What happens to your hosting fees

[Airbnb]

At a recent Host Q&A event in Sydney, Ben, a Superhost from Brisbane, Australia, asked a great question: What happens to the money Airbnb collects from hosts and guests as service fees? We thought it was such a fantastic question, we wanted to share a few behind-the-scenes details with you here.

You probably know that as a host you’re charged a service fee whenever a booking or Experience is confirmed. For home hosts, the fee amount is usually 3%*, and for Experience hosts, it’s 20%. In most cases, guests are also charged a service fee when they book on Airbnb. A full breakdown of the fee model, can be found in our Help Center. 

So what exactly happens to the money that’s collected? We redeploy it into three big categories that help support you as a host and an entrepreneur: community support, marketing, and product development. Here’s a closer look at how your fees are deployed to help power Airbnb:

Community Support

One of our top priorities is making sure we can support you if you have questions or need support.  As we mentioned at our last Host Q&A event, we're investing a substantial amount of resources into our Community Support team to ensure we’re there when you need us, and that we can help you with your question or concern smoothly and efficiently. In the past year, for instance:

• In the last few years, we’ve tripled the size of the Community Support team to help you get answers more quickly, in your preferred language. (And it’s helped: over our peak holiday season this past year, for instance, 80% of calls were answered in less than one minute; and this year, we’re committed to improve this even more.)
• We built a new process online to make it easier to connect with us—via phone or our online chat system—and help you get to the right person, right away. Now you can find the phone number you need and access the chat system almost immediately.
• And finally, we launched new tools so our agents can easily understand a hosts’ issue and can respond efficiently and consistently.

We will continue to make improvements and invest in our Community Support team. In fact, one improvement that’s happening right now is that we’re splitting the team into areas of expertise. This will help us connect you more quickly with the right person to address your particular concern. We’ll be using an intelligent routing system to direct your question to a Community Support agent who is specially trained to address your question. We’ll be introducing this program globally in the next few months.

What other ideas do you have for improving the Community Support experience? We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments section, below.

Marketing

Another topic we know hosts care a lot about is getting enough bookings to meet their individual goals. We help to drive that through significant investments in marketing to guests. Through our marketing teams, we ensure that guests around the world think about Airbnb first when they’re making their vacation plans. We focus mainly on three types of marketing:

• Marketing to guests in the ‘real world’, through traditional advertising channels (think TV ads, billboards). These are typically tailored to specific local markets. Already this year, for instance, we’ve had major ad campaigns in Mexico and Brazil, and there are more that will roll out around the world later this year.
• Marketing to guests in the ‘digital world.’ We also have close partnerships with Facebook, Google, the iTunes app store, and other digital platforms to ensure that Airbnb has a strong presence in the places where our guests and other travelers are spending time online. It’s crucial that Airbnb—and your listings—show up high in search results when travelers are looking to book trips and that’s why we spend meaningful money here on your behalf.
• Marketing to guests through Airbnb-specific channels. The Airbnb website and app and email are the other channels we use to help drive guest demand and additional bookings to you. On the website and in the app, we create travel-inspiration articles and collections of listings travelers search for frequently, such as beachfront properties. We also send booking reminder emails when guests have been searching for a place to stay but haven’t booked yet.

Product development

Finally, our last significant bucket of spend is around product development. Airbnb employs thousands of engineers, designers, and product leaders who build the tools and infrastructure that power your business. They focus on keeping Airbnb up and running (ensuring our technology platform is strong, fixing issues that arise), and they develop products specifically designed to make it easier for you to host and succeed.

Recent examples include tools to make reviews more fair for hosts and the newly redesigned Guidebooks feature. The latter helps hosts give guests local recommendations and create a more welcoming, memorable experience overall. (It’s also a lot of fun to use!)

Let us know if you have any other questions about fees and how Airbnb spends them in the comments section, below. We love to get your feedback.

*The Airbnb host service fee may be different in certain cases, and is typically higher for hosts in Italy and for hosts who have a Super Strict Cancellation Policy.

[Chris806]

@Peter1914 Sorry, but that's naive. I'm personally making more money now on other platforms and will now be pushing my business to those platforms instead. I recommend you look into it. Most of my business is still Airbnb, but the others are catching up fast and don't pull the same stuff (yet).  Doesn't it strike you at all wierd that in their long lofty reply above they don't just say, "oh, and also, we take some profit too!" It's symptomatic of a broken system. Don't get me wrong, I use it and will do so while always weighing all options. But they are taking too much of my profit in fees at this point when it is my home at risk.       

[Nancy732]

Hi Chris 806,

Would you mind sharing the other platforms you've found?

NancyG

[Karen-And-Benjamin0]

Susan, Im sorry you have so much problems in Ireland! They do not take more than 3% of our bookings here in the United States. If you are so bitter you should stop using Airbnb. 

[Susan17]

@Karen-And-Benjamin0 

One last time, for those at the back of the room....

[Karen-And-Benjamin0]

Again Susan, If this upsets you stop using Airbnb!!

[Susan17]

@Karen-And-Benjamin0 

If you have nothing constructive or original to say, please don't bother commenting. (Almost every comment you've made throughout this thread, both to myself and others, has been asinine)

Or at least have the manners to read the rest of my comments, which explain clearly why I still use Airbnb, before sticking your oar in. 

[Ken198]

Karen And Benjamin in Grover Beach, CA

You clearly have not read your updates. Susan is 100% correct and that includes the US where I also am. She even showed you where the increase applies. It also applies to you. She is not bitter, just informed.

