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.

[Michael2181]

Airbnb encourages the community of hosts and guests to verify their ID. For me, verified ID provides essential reassurance and security. So my own booking requirements/house rules clearly state that all prospective guests must have verified ID. 

But I still often receive requests from prospective guests who do not have verified ID.

When this happens, I message the guest to explain how to get their ID verified, and to explain that  if they don't do so within 24 hours I will have to decline the request.

So why should my acceptance rate be penalised if I decline a request because a guest doesn't verify their ID?

Airbnb's software  is able to prevent instant  booking where verified ID is a host requirement.

So why can't hosts have the same protection for reservation requests?

[Emiel1]

@Airbnb

The acceptance rate set by Airbnb is 88%. This is way to high. It means you can appr. decline on average only  1 request out of 10. I will not (and refuse to) achieve this goal, especially with the recent increase in requests, which clearly show the guest did not read the listing at all.

i allways ask such guests to cancel their request. Most of them do so.

My question is: Does "request canceled by guest" affect my acceptance rate ?

[Gary-and-Joyce0]

What I think AirBnB forget is that for lots of us hosts this is not a business, but an opportunity to meet people and share our space. I find objectionable that AirBnB have decided that the business model they are following is about punishing the people who provide them their revenue if we don't provide as much profit for them as possible. We haven't increased our price in 4 years and AirBnB still suggest we drop prices just so they can get a booking.

It's our home and if we refuse a booking then we should not be penalised if it's not a regular occurence. The reality is that we may have something come up at short notice and be unable to accept a last minute booking request.

Threats of removal of Superhost status, and negative status posts is not the way to enamour hosts.

[Fenn0]

I couldn't agree with Greg more  (first comment on this thread) - I'm inviting people to stay in my house, living with me.   The only negative feedback I receive from Airbnb is that I need to 'work on my guest acceptance rate'.  No, I don't.  It's entirely my choice as to who I have stay in my house with me.

[John-and--Erica0]

This post is remarkably timely. We have had great concern over the ACCEPTANCE ranking and the penalty attached to falling below some randomly chosen metric. Our listings are in our family home. We need to be able to decline without worrying. Requests with special demands (7am check in) or ambiguous number of guests ( requests for one guest yet mentions “we” and “our” like a couple or group and doesn’t clarify)  or any of the other odd, discomfiting or plain wrong intents mentioned here by our fellow hosts.   Being free to decline without penalty is a simple way to eliminate a sketchy request.  As Superhosts we consistently provide a top notch service to your  customers  who are our guests.  

[Evelyne72]

There are 3 kind of issues that I encounter more and more often. The guest doesn't read the whole listing and gives a mediocre review because I am not downtown. I mention in 3 places that I am in the Northern part of the city, 15 minutes from downtown + there is the map ! Guest sends a request and asks at the same time if I am in the Southern part of the city where she is attending a wedding. I tell her no and how she can cancel her request without penalty. She doesn't bother to do so and at the last minute I have to decline. Several people have made requests for other family members or even friends, which is against airbnb rules. They don't cancel and again I have to decline at the last minute. Then there are requests to book for one person. But once I ask questions, I discover that 2 people are staying. My listing has 2 twin beds and a gourmet breakfast, so of course it's not the same price. Some people will change the request to 2 guests, but others don't, so I have to decline again at the last minute. This affects my acceptance rate, even though the guest wasn't a match and would have been unhappy, which in turn would impact my ratings.

Oh ! I decided to lower my rates on the advice of airbnb, but that backfired because I was getting the wrong kind of people, including college kids on break who were totally disrespectful and trashed the room. Never again: my rates went back up !

[Jodi62]

First off, thanks for offering this great platform to help me pay my bills in this crazy expensive city I live in!  

While I understand your business model is to provide hosts who repond in an efficient manner to guests, it's not always possible to accept bookings within 24 hours.  As several people have mentioned as well, my biggest issue when when someone requests to book, and I respond to their message with a questions and they don't respond in a timely manner.  Why am I penalized for their slowness in responding.  If this is a metric you really feel the need to measure, should a message response be adequate? I don't want to decline someones request because then I may lose them as a guest, but if time runs out because I'm waiting.. it just doesn't make sense. 

