How much should I charge for my Airbnb cleaning fee?

Last updated on August 9th, 2021 by I. Duckworth / Host Tips / Leave a Comment

How much should I charge for my Airbnb cleaning fee?

One question I hear over and over in the Airbnb community is how much should I charge for my Airbnb cleaning fee? Search Google and you will find thousands of posts to forums with about as many clueless replies.

So if you are at a loss at what is the ‘right’ price, then you’re not alone. The purpose of this article is to finally get to the bottom of this pesky question once and for all.

But at the risk of disappointing you, I should let you know there’s no definitive answer. Every Airbnb house, boat, cabin or room being so unique to each other, so it makes it tough to answer! But in this article you will be that one step closer to that perfect number. So let’s get into it.

Firstly, what is an Airbnb Cleaning Fee?

The Airbnb Cleaning Fee is a separate charge on top of your base rate. Think of it as a fee that covers all cleaning and turnover costs to your property once a guest checks out.

There is no set cost and a host can choose not to set a fee and simply integrate the cleaning costs into the base rate.

So the million dollar question is how much to charge for your Airbnb cleaning fee without scaring off your potential guests?

What does an Airbnb cleaning fee cover?

Ok let’s break this down. The cleaning fee that a host may charge will cover all kinds of aspects. But the fee is more or less the cost of keeping the listing in a clean and habitable state for guests.

This can include:

  • Laundering Bedding/sheets
  • Laundering Towels
  • Cleaning Products
  • Hiring a Cleaner 

It can also include the cost of your time if you are doing the cleaning yourself. Furthermore there are extra costs like stain removers, air fresheners or bin liners.

These things are all the costs of doing business, which you can pass on to your guests. They are people using these amenities, so it’s a cost they should wear.

Be sure to check out my free Airbnb cleaning list template. It’s a great way to help you get started.

Airbnb Cleaning Fee Charge

What is a reasonable cleaning fee for Airbnb?

There are 3 main things to consider when setting a cleaning fee. Let’s look at each one in a little more detail. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What do nearby listings charge?

Start by researching what other listings nearby charge for their Airbnb cleaning fee. This is a quick and easy way to come up with an accurate figure. If you decide to make your fee $100 while everyone else in your area is only $30, you will lose potential customers.

Pull up the search within Airbnb and switch to map mode and have a look around your neighbourhood.

When researching, make sure you apply a filter to only show listings similar to yours. You don’t want to be comparing the cleaning costs of a 1 bedroom apartment when you have a 4 bedroom house.

So, for example, do a search for a 3 bedroom house with free parking and and a swimming pool. This will bring up similar houses in your area that you can compare to. Then use their Airbnb cleaning fee charge as a guide for yours.

2. Will you clean yourself, or outsource?

Planning on managing the cleaning of your property yourself? Well then you can reduce the cleaning fee significantly.

Airbnb cleaner duck

Yes, your time is still valuable, but consider the upside of doing this. Your bookings would increase you only charged $30 instead of $100.

On the other hand, if you are hiring some help, you may have to charge slightly more. For instance, work out the hourly rate of your cleaner and how long it will take to clean the listing. Then apply this total to the cleaning fee.

Again, you want to get this figure right, so be sure to compare to other listings. If you charge too much for your Airbnb cleaning fee, you could lose potential bookings.

Check out my article on how to save time on your Airbnb cleaning. As they say, time is money.

3. Should I include cleaning fee in base price?

Another tactic is to integrate the cleaning fee into your base price.

For example, if your base price is $120 per night, this would include the cleaning fee. Now when a potential guest clicks on your listing, it will show a $0 cleaning fee.

For new Airbnb users this could be enough to entice them to book your place. A cleaning fee can seem foreign to some people as hotels have all their costs included in the base rates.

However, the drawback to this tactic is that it makes your listing appear more expensive. But then again, a $0 cleaning fee gives the impression they are getting something for nothing.

Is the cleaning fee charge included in Airbnb Price?

The Airbnb cleaning fee charge is a tricky one for guests looking to book a property.

Prices shown in the search results do not include the cleaning fee, it only includes the base rate. So a guest will not see the cleaning fee added until they enter the dates they want.

This changes the price quite significantly! As you can imagine this will annoy people.

See the example below. First, this property shows up in the search results at $520 per night (wowzer!). Second, when we enter in the dates, we have to book two nights or more, before Airbnb add the cleaning and service fees.

