Let's Talk About Airbnb Cleaning Fees
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2023
- Airbnb is under fire for their cleaning fees. Guests are putting the platform, and its hosts, on blast for charging what they believe to be unreasonable additional fees.
Potential guests are demanding more transparency for what the total booking cost will be, fewer fees and many are returning to staying at hotels instead of short term rentals.
Is that really how the majority of people feel? Or is this just another media play where the loudest objectors are getting the most attention? And if it is really causing guests to look at hotels first instead of short term rentals, should we as hosts be listening and consider getting rid of cleaning fees all together? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!
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Thank you for your complete honesty and transparency. I will also be completely honest. Cleaning fees as a separate line item are a gimmick that should never, ever have existed. Even hotels (where they actually clean your room during your stay) do not charge you a separate cleaning fee. All of the owner's costs are built into the daily rate, as it should be. AirBNB should never have allowed hosts to trick their potential guests into thinking they found a good deal only to later realize they were duped. And to pour even more salt on the wound, now many hosts expect their guests to clean after themselves despite charging them hundreds of dollars in cleaning fees. This is just bonkers, mad, insane, absurd. One last thing: I would encourage you to see this issue of cleaning fees more from the perspective of improving your guests' experience and less from the perspective of "let's see if this increases our occupation rates." If you're going to get rid of cleaning fees on your properties to ease your guests' frustration, do so where it really matters, and that's on short stays.
I agree. Showing a low price and then adding unreasonable cleaning fees is pure deception.
I was planning on Airbnb weekend until I saw the cleaning fees cost more than the stay. Booked a motel instead.
i stopped using airbnb for good whenever i travel, its more expensive and the fees almost make up half of what you pay BUT they still expect you to clean up after yourself. In hotel im treated with service and complementry stuff and no request to clean at all.
whats not fair is that a lot of airbnb owners charge a high cleaning fee but pay their cleaners crumbs
Cleaners are an integral piece of the business and should absolutely be compensated fairly
You are right because I am a professional cleaner and I am licensed, bonded and insured. I went through this app to find hosts and I told one of my clients that I don't get the whole fee (which is low in my opinion and other research that I've done) after the app takes their fee out and he refuses to meet me halfway I have my own company which I can provide an invoice and he can pay through the invoice but he refuses so I'm going to cancel our contract and just work with the other hosts that do not mind paying me what I am worth 😒
@@kyleeandstevenI have my own cleaning fee of $90 for small studio. It’s a lot of work. 2-3 hours cleaning. Treating towels and bedding. Washing laundry. Another 2 hours! It’s a lot of work trying to have everything be Pristine and keep the 5 star up. It’s a lot of work and worry!
$150.00 for a cleaning fee if I am only staying for two days? How is this fair? We won't be staying at any AIRBNB anymore after the last one.
Get charged a cleaning fee and then they ask that YOU clean before you leave or you get a bad review.
Nah, eff that. I'll stay at hotels from here on out.
@@billbombshiggy9254same. I use hotels now. I’ll never use that again. Plus I know what I’m getting with a hotel…and they’ll have a gym and won’t ask me to clean while charging a fee.
Another big factor to consider is the new Airbnb algorithm. I have heard a
the new algorithm favors no cleaning fee. I have 2 properties in Magnificent Mammoth Lakes and I recently started an A/B test. The no cleaning fee property did see a jump in bookings, but it's still too early to say this is due to the algorithm change I mentioned.
I'm looking forward to your findings.
It's extra profit grab. Cleaning fee but do it yourself or on the cheap
You two provide such good information and are so down to earth. 😊
🔥 I’m with you on this Stephanie! This was a great video!
P.S. If you have any other questions about starting & growing your Airbnb business lmk.
I saw the total price option also on Airbnb option. Can’t wait to see your experiment results! I’m here for it! Great content btw ❤
🔥 I’m with you on this monica! This was a great video!
P.S. If you have any other questions about starting & growing your Airbnb business lmk.
You two i like the way you put across information
🔥 I’m with you on this Keba! This was a great video!
P.S. If you have any other questions about starting & growing your Airbnb business lmk.
Appreciate your videos!
🔥 I’m with you on this Varonica! This was a great video!
P.S. If you have any other questions about starting & growing your Airbnb business lmk.