[Julia1023]

Karen and Benjamin -- You are wrong about that. I am here in the US and on top of the 3% that they transparently show you -- they tack on nearly 20% in other fees to the guest that you don't see. Ask your guests. It is this lack of transparency that upsets me. Why not just let us know that they'll be charging 20-25% fee and that they're spending it on services and marketing? Because it wouldn't seem as good a deal I presume?

[Christine1]

@Julia1023in New Haven.

We do get to see an explanation of the charges, and they become visible to hosts through out the booking process, you can test them out when updating your calendar and listing, prices etc and test out what guests will pay. 

Explanations have always been available via FAQ's, 

https://www.airbnb.com.au/help/article/1857/what-is-the-airbnb-service-fee

and the precise detail has been successively updated throughout the years. the variation some Hosts are mentioning of up to 20% levy to guests on top of nightly rates might also be accounted for by local taxes which are collected on behalf of Hosts and forwarded to whomever is requiring them, some districts have occupancy taxes, or VAT or other additional $$ obligations and Airbnb has tried to streamline the collection and facilitate automatic payments as a [an additional]  service to Hosts. it maybe that they are not always taking a full  20%.

Hosts can check the detail in the Transactions section of their individual accounts. It is not as immediate as some would like, but it is definitely available and has been a section that I have referred to for my past 6 years of Hosting with Airbnb. 

Also I have posted a link  below to an older [2016]  response from Deb and Dave. 

Although the website has changed a bit, it still carries a lot of good info and graphics which you can figure out on the current website.

Keep in mind a very important detail they have included in their post on this issue because what a guest will pay might depend on where the guests  have come from.

" You can get an estimate of what a guest will pay BUT the price varies depending on where the guest is booking from. Here is how!"  [Deb and Dave]

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Tips-Tutorials/How-Much-Does-a-Guest-Pay-A-Community-Help-Guide/...

I hope that this response has some helpful information for yourself and other readers. 

Best Regards, Christine from Wombat's at Glenbrook.

[Denise801]

They are making well over 20%

for each booking worldwide, and up to 28% as far as the statistics show.

[Jan-And-Kim0]

Booking.com is a rival service you could use. They also charge around 20%. You pay it all as a deduction they make from the advertised rate that the guest pays. So it seems pretty much a standard total rate for two major players. 

[Chris806]

@Guillem2 Of course Airbnb should make a profit or it would not exist. But why would they avoid that completely in their detailed answer above?  Because they are disingenous and this bizarre reply says so much about the company. Nowhere do they mention "oh, and also, we are making a profit."  Instead it's this long windy reply about how all that money they take is actually helping us... Ok, so you are a nonprofit now who just wants to make the world a happy smiley place? Please.  Don't get me wrong,  I quite like many things about the service but I am now moving my business to other similar platforms where I am making SIGNIFICANTLY more money with better renters and less of this feel good nonsense that will slowly reveal itelf to you, trust me.... All that Susan says is basically true (I have been a Superhost for as long as Susan or close I think) . Airbnb makes money whether or not you do, they just need customers to book anything so they make some fee. Never mind the quality of customer (they have diminished our ability to screen renters), or what you might make. I have watched my rental rate slip down and down with the constant pressure from Airbnb to push it down further with emails telling me "OMG 6 people looked at your page today and then rented nearby for $30 less" or something similar, meanwhile I have learned if I just wait I will usually get the price (or closer) I want. They just want business, any business, and to build their customer base. It's fine as a business strategy, but let's not pretend with this disingenous "we are putting all those fees into making your experience better." I have also l found I can get a significantly higher rate on other platforms, so I really don't trust their metrics are for you or I.  I found customer service at Airbnb to be mostly helpful, if sometimes misinformed (getting contradictory answers to same question). But wait until something goes terribly wrong (I hope it doesn't) you will see the smiley face come off. Someone busts a hole in your wall and you pay a handyman $75 to fix it- no problem in my experience. But if you get that 1 in a thousand nightmare renter (and after 6 years and that many renters I have),  they will legalize/lawyer you to death and their "insurance" will prove to be useless. Get your own short-term renters insurance if you haven't already!

[Chris806]

And one more thing, agree, 25% of total rental is just too high. They are running no risk, it is my home. Yes, they built the platform that allows me ot eaily rent it. But their "insurance" is not good, and they wouldn't have to push us to push our fees so low if they took less. The amount of their fee is directly related to our diminishing share. They don't exist without us. I'm also pretty outraged at their total lack of backing for NYC hosts who are facing a shakedown from the city. At the least, just inform what is going on. But they are playing it very safe there - taking the money but not doing much to support homeowners   

[Karen-And-Benjamin0]

We have gotten plenty of support. Sorry you feel cheated.

[Sarah977]

@Karen And Benjamin, @Peter1914

All of you are new to the forum. You think all things Airbnb are great because you haven't spent any time reading posts on this forum, never had any horrific guests, and never experienced zero support from the company when you had an issue. . @Susan17 knows more about the history, the politics , the economics,the procedures, the Terms of Service, the legal violations, etc. etc. of Airbnb than anyone on this forum and probably more than almost any other host anywhere.

She doesn't post on this forum because she's bitter or doesn't like hosting. She is rightfully critical of what this company is doing that is just plain wrong. It's called justice and fairness. 

The attitude of "love it or leave it" has never resuted in positive change, anywhere, in any realm, in all of human history.