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And youâre right that I see it more as an amenities fee (or preparation fee) than a cleaning fee. But thatâs what Airbnb chooses to call it - I wish they didnât because it can give guests the idea that the fee is to clean up after them.Also, I find that the wine is used in about 50% of cases but nevertheless guests appreciate âthe thoughtâ.
To be honest, I do these things to try to get a wow factor (I donât mention them in the listing) because our apartment is a bit scruffy round the edges in an area where there are many places that are much nicer.
Another reason is that I suspect - maybe incorrectly - that hosts who accept one night stays get a slight leg-up in searches. So I advertise one night stays, possibly get only three or four a year, but the âcleaning feeâ often deters people from short stays. It surprises me that we get one nighters but the âcleaning feeâ is only one quarter or one third of the nightly fee depending on the season.
Sorry I must have mis-read, Zandra. The âmaking one-night-stays payâ is a reasonable justification for the cleaning fee, although I think it should be called something else. Why donât you incorporate the laundering costs into the overall price? Iâm not trying to be argumentative here, honestly, but if itâs not an off-set for short stays then why?
Aagh, but again - why charge extra for something that can be incorporated into the overall price?? You can still deliver the wow factor by not declaring any of the extras in the listing and so the guest is pleasantly surprised.
I just donât get it, I suppose. I surrender!
Guests seem to be more sensitive to the overall price than they are to the cleaning fee. I had one regular guest recommend to me that I reduce my price to $40.00 per night and add cable television. No guest has ever complained about my $15.00 per stay cleaning fee.
Itâs an attempt on my part to be fair to each guest and charge them only for the related costs. The charge is a fixed amount that I incur whether a guest stays one day or 5 (my max). I could increase the price by ÂŁ5 per night but then the person staying 2 nights didnât pay enough to launder the sheets and the guest stating 5 nights overpaid. I actually mostly get 3 night stays so arguably I would need to increase the price by ÂŁ7.50 a night, which again would penalise the guest staying longer and the guest staying less than 3 nights gets it underpriced.
For me the fairest way is to just attach the related cost to each booking. That way a guest is paying no more or less than they need to.
My beef is with the extra person charge, which I donât really understand because it makes no difference to me if one person is in the bedroom or two. So I charge a flat rate and donât charge more for an extra person. I understand most hosts do charge for an additional person and for me thatâs more of a sneaky charge than a cleaning fee. You wonât, however, hear me trying to convince hosts to incorporate extra person fees into their base rate.
The costs are very transparent on the Airbnb website; if you donât want to pay them itâs pretty easy to find a listing that doesnât charge them.
I rent a private bedroom in my apartment and I charge a cleaning fee of $15. And I do it for exact same reasons as @Zandra - I want to cover my laundry costs per booking and I want to be fair to both short and longer term guests. I personally think this also brings more transparency to the nightly rate. This has not deterred one-night stays in my case. In fact, about a third of my guests have been one-nighters.
@Gandyv8
"I wanted to know how you guys determine your cleaning feeâŚHow much do you guys charge?"
For my one bdrm full unit rental, the housecleaner set her fee at $100+tax and that is what I charge the guest. It takes her 3 full hours to clean and prep and she requires a 4-hr. window between guests. I credit her greatly for my 5-star rating and (new) S/Host status.
For my three bdrm lakefront rental (which I no longer rent out), I determined the fee by researching the Craigslist ads for independent cleaners and cleaning services. There are those who specialize in rental turnovers, as opposed to general housecleaning, so they were my focus.
The usual fee in my area for rental turnovers was $150+ so that was what I went with. I tried both a cleaning service (3-person crew) and a solo cleaner. Neither performed to my satisfaction so after two summers, I took my rental off the market.
If I were doing the cleaning myself for a whole-unit rental, I would still charge a cleaning fee that was close to the market rate. The guest does not know, and does not have to know, who does the cleaning. All they have to know is there is a cleaner who is paid to prep their accommodation.
