Host fee

[James2852]

Why is there a "host" fee/charge subtracted from my payout?

[Sybe]

Hi @James2852 ! This is a service fee, you can read more about it in the Resource Center article here: https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/how-much-does-airbnb-charge-hosts-288 🙂

[Huma0]

@James2852 

It's the fee you pay to Airbnb for advertising on their platform and for them handling the payments etc.

[James2852]

 Then what is the other money Air BB takes out!?? Seems like duplicate charges…

[Huma0]

@James2852 

Airbnb charges a guest fee (quite high), which is added onto your nightly rates, and a host fee (around 3% + tax usually) which is taken from the nightly rates.

When you receive a booking, or even a potential booking, you should see a breakdown that tells you what you will receive after the fees have been deducted and also any discounts you've applied.

You can find this to the right on the message thread if you are using a browser (it's also somewhere on the App, but can't remember off the top of my head how it displays there). Looks something like this:

[Elaine701]

@Huma0 

Other platforms charge more. VRBO charges 15% + 3% "payment processing" fee + 2% "trip insurance" (VRBO has yet to explain to me what that is). But we receive near zero bookings from VRBO so it's inconsequential. 

Another boutique platform that we use charges the host 20% and charges the guest 3%. 

On Airbnb, we've switched to the "host pays full commission" model -  we're charged 15% and the guest is charged nothing. 

[Huma0]

@Elaine701 

I haven't used other platforms, so I am not sure of the fees on those, but one thing I do not like about the Airbnb pricing system is that the guest fee is not a fixed percentage, but variable. 

I do remember back in 2016, when I started hosting rooms in this house, Airbnb said it's guest fee was typically between 6-12%. However, I don't think I've ever seen a guest charged as little as 6-8%. It's usually on the higher end of the scale, or even more. I'm rubbish at maths, but you can see that the recent example I gave is  more than 12%.

Now, this is a newbie guest on his first stay. It is rumoured that Airbnb charges lower fees to newbies to draw them in and higher fees to regular users whom they feel they have already hooked.

I have heard that some guests are being charged close to 20% these days...

So, the 15% host pays option you have selected does make sense. At least you know what the total is going to be.