7 Reasons your Cleaning Fee is Priced WRONG 

We moved to NO cleaning fee at all a couple of years ago, and haven't looked back since. If a guest cancels within our cancellation policy, we get to keep all of the money due and we aren't losing the cleaning fee as well. We also found that the higher the cleaning fee, the dirtier the guest left the place, because they had an expectation that since they were paying to have it cleaned, it didn't matter how they left the place. "That's what the cleaning fee is for". This only increased our cleaning costs considerably and wasn't at all conducive to making a profit. We've found that eliminating the cleaning fee has taken care of that attitude and all but eliminated nearly trashed places and keeps our cleaning costs down. Guests respect the place a little more. We also felt that being nickel-and-dimed to death at the check out is just too much for guests, and it turns them off. Like, a *lot*. I know I personally hate seeing a nightly rate of $100, and then, when I get to the end, after all the fees are added on (cleaning fee, service fee, linen fee, and taxes), it suddenly becomes a $200 or even $300 a night place. Sticker shock at the end is a real thing. Plus, it's not helpful when trying to book a place and trying to stay within budget. You have to go through nearly the whole booking process in order to get to the final *actual* cost, and if it's not on budget, you've just wasted a bunch of time and have to start all over again with another property. It's more than annoying. This is why we chose to simply roll the cleaning fee into our nightly rate and, for the same reason, we've rolled in the service fee as well (we pay the whole thing and the guest pays nothing for the service fee). There's nothing we can do about the taxes, but we've simplified it as much as possible for the guest, and we've had very good feedback about it. Guests are tired of being blindsided with a bunch of fees at the end of the booking process and it leaves a bad taste in their mouths before they ever set foot in your property. Why start off on a bad foot like that?

We charge a $22 for a cleaning fee, and have no real checkout instructions (just tidy up and we'll take it from there). But our property is left nearly spotless every time. I'm convinced the cleaning fee creates an expectation from guests. The higher the fee, the higher the expectations, and the less interested in cleaning up before leaving. Our guests are super happy and we are making as much as we want to make. If we want to make more, we raise our nightly rate. Pretty simple.

I tried both and didn’t work.. I had two of the same listings one with a low cleaning fee and higher nightly rate and one with a low nightly rate and high cleaning fee. The one with the high cleaning fee got the most bookings. Then I tried no cleaning fee and oh lord the place needed a deep clean after the guest. I just think messy people are going to leave your place messy compared to people that are tidy regardless of the fee.

One reason I dont rent from AirBnB. I dont think its appropriate to chargea cleaning fee. I would see a listing for $35 a night and when its all said and done it would come out to over $75 & $100 a night because of stupid fees. I would rather stay in a hotel and not have to worry about all the deception trying to book.

Great content! As an Airbnb cleaner in TX with over 130 individual homes we service and a growing crew for over 10 years now (I kinda found my calling lol), can you do a video on how best to price the cleaning fee given that we want to ensure our hosts stay booked and guests stay happy? Especially as the cost of labor increases, laundry, time, and OWNER expectations. Often even if guests are rating us 5 stars, some owners can get quite particular or have unrealistic expectations. They won't pay extra for off-site laundry, and even with backup linens, they have to get washed somewhere, the expectation that all laundry comes back before each guest or never leaves can dramatically increase the effort and time that goes into each turnover. Anyone have any best practices for how best to approach owners and explain the difference between cleaning and maintenance, ex: "No amount of Magic Eraser is going to repaint scuff marks on a wall". I want to stay competitive while continuing to offer a high quality clean and staging. I'm gonna continue to dive into the channel, but I'd love some content for cleaners and OPERATIONS teams. We make it PASSIVE for our hosts, but that means we have to be VERY active. No amount of planning will make one single bed. This is still at the end of the day, a very human labor centered business.

I particularly agree with #2. I like to describe a business as an algebra problem with multiple variables and we are solving for X. All of the variables affect X. As a business strategy, we already know what X is, that's NOI, so we can work the problem backwards and see what variables we can work with to enhance the X. People get too hung up on one or two points and disregard the important other variables that still affect EVERYTHING. A little backstop, I was a career intelligence analyst, specializing in predicting human behavior. I can NOT overemphasized how IMPORTANT it is to consider ALL the variables and HOW those variables affect each other in order to have any shot at forecasting the most likely outcome. Sean, thank you so much for all of your insight and detailed explanations on WHY you strategize the way you do. My 1st Airbnb produces over 40% more gross income than the #2 property in the zip code and my place is definitely not the "nicer" or more valuable in the comps. I attribute much of that to following a lot of your recommendations.

