There seems to be a lot of discussion on how to charge clients for cleaning. There are many strategies.
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Some like to keep the rates for cleaning low and increase the minimum length of stay.
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Others like to maintain 1-night offerings with a higher cleaning fee.
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Another strategy often used is to combine a cleaning fee with an additional guest fee.
Send me Pros is a professional cleaning company in Montreal and we want to share what we know.
The most important point we can make in this post is that the strategy should vary depending on the location of the home, the number of bedrooms and the quality of the rental. In other words, there is no solution for all rentals. But if you are just getting started, learn by trial… and yes, error. Start with a low price and low cleaning fee for the market and raise them with reviews. Reputation is worth so much in this industry, earn yours first.
If you have a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment downtown Montreal, you likely want to offer 1-night rentals. Why? Well, you will have single occupancy and professionals more than you will families. Short stays in town for business need to be targeted as such.
Or let’s say you have a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home in NDG (outside of the centre). Well, you will have more families than anything else. What does this mean? Well families often Airbnb to save money and have more space per dollar spent. This means they will cook more and find your hidden towels and linen and use them all. No, not always. Pricing is black and white and so we must generalize.
Send me Pros charges based on the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, beds, length of stay, and additional options. Why charge for beds and bedrooms? If you aren’t new to short-term rentals, you already know that a bedroom takes little time to clean, but washing the bedding, towels, kitchen cloths, and making the bed takes longer. This is why we separate the two tasks. Don’t forget, if you have linen available (not under lock and key), you must consider it soiled with each stay. So if you have 1 guests staying, you are washing all your beds. We can personally speak for the need for this. When my family stayed in a 3 bed beach resort in Maine, we changed our baby on the two beds we didn’t sleep in. If it can be dirty, it is dirty!
Use the times and your cleaning company preferred hourly rate to determine your cleaning fee. But just remember, charge based on the market with any strategy above. You make a few bucks on from the cleaning fee with some stays and lose on others. Just make sure it balances once you establish your reputation.
Bedroom - 15 minutes each
Bathroom - 30 minutes each
Kitchen/Living/Dining Trio - 1 hour
Additional living space or office - 20 minutes
Bed - 15 minutes
Days of stay - 5 minutes each
"Party People" - 60 minutes (good reason to raise rates for New Year’s Eve). We have cleaned all kinds of things around this time of the year.
Well, we could go on all day. We are here to help. We will be posting regularly.