Minimum Stay Strategy - Worth it really? + Should Thu and Sun be part of 'Weekend'?

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I’m wondering if other hosts feel min stay is an ‘important’ setting, for listings that rarely get three night stays or more. For the majority of listings that have one or two night stays, do you set Min 2 nights for weekends? And how far out till you set it to drop back to only 1 night min? (I use 90 days myself).

I used to think it was best to only accept a Fri+Sat night booking, at least 90+ days out. Because I thought I didn’t want a one night booking to block the other weekend night. HOWEVER…

  • This never seems to be the case, I can always fill any spare weekend night with last minute bookings, and for roughly similar prices
  • I have a big house which takes a good four hours to professionally clean, so I charge $250 per booking as a cleaning fee. This has a margin for some profit over the cleaning invoices, so there is a ‘revenue’ opportunity to book 2x one night stays vs a 2 night stay. Double the bookings means double the ‘profit’ on the cleaning fee.

I accept more guest turnover might mean more wear and tear, however I see the reverse. Single night bookings are more often for events - they are out most of the day/evening. Where a whole weekend booking is more likely to ‘live there’, and use the house more. So profit from cleaning fee (or my management work to arrange cleaning schedules and supplies) isn’t being lost to more costs in guest turnover.

  • But also - I see it’s more likely I will get TWO two day bookings, splitting the weekend, or one two day and one single day. So if I forced the weekend to be strictly ‘Fri+Sat’ this prevents a Thu+Fri and a Sat+Sun booking combo for example.

So It works BETTER for me to have the weekend ‘Split’ across two bookings - which is totally NOT what I thought would be best before!!
This assumes you can easily get your cleaner then for a B2B on a Saturday, and also that they don’t charge a lot more for a Saturday clean though.

So I’ve set my ‘Weekend’ days to be = Thu+Fri+Sat+Sun for two night booking min, allowing more flexibility, and this seems to work. I also set 90 days out or less - it then automatically switches back to one night booking to fill any gaps.

What are your thoughts on Min stay? Do you make profit (or at least earned income) on your cleaning fees? Do you limit weekends to two nights min, and if so - is Thu & Sun counted in your ‘weekend’? Do you set to automatically reduce min night stay to gap fill in the last three months or something? What is working for you in your Min stay strategy?

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I seriously have to hijack this topic and ask how it could possibly work for guests to pay beyond $100 a night AND clean the place upon their arrival?

Is this some sort of niche market or fetish that some guests have??? I’m seriously asking.

It’s not just a one bedroom studio but an entire house. So what, “in most cases” the place is “fine as is” but it could be also “bad”? Then what? The guests would have to clean half a day to finally relax and wouldn’t even have the possibility to make a complaint to Airbnb because there was something still “dirty”?

I need to rethink my entire business approach after seeing your listing. I think I need to lay down now.

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Yes, I know. It certainly surprised me as well, and like you suggested, this was a total rethink of my whole business strategy. I just naively assumed nobody would want this, but there you go. There are other benefits as well - this booking is about the biggest I have ever got, and it’s under my Self-Clean Whole House listing. Oddly she could have booked it cheaper via Professional Clean as there is 7+ day discounts there (but not on my SC listing), AND the rates were high when booked too. Only close out dates is it cheaper.

I think it’s because Airbnb might show higher priced listings to guests who they think will pay. This lady is some artist exhibiting and maybe the algorithm shows my Self-Clean but hides the other listing as it maximises Airbnb’s revenue and it knows she can afford to pay. Either way it is just another example of how this approach really surprises me. It wasn’t even my idea lol… the guests kept pushing so one day I gave in and said ‘Are you sure? You really want to come 11am even though I haven’t cleaned?’ but they seemed delighted and it sort of became a thing. I never imagined it would take off so well though.

And in case you think this is photoshopped, I would welcome a call and I will screen share and show you live - in my Airbnb account that this is LITERALLY what she wrote lol - probably the highest paying guest so far. All I can say is GO FIGURE! lol $100 a night? She is paying nearly $6k and I don’t even have to arrange cleaning for her stay. So weird - so yes, I think your comment of ‘rethink business’ is the right phrase.

But ideally we should keep this post about Min Stay settings, else Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee will chime in here - arguing over the Rattle lol.

