How do you guys determine your cleaning FEE?

I wanted to know how you guys determine your cleaning fee, at the moment I rent out a 3 bedroom house and a 2 bedroom house and charge a $20 cleaning fee on each one of them.

My listing start of at $70/night and go up from there depending on weekend or # of guests

How much do you guys charge ?

I rent out a one bedroom apartment above my garage, it’s about 500sq.ft. and I charge a $20 cleaning fee.

If you’re paying someone to do your cleaning, you should charge whatever you’re paying them. If you do it yourself there are a few different pricing strategies based on what you want in a guest. If you want to encourage longer stays, having a high cleaning fee with a lower nightly rate will make a longer stay more affordable but a one night stay possibly unaffordable (or a huge perk!). A lower cleaning fee but higher nightly rate could net you the same amount of money but encourage shorter stays which means more work for you (I’ve had a lot of one night stays recently and think I will up my cleaning fee for the summer). A higher cleaning fee can also turn away bargain hunters by bringing your costs up just enough that they may look right past you.

Another question, is roughly where are you located? Even here in the midwest for having larger places and since you have 2 they’re probably not next door to you, you need to charge enough to be worth your time. I would pay yourself at least $10 an hour since this is active income. So having a larger cleaning fee with a slightly lower nightly rate (passive income) would be good. Also to consider including in your “cleaning” turnover fee are any fixed costs that you supply for each booking: snacks, liquor, flowers, costs of doing laundry, etc.

But especially since these are houses and you’ll probably have 3-4 people stay each time, that’s 3-4 loads of laundry, 4-5 hours of cleaning probably, travel time, etc. If it were me I’d do at least $40 on the smaller house and $50 on the larger one, more if you’re on a coast or a destination city.

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I don’t have a cleaning fee. I know it’s common in the US but to me (UK) it’s a sneaky add-on and should simply be included in the overall price. Why should anyone have to pay an additional cost to have a clean room/rental? A clean place should be part of the deal. And don’t bother with the “preparation fee” argument! The same logic applies. If you employ a cleaner, add the cost into the overall price, in my view. Cultural differences, I know !

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I agree for a private room rental. But whole places are a different beast and I think a cleaning fee is a way to keep from lots of 1 night stays. Even if I built it into my fee, I think people would zoom right past me in my market and not even notice I don’t charge a cleaning fee if they’re just searching without dates.

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I charge a cleaning fee. It works for me. Whenever I post how much it is, it causes certain members here to get their knickers in a twist. So I’m not disclosing it. But it is more than $50.

The average cleaner here in Hawaii charges $25 an hour. When I have to clean imy guest rental myself, it takes me a minimum of 3-4 hours. So you may do the math.

Guests know how much it is when they book. If they are put off by the fee, they may skip me. In general I like to think it brings me a better caliber guest. It usually does but not always.

I will always charge a cleaning fee. Cleaning the house in prep for guests takes work. I need to be paid for my work.

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I currently don’t have a cleaning fee either. This probably leads to me getting more one night bookings than other hosts, but I try to sell every single night if I can. So i figure my cleaning fee is baked in.

I’m also a live-in host, just for reference.

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I have a cleaning lady and a laundry service because I am new and she cleaned the property before I bought it. I also live far from the property and do not enjoy cleaning. As I offer one complimentary cleaning per week for stays longer than 7 days, I charge a cleaning fee that includes the initial cleaning (deep cleaning) and the intermediate cleaning (light cleaning) since most stays are between 7 and 14 days long.

My fee is around the same as 1-night, but the property is big.
I am starting to take over the whole business around the house and I have no problem in washing linens and towels. However, I won’t travel 2 hours to pick up dirty stuff to save 15 USD on a laundry service. If I am in town, I’ll stop by to collect the dirty laundry.

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Agree. Whole place rentals are a different ball game and I don’t baulk at paying a cleaning fee for such rentals, it’s pretty standard in Europe. But a private room in a home? No, sorry!

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I do the preparation myself (480 sq. ft. whole apartment) and charge $50. This can take up to 5 hours (if you factor in the laundry time, shopping for supplies etc.) so I’m working for $10 per hour which is pathetic.

As others have said, charge what it costs you or charge an hourly rate for yourself.

We charge roughly double that for a one bedroom apartment. We have back to back booking most of the time (sometimes one-nighters) so the fee definitely doesn’t deter bookings.

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You’re right. I would never work for such a pathetic hourly rate if it wasn’t for the fact that it keeps me fit without having to pay for gym membership. :slight_smile:

I know how much our laundry costs are because our complex has a coin operated washer and dryer. I know how much a tub of Oxyclean costs and how many turnovers I get from each tub.

Oh and our queen bedspreads fit into our washer and dryer just fine. :wink:

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For us ever so humble gawd-bless-us/how can we possibly do it home-share people renting out a spare room (imagine!), the cleaning fee is indeed a bonus for one-nighters as it is for whole rentals. But I still think it sucks. Think about it - cleaning is 95% of the whole business, no? Actually it’s more like 99%. Why make it an extra charge???

How is private room rental different? I am still required to have my entire home clean for guest minus bedrooms that are private and have a courtyard and driveway to clean too. Bigger area than many hosts’ studios or small apartments. I’m struggling to see the logic but happy to hear your views.

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My cleaners charge me $80 and my spa guy is $70 a month, so I charge $100 fee which seems to be average low end for the area. .

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Yes, why is a private room different? Between every guest (even one nighters) I have between three and six loads of laundry. I move all the furniture to the middle of the guest room and vacuum. I wipe down every surface with Clorox. I dust all the furniture. At least once a week, I deep clean the bathroom. I spend a couple of hours a week baking muffins and granola and culturing yogurt for my guests’ breakfast.

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The more I think about it, having a private room is MUCH more cleaning. I have to constantly empty the bins, bathroom every day and keep the kitchen and common areas spotless-99% of mess is guests own. This is at least 30mims of my day that hosts with whole house rentals don’t need to do. Maybe I should double my fee or make it a weekly fee he he!

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EllenN. Wow you sure go above and beyond for your guests breakfast, :slight_smile:

And how much do you charge for your cleaning fee ?

I charge $15.00 per stay.

We charge around $60AUD. We determined it by looking at our competition.

We have a one bedroom apartment.

We have a 3 bed / 2 bath house in Northern NJ, within the NYC metro area. Whenever I’ve had to hire a cleaning service, they’ve charged $200-250 (and that’s after shopping around) for about 5-6 hours of work not including laundry, and not factoring in the expected tip.

We are relatively new, so we charge a fraction of that and ask our guests to leave the place tidy. We do the turn over ourselves for the most part, depending on the number of guests, it can take between 3-6 hours (not including laundry). We have a note on the fridge telling our guests that without their help, we would have to triple our cleaning fee. So far the results have been amazing! And no one has complained.

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Definitely agree that cleaning is constant when you’re renting a room.

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