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As @RiverRock mentioned, Airbnb is advertising an average nightly rate that includes all of your fees. I stopped charging a cleaning fee in June and raised my nightly rates. Here is what a sample fee estimate looks like on my listing:
Here is listing w/ the cleaning fee:
I would compare your area. I have my cleaning fee at 199. But between the cleaner and the hot tub person, it still doesnât cover it! But I needed to stay within the market for my area based on size of home.
Curious as to how you arrive at the fixed cost model? Assuming you only clean during turnovers the nightly rate has nothing to do with costs that only happen once during their stay. A fixed cost by definition stays the same from month to month (or whatever time period youâre using) but my cleaning costs can vary from $35 to well over $1k per month.
For me it is an average. I know how long it takes/should take to clean my cabins and I know what my cleaners charge. I do not care if they are here two nights or 10. I make more money on longer stays and that is fine by me.
I base my price on a 2 night stay which is my minimum right now, and is the average .
RR
@washbnb I arrived at my room rate without cleaning fee by figuring out how long it took me to do the turnover cleaning and then decided what the minimum number of nights would be to make that worthwhile. I have a 3 night minimum (which suits my area- it isnât the sort of town guests are just passing through- they come here on vacation) and 2 week maximum and my average stay is a week-10 days. If I found I was only getting 3 night bookings consistently, I might raise the nightly fee, but even spread out over 3 nights, the cleaning time comes to about a half hour per night.
Yes, true. Good point.
Muddy are you by any chance looking for a cleaner for your home?
I am new to this area and I have cleaner homes and offices for over 25years .
Youâre new to what area, Tammie?
Your area I am sure⌠The internet is a big place.
there is a very simple way to work out cleaning its called an industry award.
currently under investigation airbnb hosts are predominantly engaging in sham contracting paying below award rates for cleaning labor. under fixed price agreements or thinking there safe using a subcontractor
im sure you have heard many hosts say how hard it is to find a good cleaning company and that they pay $20-$25 or even $30 per hour for a cleaning contractor
if this is the case then they are below award rates an example green clean currently in the federal court facing 100k in fines for underpaying/sham contracting
if you employ someone as a casual employee the minimum rate per hour for cleaning junior level 1 is $26.18 per hour plus 10% super , and Workcover costs to protect you if they injured themselves
straight away your costs are now over $33-$35 per hour in raw costs to employ a casual junior cleaner
a cleaner with 2 plus years experience would be a level 3 and would be well above $30 per hour plus super and benefits
can you see how your massively breaking the law and not by just a few cents
at $30 per hour plus gst plus super plus insurances your well above $37.50 per hour
Hosts are slowly finding out the hard way as I said above as even hiring a person under ABN if a majority of what they provide is there own personal cleaning labour then you are still liable to insure that you do not pay less then what they would ordinarily get under the award this is called sham contracting. after reviewing the award and contacting professional cleaning companies I discovered that the minimum rate per hour for a professional cleaner should be no less then $42.80 per hour if your paying less then be prepared for farework to come knocking at some point especially this year the ato going over airbnb host books
and you will pay back your savings in massive fines or worse
Its easy as a host to get stuck looking at numbers of competing properties and try and cost cut where you can all I can say is post what your property is worth post what your cleaning fees are and those undercutting will get caught out and drop off pretty quickly
hope this helps with " calculations "
disclosure . these rates are approx I believe they have increased by a few cents since in QLD
but every state is different
Quite the rant. And also a presumption that all hosts are based in the US.
well there is quite the discussion on this topic not sure why as each host needs to or should be looking into there legal obligations it seems strange to have such a discussion on how much to formulate to pay peoples wages when almost every country has minimum wage obligations
and my " rant" is for in relation to qld Australia
where a lot in this discussion appear to be engaging in sham contracting
I am based in Northern NSW in Australia.
This is an international form where the wage / pay structures will differ dramatically the world over. I donât understand why you put up such a detailed explanation when it means absolutely nothing to anyone outside Oz.
I know that when we had international students in the big Aussie cities, they were cleaning for $10 an hour. I have 4 retired ladies on my team who work just for me for some extra cash and I pay above the award.
Not understanding what point you are trying to make apart from a professional cleaner is expensive�
Where I live, the federal minimum wage is the equivalent of about $4US/day!
In my area, cleaners, etc, get paid far more than that- more like $5/hr. That is what I pay my cleaner and it is considered a good wage. (Iâve never had her do my Airbnb room/bath- I do that myself. She cleans the rest of my house for 4 hours once every 2 weeks)
I also pay her the mandated Xmas bonus and vacation pay.
iâve been cleaning airbnbâs for over 2 years. my boss charges a flat rate of about 100+ for the places we clean but sometimes weâre in and out in 20 minutes and sheâs only gotta pay $15 out of the 100 she made. iâve cleaned a 4bd 2.5 bath in 2 hours. the issue with cleaners is, they get paid low so they milk it. the reason it takes 6 hours to clean a 5-6br is because even for that time frame theyâre only making 120. think about a car detailing service, they can charge you 150+ for a job that takes 30-45 minutes. pluming costs a ton, even pest control i pay 150 just so i donât get spiders for a job that takes less than an hour. the jobs they do arenât as labor intensive as a cleaner. iâve cleaned 11 houses in 5 hours with 1 other girl. youâre BEAT up at the end of it. so my philosophy is charge more and bullshit less. my first client was so impressed with me and one of my girls he gave me an extra $50 just because he saw that we werenât milking him for money. i donât wanna work for 6 hours on a job i can do in 2 but since i have experience and iâm good i donât want to eat the money other cleaners wouldnât be eating. $60 an hour, takes 2 hours boom done. however i have my girls go and clean and charge $120, you may think wow thatâs ridiculous, but in truth youâre saving money because i could send 1 girl in, she could be ditsing around and be there for 3 hours which would end up costing you about 180. if i send 2 girls itâll be done in an hour. working with someone makes you work faster, it doesnât feel as daunting and youâre matching each otherâs pace. cleaners in my area charge a lot or they charge a little itâs really who you find. iâll eat 15 minutes at that point. it also depends on location, if my girls have to travel 30min there and back i still need to compensate to some degree so iâll charge more.