Great topic y’all. I’ve got two similar properties in a Texas vacation town and might do an micro A/B test myself (due two after adding a pool this winter to one we’ve had one closed since October for this). I will say, bookings were pretty slow for awhile in The beginning of winter, but after I got my pricing dialed in to about $200/night, even with a $250 cleaning fee we ran the table in January and February. So long story short, one way or another, I think guests are just searching for best value. Oh and it’s ridiculous that online sometimes people compare a hotel room to and 4 BR home with a private heated pool and then bitch at the cleaning fee. Not the same thing.
Would u pay 250$ a cleaning fee if there were hotels out there that do the cleaning for free and have way more stuff than u think u do ? 😂😂 cause hotels have everything u mentioned and then some 😂 😂 a scam is a scam cleaning ppl be charging only 90$ these days 😂
Any followup on how the "include the cleaning fee in the nightly rate" experiments went?
Great video and thank you for being so transparent - you help me with our STVR more than anyone else on TH-cam. The struggle I have with including the cleaning fee in our nightly rate is how do we do that exactly? If it costs $150 to clean a property - what happens if we have a 2-night stay versus a 7-night stay? I love the idea of simplifying it all, and we do not treat cleaning fees as a profit center, but I have not been able to figure out that varying night stay aspect of the cleaning fee dilemma. Great video, look forward to the A/B comparison intel you gather. Thank you. Cheers from Wisconsin.
Ooh good point on the 2 night stay vs 7 night stay. 😮
I’m in the same boat on how to make a 2 night rate work by dropping the cleaning fee.
Same on how to make a shorter term stay cleaning fee work just by adjusting the price. I have found people can mess up a property just as bad on a 2 night stay as a 7+ night stay. So I never agreed with charging less for a shorter stay as it usually takes the same amount of work to reset.
@@seasidesc2684 Yeah I find longer term guests to always be cleaner than someone that stays just 2 nights. Regardless it's basically the same exact cleaning and laundry whether it's a 2 night stay or a 7 day stay. Not sure who came up with this at Airbnb but I can't understand their logic to it.
Either change your minimum stay to 4 nights or adjust the cleaning fee into the 2 night stay. For the 7 nights you just run a weekly book discount
We are about to list our first Airbnb. I will be cleaning the house myself before and after every guest because we live so close, so our cleaning fee will only be around $75.00. That will help me with supplies, gas, and restocking. I’m not concerned with being paid because our nightly rate will be $25 a night higher than our competitors because it’s a brand new house. Do I have that backwards? I feel like when we travel and stay at airbnbs the cleaning fee frustrates me the most. We get charged $250 but have to clean the entire house before we leave. I swore I wouldn’t do that to our guests.
I've got 3 properties, 1 has no cleaning fee and I haven't noticed a boost for that listing. Granted it's different to the other 2 so it's hard to compare. The others I've gone to the 2 tier system with a $1 fee for a short stay (you have to put in $1 to activate that feature) and a higher rate for longer stays.
It is work and has to be done if the guest stays for a night or a week.
Hi, thank you for your videos. We are new to Airbnb and as soon as we posted our property in May, it was booked through November with medium term rentals. My question is whether hosts offer cleaning during the guest stay. For example, we have a 3 month stay and I’m considering having to cleaning crew go in every couple of weeks and clean to make sure the property is maintained. How do you handle cleaning for longer stays? Thanks so much!
I am new in the short term rental world and this is one thing I've been contemplating. Should I charge for cleaning or not and if I don't charge how do I fold that into the price without having a track record yet to base it on. Any ideas?
the host that keeps the cleaning fee will suffer greatly on their bookings , the flat rate is the way to go also thats what airbnb wants and they will put no fees host in the front search , some host are just crazy charging $150,175 for cleaning fees for 2 or 3 days rentals
Exactly ppl mostly stay for 2-3 days and they be tryna get ppl for a weeks worth a cleaning 🧼 in the bill playing 😂😂😂 cleaning services don’t charge that much unless they’re cleaning an entire building 😂 ,houses are the cheapest thing they’ll clean bc houses are quick whoever said it’s a lot of work didn’t grow up having chores n it shows 😂 cleaning companies be charging only 90$ for a house to clean it and they be tryna get 250$ for less than a week stay yea okay😂
It makes no sense to increase the nightly rate instead of cleaning fee. I dont think you should pay a larger cleaning fee by staying longer. It should be a flat fee
Any results from these tests?
Where I am in the countryside in England it is very hard to get a cleaning fee! I think in Britain, as well as Europe, there is still such a divide economically that there are largely only two extremes. People either expect to pay 1,000's for a palace with a famous name or 10's for a humble abode (regardless of actual quality). So many people begrudge a cleaning fee (or expect a nominal one) and also expect to pay modest, if not cheap, prices - even for relatively high to very high-quality accommodation for the price.