It is important to be a guest if you plan to be a great host! Seeing the client’s perspective is a game changer. This goes beyond checking in to your own business to see if it meets super host criteria!

In my market I've always set my cleaning fee at about half my cost and include the rest and a small mark up in the listing (i deal with long term airbnbs so each cleaning is usually a "Deep clean" and therefore pretty expensive). Ive done this for those exact reasons - to stay competitive, to lower the check-in expectation for the guest (though I still mention in the listing that the place is sparkling clean), and to open up the floor to explain to them we have a reduced cleaning fee because we expect guests help reduce this cost to them by taking great care of the home during their long-term stay.

8 consecutive quarters super host here: Sean is the real deal. Most of my policies and terms are derived from his evolving model. Ima add one thing that Sean hasn't mentioned, to the best of my understanding, shoot a 360 walk through prior to every check in ( you can get an excellent camera to do it with efficient software for 500 bucks), pay your housekeeper to do it or have a designated person do it. Out of many hundreds of guests, from all over the world , I have had only a dozen undesirables and my documentation ( including a thoughtfully conceived manual and terms of service) lays waste to any complaint they might conceive of - because the rare animal will do just that! and it can impact your rating, listing traffic and cart etc. With that short vid you can have erroneous reviews erased INSTANTLY.

It seems like a great idea to decrease cleaning fee and bump the nightly rate instead, but what about when people have a set budget and filter places on Airbnb and your listing no longer makes the cut? They never get to see that low cleaning fee of yours.

The cleaning fee and the ten pages of instructions , for cleaning is the reason I don’t stay in air b&bs anymore .

Every time I use your advice my listing succeeds. Thank you! :D

Sean looking jacked keep up the good work in business and health!

The cleaning fee needs to be the price of the cleaning service. If you charge 120 for a cleaning fee then 120 needs to go to your cleaners. The price of the rental needs to be what includes the overhead for the rental. Charging someone a 300 dollar cleaning fee and pocketing 200 is crooked

What is up with the prices in these demonstrations? $30 - $40? $50?! Please tell me these are just trying to keep the math simple for the sake of education. If these are really the fees you're charging then I'm out of business. I can't even break even between rent and utilities with nightly rates that low. Heck $100 is too low.

My husband and I frequent AirBNBs and if the cleaning fee seems even a little high my husband will abandon it fast and say we are looking for something else. We don't make a mess. The can wash sheets and be done. From a customer perspective, we always thought the cleaning price went straight to the cleaning company and the nightly rate went to the owners. If the cleaning is over $100 for a two bedroom, we run. We thought the owners were being scammy by paying like a relative $20 bucks to clean and keeping the rest. That is just a common folk perspective for you.

What about the ones like me that’s hosting in places that charges us 25% for each night booked. We have the clean fees & other fees as a way to recoup from what the building takes. I get it’s a not necessarily a thing in some areas but there are other areas where it is.

I'm torn when it comes to Cleaning Fees. The fee I charge not only covers the actual housekeeping service and tax on that invoice, but the cost of cleaning supplies and Guest amenities too. And, it covers what I must pay yet another party to sort recyclables and perform dump runs. In short, what I charge comes close to an additional night's stay. Further, I already am charging top dollar for my market. So, I don't see how I can reduce the Cleaning Fee.

Great content. Keep it up!

Having a cleaning fee plus a chores list is a huge turnoff

This strategy is genius, a video all hosts who take things seriously should watch. Completely changed my outlook on pricing.

How do you keep quality while striving to pay the least for cleaning?

Can you please break down your expense ratio/profitability? At minute 14:52 you said your total expenses were 10%!?, and 30% margin? Love it!

So happy that you did this. I sooo needed it! Thank you.

This is basically how the hotels do it; build it into the price. I have experimented with sliding the fee up and down and adjusting the price accordingly. I haven't completely gotten rid of it though, but may try it.

Our cleaning fee is low $25 for a studio, and $35 for a 1 bedroom apartment. Most of the time people leave the place nice. When I book I look at the cleaning fee, and if it is too high I won't book.

