Airhostuser – I could incorporate the cost of cleaning into a nightly rate but this would reward short 1-2 night bookings (which I don’t even want) and penalize those guests who are booking a week or more by overcharging them. If my cleaning fee deters a guest who balks at the cleaning rate because she’s only booking 1-2 nights, that’s exactly how my cleaning fee is intended to work. Most of my bookings are for 5-10 nights (hopefully for this very reason!) and all I get are rave reviews about how clean the apt is – I’ve never had a single complaint about a cleaning fee.
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It has lasted for over eight years. Many other businesses haven’t.
Being patronising is not likely to help you.
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I don’t know where you came from but you and your sound argument can go take a hike! A hike to where there are no cleaning fees AND butlers. 
I don’t need any marketing courses. I have successfully had my rental going for about 7 years and about 6.5 on Air. This is not a hotel. This is not an all inclusive resort. I charge under $100 a night for a place by the beach in Hawaii. With all the amenities. My guests LOVE it and not one has complained about the cleaning fee. If you think that’s easy to find in a hotel or resort here, I beg you to try.
What’s the difference between me charging $150 a night or $99 and a cleaning fee?
And yes, you have landed at a host forum. I guess you aren’t so smart after all.
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I think if you’re just offering a bedroom in your home, then a cleaning fee over $10 or so is ridiculous. But I and many of the hosts on this forum offer whole places. Not just a bedroom. We spend hours cleaning not only linens and a bathroom, but we have kitchens, living and dining areas, etc that are solely for the guest’s use. It would be ridiculous to rent a whole place for just one night. We want people to stay at the minimum a weekend but preferably in the 4-5 day range.
The cleaning fee deters one-night stays which is what we want because there’s a lot of work involved in turnovers. But if someone wants to stay one night and pay the fee, great! But we’re doing the same amount of work for 1 or 5 night stays (as long as they aren’t messy). What I hate in many ways are the 2+ week stays where I have so much more cleaning to do because I haven’t been in there cleaning twice a week and they got the discount for a longer stay. I wish I could charge them a double cleaning fee since it’s easily twice the work…
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Can’t you just reduce your weekly discount to compensate?
I have. It was a learning experience 
I charge $15.00 cleaning fee and I rent my spare bedroom. I don’t understand why it is ridiculous. I believe that the argument that hosts who rent whole houses use is that you have to clean your own house anyway. That argument doesn’t hold water. I have to wash all the bed linens and towels the guests have used for every turnover. I move all the furniture in the guest room to the middle of the floor, vacuum, wipe down the windowsills, electric outlets and switchplates, dust all of the furniture, pictures and every surface that the guests might have touched. I have to completely scour the bathroom. This takes me between three and five hours. Also, I have to keep the rest of my house much cleaner than I would have to if it were just my family living here. There is also the time needed to bake muffins and granola and make yogurt for the guests’ breakfasts.
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I rent out a bed in my living room and I still charge a cleaning fee, which is hardly anything ($6) but I feel justified in doing so–especially since I allow them to use my washer/dryer free of charge. It’s a way to let the guest see a separate price for just the accommodation, which is sort of a gimmick but it looks official and professional 
Thanks for sticking up for us “non whole house” hosts who charge a cleaning fee, which I also feel we are justified in doing because it involves materials and labor specific to site maintenance.
I just have a bed in the living room and I still go through much the same cleaning routines you do Sarah. I can’t just clean the one corner and then leave the rest “iffy”.
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What I meant @EllenN and @J_Wang is that with whole house places you tend to not get one night places, so anything more than $10 or so a night just seems a way to appear to have a lower price and in reality jack your place up. Whereas a whole house rental tends to be a longer stretch and a turnover is a bigger deal.
Of course you have to keep your whole place cleaner than you would if you weren’t renting out a room, but you can clean here and there as needed other than the room. Of course a bigger or elaborate room is going to have more work too. But a room is easier to absorb the cost of cleaning into the rate.
While a whole house rental, we only have the turnover time to do the whole place. It’s literally having to stop everything on a turnover day and get the whole job, so you either have to hire it out or clear your calendar to do it then.
I didn’t mean to negate your cleaning or anything, it was just simply saying (badly I’ll admit) that it’s a different kind of rental. If I was searching a bedroom I’d be turned off by a high cleaning fee, but it would be normal in a whole house because turnover time is just different because of the differing natures.
We also have to clear our calendar or pay a cleaning service. I can’t deep clean the bathroom when guests are here as it can’t be used while it’s being cleaned. I can’t vacuum because guests don’t like noise. I can’t mop the kitchen floor because the kitchen can’t be used until it’s dry. I can’t take apart the range to clean it because the guests might need to heat something. I don’t even enter the guest bedroom while a guest is here. Also, I get plenty of longer stays than one night stands as we call them. The only real difference I can discern is that we can clean after the guests as they mess the common areas.
Exactly. This is what TripAdvisor has to say about common tipping practices in the USA:
$1-2/bag for skycaps, bellhops, doormen, and parking valets if they handle bags, $2-5 per night for housekeeper, $5-10 for concierge (only if they arranged tickets or reservations)
Hosts often perform all those functions and more. If guests stay in our rental for two weeks, for example, their cleaning fee is equivalent to just over $3 per day. For this they get my services changing the bed and providing fresh towels mid-stay. They can ask for extra towels and bedlinen at any time, even if they are just staying for a few nights. They also have fresh flowers in the apartment, wine, bottled water, plenty of luxurious toiletries, good quality coffee, a bowl of fresh fruit and other services that hotels simply don’t supply.
Just like hotels, I am their ‘concierge’ who is on call from ten in the morning until seven in the evening, seven days a week, to answer their questions, recommend places for them to go, give them a pint of milk or whatever so they don’t have to go to the store, supply them with free-to-use beach equipment etc.
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I get ya Also, my fee is a one time charge tacked on to the total number of days.
Even if we didn’t do all these extras, we still earn our cleaning fees.
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We earn our cleaning fees and deserve every penny we earn. So many people don’t realise how much work goes into being an Airbnb host. It’s not for the faint hearted
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We also deserve something for being nervous about making sure they are happy for almost the entire time they are here… even if the stay is going well!
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While you might not be alone, your perspective is naïve.
The “Cleaning Fee” is misnamed. It should be called something else, because most of us (with any brains) use it not for cleaning costs but for fixed costs. These include the costs of cleaning but are certainly not the whole amount.
Whether you stay for a day or a week there are certain costs exactly the same to me. They are the time I spend for your booking including marketing, maintaining my account and listings, and chatting to you before you book; the cost of your key pickup arrangement (as we don’t meet in person); the cost of the welcome breakfast I leave for your first day; the wear and tear on sheets, towels, mops; the cleaning supplies; the costs of phone calls to you, texts, computer, internet access; and so it goes on.
Thus my cleaning fee is very carefully calculated and is based on my fixed costs for an average stay of 3 nights. This means if you book a week you get a better rate. If you book a single night, then you pay more, which you should, because three guests staying one night each costs me more than one guest staying three does.
And by the way, if you think hotels don’t operate this way you’re wrong. Their nightly rates fluctuate constantly depending on how you book, how long you book, and the current vacancy rate, and you can bet that they have ways to collect on fixed costs - including things like late checkout fees, early checkin, minibars… all carefully considered knowing that guests are likely to use them only once 
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I would prefer it to be called the ‘preparation fee’.
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No problem. Don’t stay with my and pay my $15.00 cleaning fee. Stay at a motel instead where you will be charged for parking, WiFi, food, any drinks except for coffee, printing, use of a washing machine, etc.
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Or turnover fee. …
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