Do you use Min Stay restrictions yourself?

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Thank you very much for your answer. This is extremely interesting.

We have two small studios on-site where we live. One without kitchen, one with but they both serve basically only as “base camp” for tourist, family or workers who only require a good night rest and a solid bathroom as they are mostly out.

We have a 2 night/3 night minimum stay (no kitchen/kitchen). We would have loved to have longer stays for the studio with the kitchen and started off with a 1 week minimum which worked for the very first booking and then crickets.

The minimum night restriction is heavily determined by the location of the accommodation and the type of location. Who would want to book a one night stay on a private island or who would want to stay 2 months in a tiny studio with no kitchen doing teleworking?

We’ve gone through the same thinking process what could work best 2/3/4 day minimums but there is always ONE reason to argue against any of the decisions we took. We tried them all and our dream of having longer stays just was too much of a lottery game. Reducing it to 3 days was the best compromise, considering that we clean ourselves and I don’t want to do this every single day (with 2 studios) as we also have regular jobs. So it’s literally trial and error, which you have wonderfully mastered already I would say.

You must have hit a nerve with the type and location of your places that attract people that you actually target. Well done.

We’re getting the whole spectrum of mankind and surely not many guests would like to clean themselves upon arrival. Not to mention that our rates are way below $100 per night, so self cleaning would basically bring it down to a level where it’s not financially viable anymore.

We probably are located in an oversaturated area where 99% of the guests are not looking for luxurious, large spaces or big homes. Pretty much all the Airbnbs in our town and around are basic studios, very functional but not large or high-end. Given the kind of guests that come in this area, the guests do have high expectations even when booking apartments for $40-$50 a night. I have no clue how the owners manage to break even, not to mention make a profit.

Bear in mind that this is close to Basel, Switzerland on the French side where we have quite some traffic from the pharmaceutical industry and also lots of tourists (most coming from Eastern Europe).

I’ve read some of the reviews you got and you’re blessed to get so many mindful and “normal” guests with proper common sense and real life expectations. Based on our experience this is very rare to have such guests here. Maybe your (general) location is making a significant difference to what kind of guests pass by your place.

Best of luck to you.

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I’m currently studying an executive MBA, and we have been discussing limiting beliefs. I get you are in a saturated market - but my view is that you have two limiting beliefs here:

  • You can only pick ONE setting for minimum stay for your studios
  • You have to clean them for guests

My advice is to duplicate your listing as is, reduce the min stay by a day or maybe set to only one day. Then link it as a room to sync calendar with first listing, even if it’s a whole house type. Then figure out fresh linen tub and change the listing to Self-Clean On-Arrival. Make sure you handle guest access so it’s not a hassle. I personally leave my house open always so guests never need to worry about keys or codes, but that’s another story.

Then I recommend you price the new listing as $1 more than your current one.

Trust me, I’m confident will get booked, and earn at least $1 more per night while not needing to clean for that stay. You will have one more booking that you may not have otherwise due to your main listing having longer min stay requirements. Basically a win. Then you can see what margin you can support. I’m confident you can get bookings at a higher rate, but to maximise profit you may possibly offer slightly cheaper. Hard to know till you try out and gauge demand.

The limiting beliefs that you can’t list your same place twice is a key one to overcome. IT was a game changer for me. Airbnb algorithms will maximise booking revenue so in some cases you might get booked for the more expensive listing just because it’s more expensive (higher fees paid to Airbnb), similar to the screenshot example I posted.

There is no need to stress over what min stay setting you use - have two listings with two settings! You will increase revenue and get more bookings. You don’t need to make the second one Self-Clean specifically, but I’m guessing it would work better for you if the min stay was set to only one night or maybe 2.

Try it and see, I’m sure it will be a better solution to your min-stay setting dilemma.

Your welcome :sunglasses:

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Ah, this is an enlightening comment, It explains your cleaning strategy. I participated in many “what is holding us back from increasing income” exercises with a facilitator in my career with a major corporation.

It’s a good exercise to do, but it doesn’t do much good if you can’t get people to break the beliefs or somehow come up with ways to get past/around them.

And thank you - you reminded me to question my constraints on an aspect of our place that bothers some guests. I came up with an idea on how to address that. Now I just have to convince my DH that it’s a good idea!

