Understanding Response Rate and Acceptance Rate

[Airbnb]

For many of you, hosting is important, but you’ve also got work, family, and your personal life keeping you plenty busy. So, tracking how quickly you reply to guest inquiries and monitoring the percentage of booking requests you’re accepting versus declining is probably not on the top of your to-do list. Some of you have asked about the specifics of these measurements, why they matter, and how you can improve them without much fuss—and we’re happy you asked! We’ve gathered answers from the folks who build these tools, so let’s dive in to see what they have to say.

What’s the difference between my response rate and acceptance rate?

• Your response rate measures how consistently you respond within 24 hours to guest inquiries and booking requests. You can find your response rate from the last 365 days by clicking on the Progress tab, then clicking Basic Requirements.
• Your acceptance rate measures how often you accept or decline reservations. Guest inquiries are not included in the calculation of your acceptance rate. You can see your acceptance rate from the last 365 days by clicking on the Progress tab, then clicking Basic Requirements.

For my response rate, does just the first message/inquiry count or do subsequent messages in a thread count, too?

We only measure a response within 24 hours of the guest's first message or inquiry. Subsequent messages in that thread do not impact your response rate.

What happens to my acceptance rate if I answer a question rather than approve, pre-approve, or decline a booking request?

The short answer is this: If a guest sends you a booking request and you only answer a question, but do not approve or decline before the request times out, that counts as a decline.

Let’s dive in a little further. It’s important to note the difference between an inquiry and a booking request. An inquiry is just a message—perhaps asking to clarify something about amenities, dates, or House Rules. The guest may be interested in staying with you and may even ask something like: “I want to book your home; is it ok if I bring my dog?” This is not a booking request. It’s an inquiry. You can respond to an inquiry with an answer, a pre-approval, or by declining. Declining an inquiry signals to the guest that their needs aren’t a good fit for your space and encourages them to request another listing. But none of these actions directly affects your acceptance rate. If you pre-approve an inquiry and the guest books your space, that counts as an acceptance. If you pre-approve and they don’t book, it doesn’t have any effect on your acceptance rate. And if you decline an inquiry, your acceptance rate is not affected.

A booking request means that the guest is officially asking to book your listing and is waiting for you to accept or decline. As far as your acceptance rate goes, we only measure the final outcome of the booking request, and there are just three possible actions you can take: accept, decline, or let the request time out. If you let a request time out—even if you answer questions but take no action to approve or decline a request within 24 hours—that’s considered a decline.

How do these rates affect me as a host?

That’s a great question. The technical answer is that low response rates can impact your eligibility for the  Superhost  program, and acceptance rates can impact eligibility to become a Plus host. And hosts who have very low rates could face penalties, including having their listings paused. But, it's important to note that one-off instances of not responding or declining a booking request rarely lead to any action being taken. We’re much more concerned where we see a consistent pattern of non-response or declines.

Can you share insider tips or suggestions on how to keep my response and acceptance rates high?

We think hosts are actually the experts in this area, so we’ll share some of your ideas here, too, but for response rate, one of the best ways to manage messages on the go is to use the Airbnb app on your mobile phone. You can also consider temporarily snoozing your listing if you know you’ll be unable to respond to messages for a while. If you’re taking a vacation, attending a long work conference, or just needing to unplug for a while, you can rest easy knowing there’s no response clock ticking or messages piling up in your inbox.

To snooze your listing and hide it from search results for a set period of time:

1. Go to Your listings and select a listing
2. Click Listing Details
3. Next to Listing status, click Edit
4. Under Listing status, select Snoozed from the dropdown menu
5. Enter the start and end dates, then click Save

Your listing will automatically reactivate when the timeframe you set is over. The day before your listing reactivates, you'll get a reminder email.

Here are some tips hosts in the Community Center share for keeping your response rate high:

• Set aside daily time to reply to requests and inquiries.
• Have a co-host or a friend respond for you if you’re unavailable and don’t want to snooze your listing.
• Save time by pre-writing responses to commonly asked questions. Look for the “Use a Saved Message” prompt in any active message thread you have with a guest. You can create, use, and re-use responses there.
• If you’re very busy or your hosting business really takes off, consider hiring a virtual assistant.

