Did you notice Airbnb rises fees?

My 20 USD room was showing for guests for 22 USD last month, and now is 24USD

Was that an obvious “AirBNb Fee” increase, or just the fact that your per night charges can differ from time to time due to local/regional holidays, extended weekends, etc.???

i use flat rate of 20 usd, so definitely airbnb fees for guests or the way it is calculated

Yup, 20% now for lower cost bookings, my place is 3 times your price and 17% commission

We just had a back and forth about this on another thread. I just sent someone a special offer yesterday for $72 and the fee the guest pays would be $10 or 13.9%.

I have also seen this promotion on several listings…they are offering “half off” the service fees for selected dates. I’ve seen it on two different listings. They are clearly testing to see how fees impact bookings. That 17% is probably temporary.

50%20off

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Since Airbnb is experimenting with fees we can expect a new thread every few days

@KKC @KenH @HumptyDumpty @Gabriela_Mitaj @Petramol

So I think hosts should be very active criticizing Airbnb actions because:

  1. If guests pays higher amount they will have higher expectations from the HOSTS
  2. It will be not competitive with other platforms like booking.com 15%, agoda homes 15%, flipkey, home away etc. So in a while properties which post there will take over the market. It is even more disappointing when you remember each case how you decided to lose money just to get a good review on airbnb
  3. Airbnb didnt notify anyone about experimenting on us which is insolent
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Host price Guest pays Airbnb service fee Airbnb guest fee Airbnb host fee Total airbnb surcharge
$10 $12 $2 20.0% 3% 23.0%
$11 $13 $2 18.2% 3% 21.2%
$12 $14 $2 16.7% 3% 19.7%
$13 $15 $2 15.4% 3% 18.4%
$14 $16 $2 14.3% 3% 17.3%
$15 $17 $2 13.3% 3% 16.3%
$16 $19 $3 18.8% 3% 21.8%
$17 $21 $4 23.5% 3% 26.5%
$18 $22 $4 22.2% 3% 25.2%
$19 $23 $4 21.1% 3% 24.1%
$20 $24 $4 20.0% 3% 23.0%
$21 $25 $4 19.0% 3% 22.0%
$22 $26 $4 18.2% 3% 21.2%
$23 $27 $4 17.4% 3% 20.4%
$24 $29 $5 20.8% 3% 23.8%
$25 $30 $5 20.0% 3% 23.0%
$26 $31 $5 19.2% 3% 22.2%
$27 $32 $5 18.5% 3% 21.5%
$28 $33 $5 17.9% 3% 20.9%
$29 $34 $5 17.2% 3% 20.2%
$30 $35 $5 16.7% 3% 19.7%
$1,101 $1,191 $90 8.2% 3% 11.2%
$406 $436 $30 7.4% 3% 10.4%
$951 $1,026 $75 7.9% 3% 10.9%

Hi Ivan,

I totally agree - there’s a big issue with lack of transparency/consistency by Airbnb and others. I don’t know why they don’t just set a fixed system… so that we can understand what it means to do business with them.

Is this your own rental data?
Also, is it displayed chronologically OR with most recent at the top?
If it’s no hassle, I’d be curious to see the dates.

I did find this new company Bedloom.com who is claiming to eliminate all guest fees. I emailed them yesterday and while they’re still pretty small, they said they are already open to some closed groups. Looks very interesting! I’m on the waitlist.

Thanks for sharing,

  • Alex

I hope you’re right! Would love some transparency from Airbnb on this.

@AlexW
I looked at BedLoom.com. The site is definitely under development with filler text for formatting. It will be interesting to see how this “no fee” will work.

The Airbnb fees for my price point combined with the required taxes is making it difficult to stay price competitive. I signed up to receive additional information. We will see if something good happens or if they are just collecting email addresses.

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I took a look at Bedloom website as well. I would be interested only if it had the choice of no instant booking.
Also I can’t help but see “Bedlum” when I look at their business name! Or is that just me because my life sometimes just seems that way?

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@AlexW @Annet3176 @YerTiz @KKC @KenH @HumptyDumpty @Gabriela_Mitaj @Petramol

Guys i got 3 new website with zero commission invitation per week, non of them have any chance to survive and develop (rip roomorama) because you need a billion dollar budget on google ads promotions which no of new sites have
airbnb was able to do that because they started like a closed community of a few nice people and then transformed to a greedy corporation

the only websites which can make a competition to airbnb now are: booking.com, agoda homes, flipkey and homeaway

however airbnb customers base is broad and the other websites is narrow

the problem is if airbnb rises fees for GUESTS most of hosts dont care AT ALL (“Ah guests pay that anyway”) even they should scream and shout and coup against it and post it on twitter and every social media

guest will have higher expectations with higher prices mean it will make hosts either lower the prices or add unnecessary expenses - result airbnb makes more money - hosts less

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I recognize our calendar! :heart_eyes: One side note that could possibly explain the discount on our listing? (maybe) What preceded it was two quests, maybe three, made and then cancelled a reservation for that night in rapid succession. I was a bit put off on the cancellations of course attributed it to the "HEY, CANCEL FREE (I. E. BOOK NOW AND DON’T WORRY) changes that were made – the whole window of time they added. I wondered if this was an algorithmic response – you know too many cancellations and the platform automatically adds the discount. Our listing is in a tiny town…not much traffic so I can’t see why we’ve even rank as a place to test anything.

@Ivan_Joorevic I hear ya. Don’t you think you might be being a little cynic though? If I understand you correctly, you seem to agree that hosts should be upset, however you don’t believe that they’ll ever notice (or understand) how they are being cut out of their own business profits. Is that right?

Nobody can guarantee Bedloom will be a long-term success (I haven’t even tried it yet)… but don’t you think we should support them - at least give Airbnb some competition? If they are trying to return more of the profit back to hosts and guests I vote Bedloom.com for mayor of the new share economy.

@AlexW there are barely 3 people of millions airbnb hosts discussing fees now

of course it makes me feel upset

about all small new websites with lower commissions - you cant build a small grocery store next to the wallmart and be profitable (examples google plus tries to compete with facebook, vine tries to compete with instagram etc and those projects had budgets)

the fact is airbnb is monopoly and the only way to fight them is to create something similar to labor union for hosts and private arbitration court for customer support decisions
but this is only my dream

@Ivan_Joorevic, I think you are right to some extent - it wouldn’t be easy for an underdog given the current landscape. I believe that the real discussion is about how regulation will come into play. The share economy is such a new model still, it’s taking gov’t (local and national) some time to figure out who to defend. In this case it’s a legacy hotel system vs renters and property owners. I’m not giving up though. Going to try out Bedloom for now and see what else can be done.

Could you actually share any other “no fee” or “low fee” options you’ve seen? I’m not seeing much out there. Thanks!!

Bedloom is doomed because their name sounds too much like bedlam and no one likes bedlam. LOL>

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agoda homes and booking.com are the lowest option fee
agoda provide payments, booking.com only in some countries

@Ivan_Joorevic
From a purely business analyst perspective, you are correct the little guys don’t stand a chance.

10 years ago, VRBO/Homeaway were the big guys and paid little to no attention to a homesharing service. After all who would want to stay in a stranger’s extra bedroom?

Yes, more start ups fail than make it but when they do, they can change the way that industry does business.

I joined Airbnb years ago because I wanted my property to appeal to people who like working with the property owner. VRBO was overflowing with properties.

I like the idea of my unit being one of hundreds vs. thousands. I’m curious who will be the next “shake up” and I’ll probably kick myself for not creating the concept first.

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