Yes, I feel the same way. Our rental apartment has one bedroom and it has a queen sized bed. I sometimes get people who are on their own booking but itâs usually couples. Like you @Zandra I think itâs a bit of a sneaky charge.
In my case, thereâs one bed and I have to do the same laundry whether one person or two people sleep in it. Same with towels - Iâve had couples stay here for a week and use only one towel each and single people who have used all the towels I supplied in just one day. Swings and roundabouts.
In my humble opinion, hosts should consider cleaning fees and second guest fees as simply an opportunity to maximize revenue which at the end of the day is how we need to measure performance.
Here is what I would consider a best practice;
Nightly Rate â establish the right rate and then use a pricing engine (e.g., Beyond Pricing) to maximize nightly revenue
Cleaning Fee â drive revenue on short stays. Also helps offset Beyond Pricing downward adjustment to base rate for unsold inventory within the coming week. On long stays, cleaning fee has limited impact on overall nightly cost but is a nice revenue source for hosts
Additional Guest Fee â guests have a propensity to think of nightly rate on a per guest basis. Additional guest fees play to a hosts advantage. If I am traveling solo â $100 a night maybe my limit but the same room for my wife and I at $120 is $60 a person and therefore better value
But @Magwitch, HOW do you incorporate it into the overall price?
Again, if it costs me $70 for a cleaner, and the guest stays one night, what do you suggest is the per-night price?
And if that cleaning cost remains but the guest stays a week, what do you suggest is the per night price to absorb that cleaning cost?
And since we canât know how long a guest stays⌠then what do you suggest is the accurate overall price that includes the cleaning fee, that is fair to the guest staying one night and the one staying a week plus?
I think that it may depend on the host and his/her style. We rarely have one nighters but I find that the apartment needs almost as much cleaning and definitely as much laundry than people who stay for two weeks. In fact, people who have stayed longer usually do a better cleanup job than short stays.
Because we have so few guests that stay for just one night (and it is expensive when everything is taken into consideration) then it seems that the fee deters shorter stays which is fine by me.
Oh I agree with what youâre saying regarding the workload for short and long term renters. Iâm just trying to highlight to Magwitch that while it sounds good to say, âmy nightly price reflects the cleaning feeâ itâs really hard to do, practically speaking. This is why Iâm interested to know how she accomplishes this given the dilemma of coming up with a fair price for short, medium, and long term stays.
The reason I charge extra per person (over 2 people) is when there is more people I have to convert the sofa to a bed, have extra laundry, supply more food, have more cleaning, and extra utilities. Since you simply canât take more than 2 people in your space the only reason for you to charge extra is to actually deter 2 people unless itâs worth your time/energy.
What is frustrating to me is when itâs only 2 people but then they want the extra bed set up too, lol. It all washes I guess. But for me, 3+ guests actually do cause more work and cost more (laundry, time, air mattress possibly set up, rearranging furniture, more food and towels and utilities, etc). Mine is $8/person max of 4 people. There was one place I looked at that was $20/person for some rustic cabin with tons of bunkbeds. I get that thereâs extra laundry, but they were packing 6-8 people into a room in a large hunting cabin. I guess if it was a group of hunters splitting the price it makes sense for them, but it seemed a little exorbitant for what they were actually offering.
Hi @Sarah_Warren is this a room youâre talking about or a whole property? Because I was referring to a room listing, with the assumption itâs one bed in the room and one set of sheets on the bed whether itâs one person or two people on the bed.
And yes, Iâve seen many room listings for up to 2 in London that charge after 1 person.
I have a second person charge of $10. Why? First, two people use more utilities and amenities. Double the flushes, showers, towels, shampoo, soap, toilet paper. Second, I find single travelers to be cleaner and quieter. Iâve only had one stained bed sheet with a single traveler and that was tattoo ink. Couples sometimes leave me with extra laundry chores. OTOH I donât have a cleaning fee and with my 2nd person charge Iâm in the same range as most of my competition. Itâs more of a single person discount than the second person charge.