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@Chris_Cooper Believe it or not, everyone’s priority in life is not making as much money as possible.

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Oddly yes, and it came as a surprise to me as much as anyone.
I think fetish might be a bit poor wording lol, but even niche? I can’t speak for all areas of course, but my experience is that it is quite a large volume of my bookings. Not at all half even, so it’s less common to have 2x back-to-back Self-Clean’s but occasionally yes. I tend to do a professional clean if there came three in a row - but certainly now over 200 stays and seemingly getting slightly stronger. The screenshot shows my largest revenue booking ever at nearly $6k and that is a Self-Clean… though to be fair, they only need to do it on day one of course! But it is even higher expense than my professional cleaned one.

Most interestingly though - see the emoticons of the guest.
Thanks so much not scared of self cleaning :slightly_smiling_face::broom: :sponge: :soap:

I’m pretty sure she booked my place BECAUSE of the Self-Cleaning. Like who would go find cleaning emoticons to send me, and mention cleaning. It’s not isolated, I get messages saying they ‘enjoy it’ and it’s cathartic and so on. I am a clean freak myself so enjoy cleaning and tidying, and my wife is the same. Our flat is minimalist and spotless AND we even get another cleaner in, though I think that is way OTT.

But yes, we like cleaning - and I am the one who will dust the top edge of the power outlets and whatnot. But I assumed nobody else would WANT to clean if they didn’t need to… however this is not the case at all. I have had CEO’s, Chairman, this lady is a respected artist - and I could not believe it, I have a booking in a few months with a CELEBRITY SINGER from USA. She didn’t need an early check-in, and was obviously wealthy - she won an Australian Idol competition and toured a lot internationally… and yet there she is talking about her booking and commenting that she found Self Cleaning ‘tempting’. So really, there is more than a niche there… some want early check-in, some the no cleaning fee, but some folk seem to just enjoy it and may even actively book because of it!!!

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And they are back! Some professional hosts offer more flexible options for guests, as it makes them happier - and certainly seems this way in review comments. Other hosts are far more restrictive, and limit guest options - they probably don’t even know what the guests may want as they would simply never dare ask - or would assume they know what their guests want.

I am fortunately enough to not need to host for income, my driver is far more guest happiness than money. The greater and closer connection with guests that book my flexible arrangements always seem to be far deeper and result in happier guest stays than the sometimes clinical stays where you barely get to speak to the guests.

I prefer to chat with them and find out more about their travel plans and life, and the options I offer naturally attract more interesting and robust guests. It never ceases to amaze me how pleased they are though with cleaning - some send me pictures as if they want a gold star lol, but I do give these in my review comments sometimes - literally! And they deserve them. So nice. It feels good to be able to make people so happy.

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Is that why you “profit” off the cleaning fee?

And BTW, making up deragatory names for other posters is so middle school mean girl. (and Trumpian)

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I am guessing you earn 100% of the profit of the cleans of your own room listing. You earn it. You work to clean, and you earn it. So that is a good thing.

Any margin above what is paid to the cleaner directly is still called ‘Earned income’ but is for my work. Having a five bedroom house, there is a lot more admin work to arrange cleaning schedules, supply runs and to manage laundry that might be left in machines drying, or guest lost property. This is all part of cleaning after a stay. There is no shame in getting paid for working, but if you would like to offer your host cleaning fees to charity, that might be nice - because not everyone is hosting to make money :wink:

I think you mean derogatory… but is this what you mean below?

I’m guessing as you are over 80 yrs, your mother likely isn’t around anymore, but if she was - would she really be happy to see you write such derogatory comments in a personal attack? I have to say it feels a bit like Baby Reindeer to have you as one of the most prolific posters on every one of my threads like a stalker, focussing on personal attacks instead of adding value to the hosting debate and just always there lol… It was a great show though - I loved it, just didn’t know I might be living it here though!

I am very open with my full name, my photo, my listings, my YT channel, because I believe in transparency and accountability in a professional hosting forum. Can you share your own listing so we know who you are? I am guessing you prefer to stay private though, under a fake profile name and no profile photo. You may only have a small Airbnb operation with a quiet room, but you have experience and good things to offer. Chasing me repeatedly through every post I make with derogatory comments is stalking behaviour, directly against the terms of the site - and is just spamming the forum and making it harder for other posters to get information about different ways operations are run, calendars are synced, cleaning arranged and so on.

