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I understood @aelilya’s post to mean that it’s a punishment type fee, not the standard extra person fee.
When I rented a place in Boston @$800 per night, he charged $50 per night for any extra guests over the 6 included in the base rate, with a max of 9 guests
@ChristineAZ I rent a 1530 sq ft 4/2. I could sleep 10 if I wanted & have even had a limit of 8 before but I find “mo’ people, mo’ problems” in a whole house rental, especially with the septic (too much laundry and stress on the system). So 6 it is.
Yes, @KKC is correct. It’s a deterrent/consequence for going over my capacity. I used to have a base rate that was for 4 persons & $30/night per additional up to 6 (& then the $100 deterrent kicked in). But people were always sneaking folks so I recently priced for 6. So it’s easier to deal w/
last minute extra people (& it’s on them if they don’t have all the supplies they need) No cleaning fee. I’ve incorporated that in the daily rate now. I did it because I relaxed my cancellation policy & added a 10% discount for waiving cancellation rights.
@aelilya It’s really hard to be fair. It doesn’t seem right to have an elderly couple using only 1 bedroom pay the same as 6 people and I feel that with that pricing, I’ll get only big groups.
And, when guests compare to the competition pricing for 2 people and then extra, your place looks a lot more expensive.
This is a good example:
“When I rented a place in Boston @$800 per night, he charged $50 per night for any extra guests over the 6 included in the base rate, with a max of 9 guests”
VERY pricey for that couple with practically no wear and tear, no parties, no damage (most of the times).
I guess I like the variety of guests and it almost seems like “free” money after some of my one or two person rentals.
I’m guessing that you have all the bookings you want, since that also makes you not competitive with the competition charging a separate cleaning fee.
And that would make me stress over a potentially bad review or no review.
You need to find your lane and stay in it. Don’t try to be all things to all people. When I went to Boston I was booking for a trip with 7 of my friends so divided up it’s quite cheap to rent a mansion. LOL. For a trip with one friend I wouldn’t even look at that property.
I have a small suite for one or two. The few times someone contacts me with 3 or 4 wanting to bring an air mattress or whatever, I lose no sleep whatsoever saying no. My place isn’t set up for them and I don’t want them. My favorite booking is a solo traveler with dog who is going across the country. So I make my place pet friendly with a reasonable fee, add a second person charge and set my max stay at just a few nights, sometimes max stay is set at one.
@ChristineAZ Yeah, to make a listing like mine profitable I need a min as well as a max. That min was the price I’d picked (fluctuated with the market) for 4 people (or less). But a house my size attracts larger groups & so the 4 person pricing, even with just $30/person for extras per night, was leaving me open to “cheapskates” wanting to sneak. Plus, people do have a choice…they don’t have to book with me. I’ve had a couple, one time, because they wanted an entire home on private property w/ little chance of neighbor/people interaction because of covid. They were willing to pay the (at the time) 4 person price to get what they wanted. Anyhow, upping to a 6 person & adding in cleaning is an experiment I’m doing to see if it positively impacts the quality of guest I attract. So far I am undecided. I do have a lower base price & a separate cleaning fee on VRBO as part of my experiment. So we will see. So far the VRBO guests have been quality.
@ChristineAZ If/when people look at the total (listed there with the daily price), they often see I am cheaper than hosts that add on a cleaning fee. As I said, it’s an experiment but so far it hasn’t hurt me, best I can tell. The Covid resurgence is impacting bookings for many so I cannot say 100%.
I can’t be a doormat for everyone looking for a free stay or giving no thought to how they treat my home. I have to respectfully enforce my rules for my protection. I have let the “bad review” stress control me in the past (esp. when I first started hosting), but that just sucks the joy out of it for me, to feel taken advantage of/helpless. I try to be kind, flexible where/when possible, yet also firm. This time I even offered the offending guest a discount on the overage although they clearly were aware of what they’d done (thanked me for bringing it to their attention; give me a break) because it was in the rules they agreed to and in bold in the last “checkin instructions” message I’d sent w/ their access code. I feel like I was accommodating yet fair, gave them an incentive to be good to my home, and I still will thank them kindly for their stay and will review them honestly. They are free to do the same to me. I don’t feel I did anything offensive with my policy (that they agreed to) or how I enforced it. They are going to review me how they review me…I’ve no control at this point so I am good…having a restful weekend 
Why would you stress over no review?