Do you feel that a good cleaning team is the backbone of a successful property and guest experience? I know that has been our experience. We pay a bit more for our cleaners, but know of other owners that try to skimp on cleaning costs, only to be paying later in other ways... and at times left bad reviews. Would love to know your thoughts on why you should place a high value on a professional cleaning team?

Great content, I didn't no there was a short stay cleaning fee until now!

took your advice from previous videos and have a $35 cleaning fee on one bedrooms (with kitchens) and a $75 on 3 BR (with kitchenette). The only negative about this is that we are one of the highest priced places nightly in our area, but obviously we are paying our cleaners more than our cleaning fee. Too early to tell if it really works, because we are new, but I know as an AirBnb guest, no chance am I staying at a very high cleaning fee place if I'm just there for work related travel and not a vacation. (IE place is generic).

It's a good point and makes sense.

For example I charge $20 for cleaning fee, so the guest pays $20 regardless of the length of the stay? wether it's a night or a month, the guest only pay $20 once?

Note to self: Don't argue with Sean. 🤣🤣🤣

Thank you Sean! Great info!:) Question though.. So if we reduce our cleaning fee by adding it into the nightly price, as the booking length increases, then it would look like this: eg, if we originally have a $100 cleaning fee and nightly rate as $200, if we reduce the cleaning fee to $50, and raise the nightly rate to $250, then 1 night = $300 total, original and new price/ 2n = original price $500 & new price $550/ 3n = original price $700 & new price $800, etc. To balance out the false increase in total price, we could add discounts increasing in amount the longer a guest books, however.. how then do we work out the math if we are also wanting to dynamically price days depending on availability? If this is explained in another video, I would love to know. On a more serious note.. Burning Man! haha awesome. Whats your fave festival music genre? Ahh the Burn.. it was amazing! ;) I'm now hoping that you to break up the Airbnb vids and give is a video of your festival touring! :)

Sean thanks for all the great info. Unfortunately I can’t find any cleaner who would work for minimum wage. This is what I pay per property on my cleaning fees 1 bedroom $75 (normally it would be $65 but there is a jacuzzi that needs to be cleaned between each guest hence the extra $10) 2 bedrooms $80 3 bedroom $100 6 bedroom $225 I don’t mark up my cleaning fees like some hosts do. What I listed above is what I give my cleaners unfortunately. (I wish I could hire your cleaners) So I guess I would need to put my cleaning fees lower and eat the rest? (I can’t go higher on my nightly rate and stay competitive with others.) My cleaning fees are in line with other host I’m my area. (Actually sometimes lower than others) So I’m not padding my cleaning fees they are what I pay out. I also use Price labs. So what do you advise I should do in my particular case besides besides finding cheaper cleaners?

Is there a black list for difficult clients bc there are scammers out there trying to alway get a free ride?

So I just want to reflect, no cleaning fee? Wrap it into the pricing. Or low sub 100 cleaning fee?

I say perfectly Savage! I only have three doors but I'm going to consider looking at my pricing for cleaning. I am charging a little bit more than my actual cost and that covers the cost of my paper goods and the snacks that I leave out. Also a little bit of a kitty to put money into for occasional replacements of items. I have a two bedroom one bath whole upstairs that I charge $80pay $70 A one bedroom one bath I charge $45 and pay $40. And a whole house three bedroom two bath that's not very big that I get $125 for and pay $110 to the cleaner. My nightly rates however are I would think maybe a bit on the low side so I'm going to try raising those nightly rates and dropping cleaning rates. We will see how it goes!!

how do i intact someone to see how this program works? I have questions. Thanks

I don't use a cleaning fee as it puts people off. Show me a hotel that charges a cleaning fee.

Hi Sean, my son its actually living on a Airbnb and he its going to be for 3 1/2 months, how many cleaning fees he should be charge, the Host hasn't shown up at all since September 2022 when my son started living on it. he will finish middle of December ? thanks.

As an Airbnb property manager, finding anyone that can actually clean for under $50/hour is impossible. We work hard to create systems to turn every property in 1 hour. Finding someone to work for less is an absolute myth. I’ve convinced my owners to advertise ZERO cleaning fees and we add it into the nightly rate. Our properties cater to the premium guests with amenities and it’s increased our occupancy.

Does it ever make sense to roll in the cleaning fee in the nightly rate? Advertising $0 cleaning fee would be attractive no?