I do think it depends on the country and the culture of spending - not just the type of property or buisness model. I don't think it is same in America?? Or maybe it is more based on region in America.
I was charging £35 (about $44 USD / 40€) for 5 years for my 2 bedroom cottage. Of course this doesn't nearly cover the cleaning cost. While not perfect (landscaping is non-existent and the exterior of the house needs attention), the property is well above average in terms of decor, area, amenities amount of space and personal service. However, a good number of guests still expect much more.
A few months ago I finally raised my cleaning fee to a whopping £50. This still doesn't cover the 6 hours it takes to clean the cottage, but I doubt I'd ever get many bookings raising it to the real charge.
I also recently raised my nightly rate on the 2 bedroom house to match 1 bedroom at the nearest nice hotel and stopped giving such high discounts. I did this partly to account for the lunatic rises in electricity and mortgage rate increases (14 rises last year). However, it was also partly to put off the 'El Cheapos' coming with their unfair expectations... Four stars on a booking a few months ago after running around delivering extra kitchen utensils on an already overstocked kitchen and babying them as usual; alas I wasn't able to provide egg cups (yes seriously).
As for this "race to the bottom": I don't understand how many of the properties in the UK charge the low fees, as well as no cleaning fee that they do - even for basic accommodation. I guess if the host is retired, has no mortage and enjoys high occupancy because they are offering low-low prices, it works out. Something I have noticed and found curious is the US hosts who complain about what I am complaining about are commanding much higher numbers in both cleaning and nightly prices. Perhaps this is due to unseen costs like taxes.
After 5 years, I finally realised there is just no point in trying to compete with the hosts undercharging or guests who would happily stay in a shed, as long as it is cheaper than anyone else. (These are the ones who cannot tell the differences on high-low service and furnishings and don't care if you've spent extra time mopping the floors and sanitizing everything between every guest - or at least don't expect to pay for that.)
The culture of spending and average disposable income is very different in America. As for the UK, my experience has been - unless one is in that elite ranking of properties - the cheaper you make a place (even at much better quality than average) it tends to attract bargain hunters who expect hosts are in the game as a free public service or hobby.
Of course, this isn't everyone... I am lovely my guests, I have a unique property and really go the extra mile to make them happy, so 80% of my guests ARE appreciative and lovely in return. But I've honestly found an uncomfortable percentage of British guests have a tendency to not be appreciative and compare properties of vastly different quality and quantity of space/bedrooms just on the price alone.
At a guess, 10% have been impossible to please. This really gets me down, because I do take it so seriously. Perhaps that's just because it means a lot to me and I have historically pandered to overly demanding guests. Perhaps they missed the line in my listing about there not being any landscaping??
For any frustrated British hosts reading: Something else I've started doing, which has helped me greatly, is breaking down what guests are getting, in addition to explaining how crucial the Airbnb review system is to us. (Many people here view giving 5 stars means that there needs to be valet parking and a penthouse or sprawling country estate). I do this in a friendly and gentle (but direct) message with a specific like-for-like comparison to other hotels and high-profile boutique hotels: number of bedrooms/qty space, amenities, service, etc for the prices... I also have stopped taking nonsense from the 'guests' with impossible demands - a whole nother story.
Hows the test going?
I’m considering absorbing cleaning into the nightly rate. I’ve heard the AirBNB algorithm will out your listing higher in search results.
Hi, I'm new to you & recently subscribed. Do you have a FULL-PROOF TV/TV REMOTE suggestion?? I have 2 properties with 5 TVs. I have no cable, no DVD but tons of streaming services.
Whats the best TV & TV remote to use that is the most SIMPLE to use AND to have a backup remote in case one disappears? Ideally, the replacement remote works instantly with NO setup.
I use LG - very intuitive and simple to use, all the apps I download ahead of time so they're easy to find when you hit the home key on the remote. You can also set up LG channels which give the guest a bunch of free on demand tv channels. Personally its the simplest I've found but you've got to have reliable internet. Cable seemed like a waste of money plus having to turn the cable box on, and then the TV and have 2 remotes has ALWAYS been annoying to me. having a smart TV take care of it is great.
