Including the cleaning fee in your rate

1

i have been thinking of eliminating my cleaning fee and just raising my rate, have nay of you found success in that as far as more bookings for maybe have done it in reverse such as lowering your rate and raising the cleaning fee ???

2

The issue I find is unless you have a minimum of 5 nights or more raising the rates is actually making less money with more work then keeping a cleaning fee per stay. It takes just the same amount of time, cleaning materials etc for a 1 night stay vs a 5 night stay.

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3

I added a cleaning fee and it didn’t decrease bookings. The CSR guy here who worked for AirBnB said their stats show additional fees don’t put people off once they start booking so if price is what your guests decide on load as much of it into the cleaning fee as seems reasonable.

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4

  1. I don’t think the guests (not 100 percent sure) pay a service fee on the cleaning fee.

  2. The one-day turnover are cleaned by me and I like the extra money I get.

  3. I raised my cleaning fee this season and I’m still nearly fully booked.

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5

I think it depends where you are based. I get the impression, for example, that in the USA ‘extras’ as kind of expected or tolerated. However in the UK extras are really not, we like to pay the price we see as a rule. There is a perception that added on compulsory extras like cleaning fees are seen a bit like price gouging.
(I am based in the UK and don’t charge a cleaning fee)

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6

[Incorrect quote edited out]

What is the current purpose of the cleaning fee and what is your goal by eliminating it?

If the fee is actually to pay your cleaners, then you may find that building it into the nightly rate doesn’t always work out in your favor. I.e. if your cleaners charge a fixed price of $100, and you have a bunch of back-to-back 1-night bookings, then the money that you previously collected per booking to pay the cleaners now must come from the per-night rate and I doubt you are planning to raise the per-night rate by the amount of your cleaning fee.

If your current fee exists to discourage shorter stays/encourage longer stays, then building it into the nightly rate may end up doing the opposite since 1- and 2-day reservations will likely become less expensive.

If your current fee is simply a way to increase your income, then eliminating it may do the opposite since removing could increase the number of 1- and 2-day reservations.

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7

As we can see from the answers above, every host is different. We have always had a cleaning fee, so I can’t compare it with having none, but we are more or less fully booked all the time. So it certainly doesn’t put people off.

I know that many hosts will disagree (!) but guests aren’t stupid. They know that no matter where you stay - posh hotel, lowly motel, hostel, STR - they are paying for cleaning somewhere along the line even if it is included in the price.

So much depends on your location and your price point. Our cleaning fee is $100 (I do the cleaning) and a chunk of that goes on ‘extras’ that other hosts don’t necessarily supply. (Fresh flowers and so on.) Guests looking for the cheapest possible accommodation would never choose us anyway so increasing the cleaning fee and reducing the nightly fee wouldn’t be an option. Doing things the other way around probably wouldn’t either as it’s not really possible to increase our occupancy rate anyway.

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8

I don’t understand your question I am sorry. My choice to not charge a cleaning fee is pretty much based on my own preference for clarity in my rental charges in that, with the exception of AirBNB’s service charge, what people intially see as my room rate is what they will pay.

I don’t employ cleaners, I let 4 rooms of my house and I do all the cleaning & washing myself - I am semi retired & have plenty of spare time to do this. If I am getting £xx per night and it maybe costs £5 in cleaning materials etc to clean/wash a room then even with 1 night bookings I am still clearing £xx - £5 per day per room for a bit of work washing sheets etc I am more than happy with.

9

OK, the goal is simply to make pricing more straightforward for potential guests, but that means your end goal is more reservations and/or better ratings. Right?

However, what you’re saying is that you don’t really know why you currently have a cleaning fee. It has always been optional, so why did you add one in the first place? I’m guessing it was just because you followed what hosts of other similar listings were doing, and that’s as good of a reason as any. It’s also probably the best reason to re-evaluate it now.

Doing the cleaning yourself makes things a lot simpler because the main things you need to think about are how much to in increase your price and how that will affect your income and time spent cleaning. Basically, increasing your price too little might make 1-day stays more attractive which could decrease your income and increase your workload. Increasing your price too much might make long stays much less attractive unless you also change your discount for long stays, etc.

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10

Not really, I have never charged a cleaning fee and from the very start made the decision to minimise “extras” my customers get charged as I am aware that here in the UK “extras” being charged is not really looked upon favourably. I didn’t follow any hosts.

You are assuming a lot, quite incorrectly, including that I am asking for advice when I was in fact giving it. You do realise I am not the creator of this thread don’t you?

11

Oops, I see the confusion is that my previous post quoted yours and that wasn’t my intention. Not sure what happened there. I edited it again.

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12

I did. Then I didn’t. Then I did again. I reduced or stabilized my rates for more volume. And built cleaning back in. It encourages longer stays.

Fee or no fee, guests targeted price first. The fee is negligible.