For your acceptance rate, ensure your calendar and booking preferences and settings are accurate and up to date. For example, if you can't accommodate same-day requests, update your listing to reflect the time you need between reservations. Hosts also tell us they find it helpful to keep their house rules updated so that guests understand what’s ok and what isn't before submitting a booking request. You’re less likely to get requests you can’t accept if you’re very clear about your expectations.

What is Airbnb doing to avoid penalizing hosts' acceptance rate when they decline unfit or illegitimate requests?

We understand that sometimes you may get requests that clearly violate your House Rules, or that are actually marketing attempts disguised as booking requests. These can put you in the awkward position of having to risk harming your own acceptance rate when there’s not a better action to take. To address this, the first thing we need to do is help you flag to us when there’s a problem. We’re exploring how best to do this, and while we don’t have a feature to announce at this time, we are absolutely aware of this pain point for you.

We want to ensure you’re empowered to decide who you welcome into your home and that you’re comfortable with the guests who stay with you. We understand that you only want to be held accountable to legitimate booking requests, and we’re committed to making sure that happens.

Numbers are just part of the story

While it’s good to keep response and acceptance rates in mind, the bigger picture isn’t about these measurements—in fact, they’re just indicators of the actual hospitality you show to your guests and the connection you establish when they reach out to you. You impact your guest’s experience from the moment they contact you or request to book, and the host community rightfully takes a lot of pride in creating experiences of welcome and belonging for the people who stay in your listings. So, yes, please do care about communicating in a timely way and setting guests up for success while they’re trying to find a good listing match for their needs; but know that numbers are just one way to tell the story about how you host.

[Andrew893]

I often get requests for one date with a message asking if a completely different  date is available, which has of course already been booked as it is a peak time. I really want “not a real booking for these dates” as a reason for declining. 

[Jane627]

@Andrew893 , you are correct and by doing this our acceptance rate is penalized. This all comes down to the inability of the programmers to do their job properly. So your message is dated 2 1/2 years ago and still the same problem persists.

[Emilia42]

@Jane627 If I were you I would tell the guest that you will accept the request with the understanding that they will stay on the selected dates as per the request. Airbnb will charge their credit card. They can cancel the stay or quickly withdraw their request if they do not wish to be charged. Works every time and does not count as a decline.

[Jane627]

@Amellia42, thanks for that, I'll give that a try.

[Dee125]

I agree that as hosts we should have the same options as instant book to decline if we don't feel comfortable. As a female I need to feel safe with who I let share my home with me. Instead I feel Airbnb bully hosts to accept and to bring prices down. Neither of which I appreciate. I have spoken of this many times to Airbnb - especially the issue of female safety both as hosts and travelers yet nothing is ever addressed. 

It would be beyond helpful to have an I don't feel comfortable about this request option. Even if it means going thru it with an agent. Rather that then get penalized for declining. Safety should absolutely be placed as a priority over Airbnbs need to make money on guest acceptances. 

[Amy843]

Exactly, as a female host I completely agree and this is a great suggestion to have an ‘I don’t feel comfortable accepting this booking’ option and therefore not be penalised. 

[Kit11]

I Totally Agree!!

[Nando9]

I don't have a problem with the acceptance and response rates overall.  However, there is one particular situation that I run into fairly often which I think unfairly affects my acceptance rates.  When someone requests a booking and I need further clarification before accepting their request, if they don't respond to my request for information before the listing times out, it is then counted against me as though I declined. 

Example:  A guest requests a last minute booking for tomorrow, but I want to make sure they understand there is no access to my kitchen because of the way they have made the request before I accept.  Since I have a moderate cancellation policy as soon as I accept the reservation there is no refund as it is already within the cancellation period.  I don't want the guest to have to pay for the reservation (or have to deal with a refund myself) if my listing is not going to work for them, so I wait to hear back from them before accepting or declining.  If they don't respond in time, the request expires and that counts as a decline for me. 

