Pet fee - how much do you charge?

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Was just thinking about my pet fee and was wondering what everyone else charges? 

[Jeff67]

Thank you for your response.  I did not mean that as an insult.  My only experience was as a guest in which I slept in a bed and touched nothing else (and the kitchen was a lived in kitchen rather than a polished kitchen, but I still consider the place a 5-star rental just for the cost alone).

I am concerned that Airbnb is set up to encourage people to undercharge and I think that a lot of people are operating at a loss because they don't consider all the costs of rental.

In your case, I suppose rental of a room plus private bath is quite different from rental of a room with a shared bath.  Honestly, before I had a cleaner, when I was cleaning myself, I spent more time on a bathroom than a bedroom by a good margin.

[Sarah977]

@Jeff67  What I have is a 3 night minimum, and in fact, the average stay of my guests is at least a week, that way I don't feel like I'm losing out by not charging a cleaning fee. Even if a guest only stayed for 3 nights and left the place looking immaculate, I'd still do the same amount of cleaning as if they had stayed for a week or more and left it messy. As a host, you really don't know if the guest sat on the bedspead naked, if they coughed in their hand before turning the doorknob, etc, so I just clean everything every time.

It's nice to hear you say you considered a place 5* even though the kitchen was "lived in" because you felt you got great value. My kitchen, although I do keep it much cleaner when guests are sharing it with me than when I'm here alone, isn't what you'd call polished- I'm not someone who jumps up and washes the dishes after every meal- I don't use a dishwasher, and I'll let a day's worth of dishes pile up before I wash them. Hasn't bothered any of my guests, who tend to be pretty casual- sometimes I'll wash their dishes if I already have a pile there, sometimes they'll wash mine if they're doing theirs.

If I allowed pets, I'd definitely charge a cleaning fee- judging by my own constant-shedder dog, I know how much effort is required to clean up after a pet.

[Laurie280]

Hi! I have two bedrooms that share a JacknJill bathroom. When I have guests coming and going in each room, I not only clean, sanitize and polish each bedroom as it’s vacated, I also ready the JnJ bath for each new guest so that each incoming guest starts their visit as if they had a pristine private bath. Not counting laundering bedding and towels, I spend a minimum of 45 minutes turning a bedroom and and hour every time I clean, sanitize and polish the bathroom. When you add time and supplies to also keep the house pristine (we have an open house policy), my per night average cost is $10. That doesn’t include the cost of “perks”, in my case that includes a snack & beverage bar shared between the rooms, fresh fruit bowls and candy bowls in each room, plus every possible product from shampoo to shoe laces.

I don’t change my cleaning process based on whether someone just sleeps in the bed and barely touched anything else, and someone who fully utilized the space. Every surface still has to be tended.

[Nicolle14]

Hi, would you mind sharing the types of questions that you ask the guests? We had our first request to bring a dog and want to make sure we feel comfortable with the idea. 

[Nicolle14]

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@Alice-and-Jeff0 I’d love to know more about the questions that you ask the guests about their dogs. My husband and I just got our first request for someone to come with their dog and we want to make sure that we are totally comfortable with it.

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[Tara275]

