cleaning fee makes short stays look expensive, because the same fee spreads over fewer nights. As a general consideration, a total that looks high next to similar listings can make guests skip yours.

You have two common options:

• Charge the full covering fee. Clear and simple. Your cleaning costs are paid on every stay, short or long.
• Fold part of it into the nightly rate. Set a lower cleaning fee and add the difference to your nightly price. This spreads the cost across nights. It works best if most stays are a similar length. On short stays you may collect less than the turnover costs, and on long stays more.

Whichever you choose, check that the money from the stay as a whole covers the turnover. The stay profit calculator shows what one stay leaves you after fees and cleaning.

When to revisit the fee

• Your cleaner's rate changes.
• You switch from on-site laundry to a linen service, or the reverse.
• You add beds or bathrooms, which adds time and laundry.
• Your platform fee setup changes.

The cleaning fee calculator does the gross-up for you. For how to record the fee in your books, see whether the cleaning fee counts as income.