[Amy843]

A message response used to be adequate. That’s the way the system worked in the first place and the way it needs to revert to. Because you are exactly right, it doesn’t make sense. 

[Alexa0]

Echoing Sabrina and John, Andrew above. In the last week I have had 4 requests for Oct 22 because that’s my next available date, and none was actually for Oct 22! They all are requesting dates which are not available. I respond quickly, but I haven’t “declined” because I don’t want to prevent the system suggesting Oct 22 to legitimate bookers. I also don’t accept because that’s nonsensical. So it seems I’m being penalized for guests making false requests? Come on, Airbnb, how about a solution for hosts trying to do the right thing?

[Eileen156]

I sometimes wonder why a client doesn’t respond when they ask a question?

[Genevive0]

I often have requests from guests travelling with children even though I have clearly stated on my listing that our apartment is not suitable for infants & not suitable for children 2- 12 years of age . This puts me in the awkward position of having to decline these booking requests, harming my acceptance rate.  It's incredibly frustrating as my listing clearly states no children, my reason being safety,  our apartment is on the third floor with a balcony & I can not host children comfortably for this reason.

[Lauren338]

If have felt for some time that Airbnb favors guests over hosts and this is just an example. As someone else said here, the guest gets 24 hours to cancel without penalty but we get penalties for declining or God forbid canceling.  (Also, why can't we see how many times guest have cancelled??) The attitude of Airbnb seems to scold us for not using Instant Booking and doesn't allow us to see star ratings on guests.  I have one property on Instant Book but my other 2 properties are not "hotel like" experiences and I have found that I NEED to make sure that the potential guest has ACTUALLY read my listing description.  I wish you would allow me require guests to confirm that they have read the listing in it's entirety (including "more about this space") before they are allowed to request. It would be WAY more convenient to be able to IB these but I cannot trust that they have read the listing and actually know what they are getting. I have received poor reviews citing things that are CLEARLY in the description of the place.

I respond to booking requests for these 2 properties usually within an hour, with my standard explanation to READ THE LISTING and then let me know if they still want to book... If they do not respond my dates are blocked?! or if I accept and then they change their mind after I warn them it's not a hotel, I'm penalized for cancelling after accepting. No win situation.

I have also had MANY people reqest dates that they don't actually want and ask for other unavailable dates, or fewer dates because of minimum date requirements. Yet again, I am penalized if I say NO to the dates they have listed in the request.

Unfair and of course not likely to change because everything Airbnb adds only facilitates them making more $$$ and whipping hosts to fall in line.

[Jeanette115]

My concern is when a company is making an enquiry for one of their workers but I am not able to read any reviews about the said worker. I feel a pressure to preapprove so I won’t be penalised while having ongoing conversations with the company.

[Ralph60]

Inquiries have two possible responses: Accept, Deny. But if I respond with messages, I am actually responding at a higher level than the two options provided by Airbnb. Sometimes a potential guest needs questions answered. And sometimes I do. But sometimes the potential guest lets time pass because they are traveling or working or whatever, and the result is that I get a message from Airbnb in effect accusing me of being inattentive to inquiries and guests. Those two buttons should not be the only options that determine response rate. A message is valid!

[Dan475]

I've had three or four instances in the past 9 months--since I started running my Airbnb--where someone contacted me for information, but to do so clicked that they were interested in a specific reservation date. I have not seen any mechanism to address this without either pre-approving them even when it's clear they won't be interested, based on our actual email conversation, or declining them (consistent with there decision not to stay with us)  and taking a potential penalty. Or not responding, and also facing a penalty. 

There ought to be another choice--maybe something as simple as a third choice of Not Applicable. Airbnb can always audit these (or a sample of these) to verify they are being used properly. Love being a ost overall, but fixing this would be great.