I completely agree that it's ridiculous for people to think that they should be able to bring their dogs without any sort of a fee. I am a huge dog-lover, and my property is one of the only ones in the area that even allows dogs. Even I, however, feel really burdened by dogs -- mostly because I cannot believe how many people allow them to walk *all over* my couch. It seems like every time we have hosted guests with dogs, I have found hairs on the arms and backs of my microfiber couch. This is an enormous, time-consuming hassle to vacuum up, and believe me when I tell you guests absolutely notice it when you miss a single dog hair. I have nothing but 5-star ratings on the cleanliness of my property, but even those have a couple of times included notes that they loved how clean it was but they did find a couple of dog hairs in the carpet. Do you know how many times I have to go over the rugs when vacuuming, to get all the dog hairs out? It's a tremendous time-suck. And it's always the more demanding guests with the smallest, yippiest dogs (always more than one) who come and let them walk all over my furniture. I simply would never allow my dogs to do that in anyone else's property, any more than I would allow my children to wipe sticky, dirty hands on people's furniture. It's rude, presumptuous, obnoxious behavior and honestly adds at least 35 minutes onto my cleaning time, which already costs more than I can charge for it in my market. Dogs are expensive. People who own dogs need to realize that. Our dog is absolutely a member of our family; we love him to the ends of the earth. But he's *our* problem, not anyone else's. And yes, I also completely agree that anything we charge will be far less than boarding, never mind hiring a pet sitter. I've been precluded from taking certain trips in my own life, because I couldn't afford to have someone look after my dog in addition to all the other costs associated with travel. I don't see why all people should expect to pay for the care and boarding of their pets. It's a fact of life and the only reason someone should think it doesn't apply to them, is if they have a sense of entitlement and think others should carry their own burdens for them.

Surprising even myself at the strength of my emotions on this topic! 

[Anthony1594]

I love it, I was completely on the fences and was leaning towards the hell no.  but this helped, all of this helped! thanks!!!

[Cristina2615]

Is that a nonrefundable pet deposit? 

[Paul154]

I charge $25 flat fee.

It is a fair price that covers my extra cleaning costs.

But it is not so high that people balk at paying.

When I traveled with my dog, I considered hotels that charged a $50 pet fee as hotels that would not get that $50.

I also had the same attitude about airlines that charge $80-$100. 

You'd be surprised how many flights my dog took... 

[Jeff67]

I have a "no pets" listing.  I am consider opening it up to "pets with a $50 fee" listing, but there is not a chance I would consider a $10 fee like other posters are describing here.  I spend 70 per guest trip on cleaning and expect that to increase considerably with pets allowed and I am assuming that allowing pets would cut the useful lifespan of furniture in half (probably 4-5 years for a couch would go to 2-3 years, for example).

The only way I can understand many of the responses here is they are talking about airbnb rooms rather than airbnb full houses.

Are you concerned about the lifespan of your furniture with just a $25 fee?

[Tara275]

I am concerned about that. And I also have quality furniture, so when my sofa goes it will set me back ~$2,000-$3,000 even to replace it to a lower standard (I live in Alaska and, due to shipping, truly you're looking at $5k-$6k for high-quality stuff). Luckily the recliner is leather, so pets don't damage it as much. 

[Tara275]

What if it's more than one dog? What if it's for multiple nights? Is there a difference in price?

[Chris-and-Priscilla0]

Currently we charge a $35 pet cleaning fee per dog, 2 dog max on top of our $75 standard clean fee. We started off charging $25 per dog and did not state a max dog quantity, big mistake! We had a reservation with 6 people and 3 medium size dogs, after check out I have never seen so much hair in one place in my life! Took 3 vacuum loads, 3 mopping, had to wash every piece of material in the place. Every orifice of our cabin had dog hair. Every window had slobber and nose marks and the dining room table had nail marks all over, clearly the dogs had a furniture dancing party while their parents were out on the town, Ugh! 

Anyway my recommendation (learned the hard way) to charge a pet cleaning fee per dog. The way we look at it now is...we would rather rent to people that understand there is extra time and cost when cleaning after a dog stay.  

Please please Airbnb add a dog cleaning fee deposit!! 

[Tara275]

Wow! What a nightmare scenario. It's a real problem when you have tight turnaround times and all of a sudden find yourself sinking hours into cleaning up after other people's animals. I'm already trying to squeeze in everything from floor to ceiling, including ironing sheets for two beds and washing all extra linens that people may have used -- especially in the age of coronavirus! Personally I can't imagine prancing out of a rental and leaving behind a mess like that for someone else to clean up. What tremendously rude behavior.

[Greggory1]

How do you set up your fees to show a price per dog? When adding a pet fee to the property I’m not seeing any place to add a price per pet or a pet limit.