I am maintaining the cleaning fee for my property because (1) It costs me the same to clean the place if a guest stays 4 nights (min.) or 30 nights (max.). (2) I want to encourage longer bookings where the cleaning cost is more cost effective to the guests than including it in the nightly price. (3) Adding a cleaning fee is only way to reflect this cost in a transparent and equitable manner. (4) I only clean my place once at the end of the guests' stay, while hotels typically clean rooms every day and therefore can easily include the cleaning fee into the nightly price. (5) If potential guests take umbrage to the cleaning fee, they choose to pay more at a hotel, but the groups that come to my place have a more cost effective stay per person along with the intimacy of a private home.
Nobody should trash a place. HOWEVER, cleaning should be part cost of running an air bnb. Pushing that fee onto the renter seems like a get out of jail free card for the air bnb owner
It's always going to be pushed on to the renter, in some way. It's an expense, and expenses get calculated into our rates so that we aren't losing money on a stay. It's just a matter of if that fee is line item'd into the nightly rate or not. Some guests like the transparency of the line-items, others don't.
I have built my cleaning fee into my nightly rate. Be interested to see how your experiment goes.
🔥 I’m with you on this Rosanna! This was a great video!
P.S. If you have any other questions about starting & growing your Airbnb business lmk.
Looked at two houses near each other , one is nearly 3 times as expensive correctly so, but the service fee is also 3 times as much. Airbnb say its to run the platform and provide 24 hr service. So can the same service be so different in value?
That is such a good point! It’s giving income taxes 😅
I think we should keep cleaning fees. the guest is rated on their cleaning when they leave. Pretty much if they are messy but more than anything if its a bigger place more time is required to pick and and sanitize.
Look at car rental companies. Talk about add-on fees and taxes. Yet, travelers still book. In my market, the average hourly fee for a cleaner is $30! It takes 3 cleaners working 4-hours to perform one Out Clean--and that's on a good day. And that doesn't include the dump run or recycling that I must pay a Handyman to handle. Long story short, I'm keeping my Cleaning Fee as a separate line item.
Yea bc it’s a car and you’re about to have it for more than a few days 😂😂
Air BnB is getting pretty pricey it's really too bad. I understand hosts needing to make money and charging what they need to but please don't insult my intelligence by showing $130/night for two nights and the final price actually being $440 after cleaning fees and the AirBnb service fee added! I don't know if it's the economy and inflation, or greed increasing among AirBnb and its' hosts. I do notice you can click a button to show the total prices up front, but I think that small deception up front is what rubs me the wrong way. It's one thing for one hotel or person be a little misleading, but my concern is AirBnb is kind of sucking anyone involved in it into their system. All these social media and business websites have good to them, but the temptation to just fall in line with the bad parts of them all is unfortunately very high I think.
As a follow up, I'd rather a host/Air Bnb just be honest and increase their nightly rate including the cleaning fee in it so I know up front what is going to be the final cost. I'm sure there is more to it all with cleaning fees, but be honest, stop playing games with people, tell them the price up front (I'm not saying this is all on the hosts, maybe Air Bnb needs to really change the way things are displayed).
Yep. I'd never do Airbnb again. It's hotels for me. It's cheaper and they don't charge me to clean the place and then ask me to clean before I leave.
Also it's you mofos that have caused the housing issue. Nobody can find affordable long term rentals because assholes like y'all bought up houses to turn them into short term rentals.
So thank you for pushing me and my husband into living with his parents because there was nothing in the area that were doing long term rentals and buying homes is entirely too expensive.
Thanks a bunch! Enjoy airbnbust, peeps. I'm not the only one happy it's all crashing down.
I completely agree. These people are taking away affordable housing from the locals, and making a business out of it. They don't care-- it's all about money. It's different when someone rents a part of their home to help pay bills. But these people who go around buying up properties just to rent them out for high profit disgust me.
Not really. I've just bought a property that has been empty for 10 years. Needs a new roof and complete refurb. It had been seen by several locals and no-one made an offer. It's in a tourist area so i'm starting airbnb, if that doesn't work it will be a reasonably priced rental for local. Either way it's a win for the town. Tourists spending or a house that is fully occupied all year. I wasn't ahead of a queue in any way. I did negociate a sizeable discount which anyone could have done.
@@equisader you just said it needs a new roof and shit.
Translation: I'll fix everything and make it a tourist trap where I can get a lot more money.
AirBnB started out as making a side income from peoples spare house, bungalo, apt etc etc. Give OWNERS not buyers a extra income. The OWNERS cleaned the house not a cleaning crew. Renters wanted that warm home feeling instead of daft hotel. Now hotels feel more welcome and affordable. Seriously sad what people like you have turned it into. Keep your ever growing fees. Hotels are more affordable thanks to all this.