Do you charge a Cleaning fee?

[Celeste247]

Does anyone not charge cleaning fees but instead increase the nightly rate? Wondering tricks and tips? 

[Title updated by Community Manager for relevancy]

[Fiona256]

I have not charged a cleaning fee in almost 40 years of providing holiday accommodation. Surely cleaning is an integral part of the service we provide travellers. It should be part of the overall cost of the stay, not an additional fee. Cleaning, like administering bookings, maintaining the property and garden, etc, is a business requirement and should simply be calculated into the amount charged per stay. The materials used can be offset against tax. Or if you use a cleaner, rather than do it all yourself then the cleaner’s invoice payment can be offset against tax, as you would with your accountant. It’s all part of the cost of doing busness.

We read about guests disliking additional fees like this, and feeling they should not clean up after themselves since they are being charged separately for cleaning. It’s not surprising.

We also read that many hosts justify an additional fee to guests for cleaning to keep the cost proportional for guests who stay longer. I understand the argument there, but I don’t agree with it.

I will never charge for cleaning. It seems unfair. No-one used to in the UK. It’s yet another thing we have inherited from America.

How can we claim we are providing hospitality when we demand that guests pay extra for cleaning? It seems most inhospitable to me.

Fiona

[Te0]

Very well said!

I keep hearing hosts here say how much they (over)pay for the 3rd party cleaning service, but why would a guest have to care about this? If they care, they should not make an effort to clean your place at all when leaving and you should definitely not expect that to happen. How greedy. (I understand, read on 🤡)

Let's be honest, clean fee is another crap tool Airbnb provides to be misused and exploited by certain hosts to expect to be benefited from. But in the end, does that work as planned? I doubt it, who knows, so I am not worried about that. However, for the sake of now every guest knowing it, I will charge a $20 to be fair, for my own cleaning effort, that's it.