How much is your cleaning fee?

We started our listing in October of 2019 and I immediately included a $50 cleaning fee. My husband and I are doing the cleaning and between the two of us, with the laundry, it takes us 2-2.5 hours to clean the 2 bedroom house properly. It’s the laundry that takes the longest, plus I’m paying for cleaning supplies and laundry detergent. As I was cleaning today, I was wondering if I am charging enough. If I had to pay someone to clean, it would cost me a lot more than $50. Do most people charge a cleaning fee, and if so how much?

We bury most of our cleaning fee in the daily rate. We do charge a nominal cleaning fee that varies as I vary room pricing, but it’s always $20 or less.

We have in the past charged a higher cleaning fee, but people complained about it. With most of it buried in our daily rate, they don’t ever comment about it.

If we had a professional clean for each room change, the fee would be more like $50 and would probably take one person 2 to 2.5 hours.

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I don’t have cleaning fee. The only advantage I see in a cleaning fee is making a longer stay slightly cheaper per day. If someone doesn’t like one night bookings it’s an easy way to make them more expensive and thus discourage them.

My nightly rate is set at a number I think makes me competitive and basically covers my extra costs incurred by running an Airbnb and pays me to clean the room. It’s not a model that will work for everyone but it’s working well for me.

Our cleaning fee is currently at $100 which I think is pretty reasonable for a 1/1 small apartment. It takes me about 4 hours per turnover.

The preparation fee (as I prefer to call it :slight_smile: ) includes fresh flowers, bottle of wine, snacks for guests on arrival, bottled water, breakfast for the first morning and so on.

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I have a three bedroom and two bathroom whole house rental and I charge a cleaning fee of $125. The min. stay is five nights. It takes the two of us about 4 hours to clean since we also clean the BBQ grill, patio table, and firepit. I bring the laundry home and do it during the week at my leisure. I think you’re under charging. What is everyone else in your area charging?

I charge $79, but pay $120 for a 3 bed/1.5 bath 1850 sq ft home.

I have 3 rooms with a share bath, and my cleaning fee is $45, since that’s what the best cleaner in my town charges when she turns AirBnB rooms. My first year, I had to use her about 6 times, but last summer I was able to schedule tours to allow time to turn rooms between the morning and afternoon tours. I’m keeping the rate at $45 in case I ever have to call Lola!

Check what your competition charges. Also what it would cost to outsource the cleaning.

I currently charge $100 for a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom whole-home listing. We average about 7 hours to clean it.

My wife and I clean it ourselves and can’t do it in the typical 4-hour turnover window, so I have configured a 1-day preparation time. I plan to set the cleaning fee to the equivalent of one night at my base rate since that is the real cost to me, but I haven’t done it yet and probably won’t until after the corona virus situation is behind us.

I don’t charge a cleaning fee. Most of our local competitors do, and most of them who do charge significantly less per night. We are among the ones who factor it into the nightly rate, and set a 2- to 4-night minimum.

I tend to believe that guests are smart enough to see what their real costs are so don’t feel the need to play games with my nightly rate; and I have zero interest in 1-night bookings. If I could require a 4-night min., full stop, I would. But I would miss out on too much business. We are a weekender destination and I am happy to be able to let people who only have a couple of days to spare have a great place to stay until I can get there full time myself.

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We list a 1 room detached Cabana; takes about 2 hours to turn around, tops. We charge $20 cleaning fee. We will never book a small place (1 BR or cabin) with a $50 or more cleaning fee.

If you feel you have to charge large fees, raise your nightly rate instead.

Laundry takes a long time to do? Go buy second sets of linens; then do laundry at your leisure instead of under time pressure.

Large cleaning fees look like those folks on Ebay who charge $50 shipping for a $20 used item – they’re making it look like the item is cheap, just to move it…

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$40 for our one bed/one bath apartment. It’s about mid-range for places in our area. A professional would charge $50-$60, plus it covers supplies and snacks, etc., so it seems fair.

I got rid of my cleaning fee after negative feedback from guests who said they hated “all those fees from hosts and AirBnB!!!” I explained cleaning process, but then decided to try raising my prices and dropping the cleaning fee. Suddenly I had more bookings than before and guests who stated right up front that they look for places without cleaning fees.

In-home host here and my listing is a private room and bath. Took 2 - 2.5 hours to turn around before I got 3 sets of everything so I could do cleaning and setup then worry about laundering everything in hot water.

Same here, private room/bath and I’ve never charged a cleaning fee at all. What I did when I first listed was decide to have a 3 night minimum (this doesn’t lose me bookings, it’s not a location where people book for just one night anyway, most of my guests book 5 days-2 weeks) so my cleaning time would be spread out over at least 3 days. It takes me about an hour and a half to clean the space, so spread out over 3 days, (and usually quite a bit more), it works out to a half hour per day at the most.
I know guests don’t like to see separate cleaning fees, although if it’s an entire house rental that accomodates a large number of guests, I think guests are more accepting of it. I would be certainly be inclined to charge a cleaning fee if I was hosting a place that took several hours to clean.
One thing I definitely know guests hate is when they have paid a cleaning fee, yet are asked to do things like strip the beds and start a wash, take all the garbage out to the dumpster, rather than simply being asked to leave it clean and tidy.
It would sure even the playing field and be more transparent for guests if all hosts were required to build the cleaning fee into their nightly pricing or show it separately, one or the other.

I don’t want my guests to strip beds or take out the trash. I’d rather “glove up” and take care of it myself.

I think so, too, but guests can be funny that way.

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My son-in-law travels a lot on business and uses Airbnbs often. He told me he really resents paying a cleaning fee AND being asked to do things like that. He’s not someone who would leave a place a mess, or a pile of dirty dishes, he’s just basically using the place to sleep, bath, maybe eat some take-out food and have coffee, and prepare for a meeting or do some online work. Being expected to strip the bed and start a wash, traipse out to the dumpster with his little bag of garbage from one or two nights, when he’s rushing off to a meeting or to catch a flight is understandably not appreciated. And he told me that these expectations are often not stated in the listing description or house rules, or he would pass on them- he is only made aware of these requests when he arrives at the listing and there is a note to that effect, or finds it in the house manual.

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We charge 45$ and have many 1 nighters. We do not ask our guests to do any cleaning except we do expect them to do the dishes, by hand, and they are usually done. Takes me about 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

I recently raised my rates and baked my cleaning fees and some upgrade expenses therein. My husband tells me that it’s psychological. When he’s shopping for a place, he always feels better about the ones with no added fees, even if they are a bit higher. I ask very little of my guests upon their departure, although a 2700 sq. ft. place with 10 or more beds can be quite time consuming & costly to clean. I could never charge what it actually costs me.

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Hey community!
I was wondering if anyone had any leads on reliable cleaners in Catania. The only cleaning company found is charging me a fortune (about 90Eur) just to clean a 1 bedroom maisonette in between bookings.
Any contacts or leads you may pass on would be greatly appreciated.

Questions regarding very specific areas are not likely to get you relevant responses here. You’d be better off asking on a more local hosting site, if you can find one.

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