Not sure about your political reference either lol I’m not eligible to vote and don’t even remember which party he’s with. Why would anyone care what politics a host is - it’s just more spam.

I see you have suggested I am a troll, yet I’m really only replying on my own posts. So I appreciate your enthusiasm and desire to be the ‘most prolific’ contributor on my threads - however can you see the irony of a fake name/photo/hidden listing poster calling out me for replying on my own thread? If you spent more time writing your own thread, and being positive - and not making every post a boring personal attack, there might be more productive debate here. I’d delete your personal attack posts if this was supported, but sadly not in this forum, and there isn’t active moderation here to address forum violators either.

So let’s go back to focusing on the Forum topics and hosting tips, and make this a good site, and not some weird internet cesspit of personal attacks. I’d welcome any positive and constructive comments you have, else perhaps you are not welcome on my threads and suggest you focus energy on helping hosts, not attacking them - presumably only because you don’t like how they arrange cleaning or something.

I’d be curious to know why though - you certainly are relentless lol… surely you have more positive things to do, or positive comments to make? Life is good. We don’t need to make it harder for others - and I am thinking more other users of this site. I have thick skin and type fast, so it is a bit annoying, but I guess it’s just the internet for you… there are all sorts on it. Now … back to work for me!

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In the spirit of the troll:

I think you mean “focusing,” not “focussing.” But hey, spelling corrections are the least of your contributions. You’ve added little more than personal attacks and name-calling to the conversation—classic troll behavior. And judging by your take on hosting (“I’m guessing you earn 100% of the profit from cleaning your own room”), it’s clear you don’t understand how the business actually works. Maybe sit this one out until you’re ready to speak with the adults.

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With any luck your friend might join us here as well, despite his claim that he is going to stop… it was too good to be true ha ha!

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Rolf, you have a fake name, no profile photo, and can I ask you to share your listing? Sigh… I get your enthusiasm to contribute, but the irony… just can’t stay away. Like ‘Muddy’ you seem keen to be the most prolific contributor of this site, albeit with just personal attacks.

Why bother? Why not be positive and stick to helping hosts instead of attacking them? Isn’t it embarrassing to show up like this with such personal attacks like clockwork on every post I make? - I guess not since you are hiding behind your keyboard… and I think there is a name for that actually…

Let’s keep this to professional hosts discussing hosting ideas and strategy - for mutual benefit. If you don’t like how someone hosts - you don’t need to attack them personally. It’s just spam surely?

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You guess wrong. I don’t charge a cleaning fee at all, and whether a cleaner gets paid, or the host cleans themselves and figures their cleaning time into their nightly rate or settings, that isn’t called “profit”. Profit is what one pockets after expenses, and cleaning, no matter who does it, is an expense.

Wrong again.

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Chris - be aware that for several years we have strongly advised our members to maintain standards of internet security. Kindly stop goading others.

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You’re clearly upset, but let’s be honest—this isn’t about hosting. It’s about your discomfort with dissent. You’ve mistaken critique for attack, and anonymity for irrelevance. That’s not how ideas evolve.

If you want mutual benefit, start by tolerating perspectives that challenge yours. I don’t need a profile photo or a public listing to recognize flawed logic or poor strategy. And if you find my presence so persistent, maybe ask why my comments keep surfacing—could be that they resonate more than you’d like.

Let’s keep this space for actual discourse, not ego preservation. If you want to talk hosting, I’m here. If you want to police tone while dodging substance, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

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Where did you “see” that? I said I didn’t think you were a troll, which you even quoted.

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So is your cleaning work done free? Or do you charge a nightly rate, and this is your income, and you are getting paid for the cleaning out of this? All the income is income. Nobody cares how the income is generated - you can wrap it up and call it what you want, but cleaning fees are rarely distributed 100% to the cleaner. Do you have any reason to care though - how an Airbnb makes its money? I don’t care how much you get paid for cleaning - so why care what other hosts earn. They offer a listing, they charge fees, they earn income. It’s all the same surely?

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Did you read what I wrote? Stop goading others.

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