So we have gone from paying $520.00 to a whopping $1,507.31 plus a cleaning fee of $200. Cop that!

Cleaning Fee Example

Example of Airbnb cleaning fee charge

On the one hand, having a lower price but a higher cleaning fee will get you loads of views. On the other hand, it could potentially scare guests away once they get to your booking page.

It will serve you well to read my article on how Airbnb price breakdown works. This will provide with some assistance in this area.

Is my Airbnb cleaning fee too high?

You now know the Airbnb cleaning fee charge will not appear in the initial search results, as we saw above. It’s not until a guest enters the dates they want until the cleaning fee appears for them.

Do you have a high listing view rate, but a low booking rate? One reason may be that your cleaning fee is too high and and may be costing you business. It’s important to monitor this information.

You can see exactly how many people are looking at your listing page by clicking on Host > Progress > Views.

This enables you to your total listing views over the last 30 days. You can also check how many new bookings you have had and plus the booking rate %.

How to check booking rate & page views

Airbnb listing views

Still confused? We have found a great tool to help you estimate the cost of cleaning your property, check it out at bottom of the page.

When not to charge a cleaning fee

You could look at scrapping your cleaning fee if your listing is a private room or shared house. The reason being you would only be laundering one set of sheets and one or two towels, so the costs are quite minimal.

This would keep your prices competitive and maybe earn you more bookings by giving you an edge.

Another reason you may choose to not charge an Airbnb cleaning fee is to get more bookings. Most guests are price sensitive, so if you price yourself cheaper, it may lead to more bookings.

More bookings = more money. You may actually make yourself more money in the long run by not having a cleaning fee.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for a host to not charge an Airbnb fee. A recent study showed 38.8% of hosts didn’t charge a cleaning fee. Take a look:

Do you charge an Airbnb cleaning fee?

Is the cleaning fee refundable?

The cleaning fee is only refundable if the guest cancels their booking within your cancellation time frame.

For example, a moderate cancellation policy allows a guest to cancel within 5 days of their trip. In this instance they would receive a full refund. It would pay to familiarise yourself with Airbnb’s cancellation policies.

Also, your guest may decide to leave and cancel mid-trip. In this scenario they would not receive any of the cleaning fee back. The reason for this is because you would need to clean the property after they left.

How to modify the Airbnb cleaning fee

To change or add an Airbnb cleaning fee charge simply log into your hosting dashboard. Next, click on the following path: Host > Listings > Pricing > Edit – Standard Fees and Charges.

This will bring you to a screen that looks like the image below:

Adding Cleaning Fee charge

Then you add in the amount you would like to charge in the box labeled Cleaning Fee and then hit save.

This will now show up whenever a guest books your property and added to the base price at the time of booking.

Who gets the Airbnb cleaning fee?

It depends. If you run and clean the property yourself, then you will receive the full cleaning fee cover. This will cover the costs to prepare the property for the next guest.

Alternatively, if you hire a cleaner to turn the property over, then it works differently. The cleaner will receive the cleaning fee via the host, which can be setup automatically.

It’s also worth noting that managing companies run some listings. These companies handle the operation of many properties for their clients. All fees will be paid to these companies and then divided and paid out to cleaning services.

Cleaning your Airbnb

Airbnb Cleaning fee estimating tool

Ok, so you know what the Airbnb cleaning fee is, you know how works, but you still have no idea how much to charge. No worries! We have found a great tool that can help estimate the costs of cleaning your property.

Airtasker comes highly recommended by Bnb Duck. While this tool won’t be 100% accurate to your situation, it will at lease give you an idea and a starting point. BeyondPricing also come recommended.

It will do a cleaning estimate based on the characteristics of your property. Things like house size, number of rooms, total bathrooms, and so forth. You can even include extras like windows, ovens and steam cleaning the carpet.

Estimate your cleaning fee price

In Summary

Okay, here are our key takeaways to further help you work out the cost of your cleaning fee.

  • Research your area and see what other hosts are charging. Keep up with your competition and stay competitive
  • Keep an eye on your listing views to booking rate. This is a very powerful tool, so use it
  • Consider including your cleaning fee into your base price if your bookings are falling away. This could be enough to give you the edge over your competitors

Your potential guests will ultimately decide if your fee is too high. If you find you’re not getting bookings, play with your pricing structure. Keep doing so until you notice a change in your views to booking rate.

It’s a good feeling once you find that coveted cleaning fee sweet spot. Your Airbnb calendar will start filling up and you will know you’re onto a winner.

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