[Sabrina-And-John0]

We have the same problem with people actually asking for dates other than those officially requested.  I assumed that declining them and clicking the tab whch says something to the effect that 'these weren't the dates requested' would not penalise us.  I cannot find the  Basic Requirements button in the Progress Tab - any clues??

[Martin-and-Jo0]

We have listings for rooms in our house (where we host individual or couples on a B&B basis) and we also have a lisitng for the whole house (where the guests use the whole property on a self-catering basis). We have linked the listing calendars manually (since there are STILL bugs with the Airbnb "Linked Calendars" facility!) so that we don't get double bookings however sometimes we may want to only accept whole house bookings (e.g. when we are unable to host B&B guests due to work commitments) but we cannot specify this in the Airbnb calendars for the individual rooms since the linked calendars function will then block the whole house listing! So we have to leave ALL listings open for booking and then decline anyone who requests to book an individual room during one of these periods. This then affects our ratiing which is unfair as we may very well subsequently accept a whole house booking for that period.

The fact is that Airbnb is not sophisticated enough to handle a lot of hosts specific needs and to a large degree is lacking in it's fitness for purpose. More efforts need to be put in by Airbnb to accomodate the needs of it's hosts. Don't penalise the majority of hosts who actually perform very well just because there are a few hosts who are underperforming and providiing poor service.

Airbnb also need to address technical issues with their systems to make hosting without the threat of undue penalties hanging over their heads like a sword of Damocles.

[Goran8]

We run a bnb and have 7 double rooms that we let. All these 7 units are on Airbnb as single units. It happens regally that someone sends a booking request stating they are 1 person and in the text asks if I can house 4 - 8 persons or more, not understanding they can book double rooms on an individual bases, some double bed some twin. I often suspect that they in their search results have not been given for example all our 4 at that time available rooms. They have seen 1 room. I need the possibility to send a special offer a package of several specified rooms.

[Matthew23]

With certain Booking Requests, I need some extra information from the guest before I can responsibly accept the booking. This is usually because I suspect our place may not live up to their expectations - bed arrangements, late nights, etc. 

So, I reply to their request with a few polite questions; but if they don’t reply within the 24h, I am faced with a triple Catch 22 - decline, let it expire or accept a booking that probably won’t work out for them and possibly us. ALL of them bad outcomes, NONE of them positive, constructive, nor a good experience for anyone. 

[Bev13]

We too have the problem, which is frequent, of requesting a booking but is actually an enquiry for different dates which are booked,  a long stay which I don’t do or for extra guests when the listing I think is clear my rooms only accommodate 1.  I think it is generally new guests who don’t really understand how Airbnb works. 

[Jane235]

My listing indicates I require a day’s notice before guests check in. Yet I still get requests from people for same day booking. One request was from someone saying they already were in the vacinity of my apartment and wanted to book. I always find this very unsettling and decline the booking. Why do Airbnb send these requests in the first place.

[Paul1040]

I have a guest room that is in my home, I want to feel comfortable accepting guests, I will often decline new accounts with no reviews or even a photograph, sometimes these enquiries even come without a message, sometimes I talk to guests and between us we decide it's not a good fit.   When I do accept guests I provide a good service, I have a 93% five star rating , 100% response rate and zero cancellations and many of my guests are repeat customers. 

My room is often booked for long periods, sometimes for more than a month so my occupancy rate is high, BUT i am berated because my acceptance rate is only 53% and should be 88%!!  Am I really expected to accept 88% of all and sundry that want to walk into my home and be given a set of keys?  Also, by the end of this year I will have been booked for a total of 24 weeks out of 52 (please bear in mind this is a room in my home so I think that is quite high!)  The acceptance rate test is pure corporate pressure and could in fact leave hosts vulnerable and pressured into taking in unsuitable guests. I won't change my policy on this even if it means I lose my account, see this qoute re my accepted reservations rate..  

"Basic requirements

These targets help us ensure that every stay is comfortable and reliable. Your listing could be removed if you consistently fall below"

It's a terrible and unfair policy and wil push people away from this platform. 

PS, adding insult to injury, because of a lot of my guests are staying for long periods I will have only had 9 guests this year and could lose my superhost status!