Man… in Sydney we need to pay cleaners USD $25/hr and that’s on a full time wage. So if they clean 3 places in their 8 hour shift it’s $66/clean + replenishing items and cleaning materials $10 + linen hire $14 = $90 for a 1 bedroom apt

He makes some great points

When you charge a cleaning fee you have to clean every day? , because I don't charge a cleaning fee

Hey Sean my place is 5 bedrooms 6 beds 4 baths...sleeps 11 in the Adirondacks Ski Country, a very small town the workforce pool is more like a drink spill. Getting crazy cleaning fees $400 plus 15 for garbage and me paying for cleaning supplies... suggestions???

Darn I missed the banning thing. Anyway I can read it all? I love reading crazy stuff like that!

I have a 4000 sg ft home, at slow season I charge 188 , 125 for short stays. Does that make sense? I’m eating it…

Cleaning fee aks resort fee in hotel

Can you give a hint as to how you can properly clean a place (let's just use a 2br, 2ba) place in 1.5 total man hours? I have cleaners on staff and we've tried to keep it to such a tiny amount of time. We even tried off-loading laundry to 3rd parties. We simply got bad reviews when we tried this. And one bad review is worth something like $1000/year (on average) per unit. In other words, it never seemed worth the risk of a bad review. In the case of off-loading laundry, there's another distinct cost (and it's not cheap). We are averaging a 7 night stay, btw. This has all changed ever since COVID (starts are just longer in average ever since then). The longer the stay, the more cleaning you need to do. We find that 3hrs is how long it takes to clean a 2br, 2ba place, on average. Even if you managed to get minimum wage salaried workers (which we can't because it isn't a living wage), that would still be $50 + all the costs of having a salaried employee (which isn't cheap and needs to be factored in)

How do you have a real cleaning cost of $25?

These memes are making my day ❤

All these points are dead on accurate and obvious. And I've made them all myself, whenever someone repeats the dumb "the guest pays it anyway" thing their IQ goes down about 20 points in my mind. When it's a management company saying it I know they're being dishonest and plan to make money on that part as well as their % fee.

Wouldn't CF charge at cost?

We've been charging what it costs. Never did huge cleaning fees.

Do you still agree with this strategy on cleaning fees?

💯

I charge $100.00, take it or leave it.

Terrific stuff when you actually talked about the content at hand. When you perplexingly jabbered on about the stuff you're doing now that you should have done 10 years ago? Not so much.

Hey I'm the first here 😄 good morning Sean 👋

Go straight to the point

Thank you for the informative video. Hint: Please stand still. Your rocking back and forth in the video is very distracting.

zoning!!!!

There is a huge problem that I see with the cleaning fees and having them returned. The cleaning fee is for when the current guest leaves. Why are we refunding cleaning fees when they’ve checked in and it was not to their liking, real or BS? If you want to get all technical, the previous guest should be getting a refunded cleaning fee. You are smart enough to know and have such direct communication with Airbnb that this policy should be ripped apart and have some controls in place. Otherwise it just leaves you open for all the scammers to just say hey I found _________ (fill in the blank.).

Your cleaning fee SHOULD BE your true cost. What the hell are you doing skimming off the cleaning fee and paying cleaners so little? The cleaning fee should be the ACTUAL amount of money that it takes to physically clean a property. If you go cheap and find a housekeeper to clean for $100 instead of $200 (on a property that is worth $200 because of Sq ft or difficulty) you will get inferior cleaning and bad comments. Monthly booking: of course the cleaning fee should be high after a 30 night stay. Have you any idea how wrecked a property is after a long stay? The shorter the stay, the less the guests "dig in" and make themselves at home, accumulating waste and dirt, etc. In any case, at least around here, the owner, not the management, would pocket the extra money not paid out to the cleaner. I clean properties and I make $20-23 an hour, which I don't believe is exorbitant for the 6-8 hrs of physical labor involved. It is a set price so if I have to stay 11 hrs to make sure the standard is correct, that is my problem. Take a look at the Good-Fast-Cheap Triangle online. You can only pick two. You've lost my respect. Unsubscribing.

You don’t even clean and get paid lots of money. We do all the hard work should be getting more.

You’re making good videos with a very bad presentation!… it’s very good to make a summarize shorter videos that seems you try to pack the video with a higher speed even no breathing between you words n talking that makes the video not appealing to continue, not interesting to watch your other videos or giving a thumbs up!… sorry, but i think a good criticism helps improving. A little see your audience like a regular people wanna watch, absorb what you are saying n follow you.