I really think hosts should stop stressing over bad reviews, too ( easy for me to say since I’ve luckily never gotten one, but still…). But for hosts who have hundreds of great reviews, why stress about what some jerky guest might write? It’s usually obvious that it’s an outier, and I give guests more credit than them believing every review they read.
I work so damn hard, I take it personal. Not to mention that reviews are everything. I buy a lot and realize that there are many fake reviews and sellers paying for reviews, but rarely order something that doesn’t have at least a 4.5 rating with hopefully thousands of reviews. Given a choice, I order the product with the better reviews.
Renting a house is a little different from buying ink, and I’d likely read many of the actual reviews before booking for several nights.
I had guests with dogs in spring and I thought for sure I’d get a great review, they were there for a week and it seemed like all was good. Then I got 4 stars and I almost contacted her to find out why. It bothered me that much.
A few weeks later they wanted to book directly. I asked why I got only 4 stars and she wrote that no house is perfect. I told her to keep looking for a perfect house, didn’t want to rent to them.
And then made the house NO pets. As if it was the dogs’ fault.
I work too damn hard. I do all the cleaning myself. I strive for perfection.
If I’d hire a cleaner there’d be NO money for me. So yes, it matters a lot. And aside from the Airbnb countless problems, not having to worry about reviews is a major reason for starting my own site and giving regulars a hell of a deal.
I’m not sure how it currently works, but it also used to be bad to get no reviews. Not sure if Airbnb or VRBO. I think you need a certain # of reviews for superhost.
I didn’t have ANY Airbnb bookings till recently since 2019. And very new on VRBO.
I doubt that many guests actually do that. Was shocked to realize that guests still booked with the $250 cleaning fee.
Please update with the results of the experiment.
I have a 3/2, and I used to be very poor (got an inheritance last winter, not poor now and love it). I’m 60 miles from the nearest town.
I have NO booking till next Feb.
Most of us here strive for perfection and I think that mostly, we achieve it. When you’re in an area of high competition you have to aim for creating the best possible stay for your guests.
Only then are you going to get repeat guests, referrals and build up your business (and avoid OTA fees )
Try to look positively about the cleaning. I do all the cleaning for two rentals and our own apartment, I have an onsite job and plenty of freelance work. Yes, it’s hard to balance it all but we don’t have to pay to go to the gym and we’re active in mind and in body.
If the cleaning is really too much for you then there’s nothing wrong with hiring and training a cleaner and then putting your prices up.
But see, that’s exactly my point. It’s the bottom line total that makes the decision. They don’t care (at least I don’t) if it goes to cleaning or the stay…and I sometimes suspect the higher the cleaning fee the more sloppy they decide they can be. I have friends who use AirBnBs, think I’ll give them an ask when I get a chance. Besides, if people cancel I lose the cleaning fee and I need the funds, especially if they are leaving me hanging like that (causing me to take a loss).
I really noticed how much work it is after I didn’t have any guests for a few months last winter. I was hurting for days the first time I did a full cleaning again.
And I do a lot of work in my garden / greenhouse, but it’s different movements.
I just got a lead on a reliable cleaner, but now I have no bookings. It is foolish not to have a backup and now that I don’t NEED every penny, I should pay a cleaner for the actual cleaning and I can focus on organizing and fixing stuff.
Like anyone else, I could trip and break a hip or get run over by a bus … Really need someone to call on who is trained and does a good job.
I have not noticed that. However, I would think that someone paying a $250 cleaning fee could easily be upset over the tiniest little issue.
I also host volunteers at my place and it’s very hard to get them to clean up after themselves with crap laying around everywhere.
For closure…my wayward guest left a lovely 5 star review and after a gentle reminder about 2 hours after checkout, paid my funds request. The home was left in good order minus some makeup stained white towels (I have black wash clothes & brand name makeup remover 
) & sheets but 99% survived. I didn’t give the guest 5 stars (maybe 4.25) but I would host them again & I hope they learned a good lesson that’ll benefit my fellow hosts.