How Airbnb's Long Term Pricing Formula Works

[Laramie0]

About two years ago, Airbnb introduced the 100% worthless 'discount' system for the monthly rate.  Guests don't care about some arbitrary discount, they care about the final price.  Ever since this discount system was instituted, I've never known exactly what I'm going to get paid for my rooms.  My understanding is that the rate is:

base rate x 30 days x the discount.

The built in calculator never works correctly however.  I have a room with a base rate of $50 and a discount of 20%.  The rate should be $1200.  Instead, it $1120.  If I change the discount to 19%, the rate stays at $1120!  Who is programming this.

Apparently individual days on the calendar can effect this rate as well.

You can set custom monthly rates but those only apply if the person stays at least 28 days of that calendar month.  If they stay, say 8 days in May, the custom rate isn't used for May.  Airbnb takes the discount rate as a default and prorates that...unless the stay is 28-30/31 days. Then they prorate it based on the custom monthly rate.  Confusing!  Yes!  

And then if you alter a long term reservation - another nighmare.  Airbnb doesn't take the rate that you and the guest agreed on. They take the rate after the guest leaves and apply that to the entire stay.  Prices are seasonal so this causes havoc.  A guest today wanted to reduce his stay by a week in May.  Taking my summer rate, he was going to get charged $500 to stay a week less!

Thoughts?

[Emiel1]

hello @Laramie0 ,

The monthly discount applies on any stay of 28 nights and longer. It has nothing to do with  "a monthly rate".

That's why BOTH your examples are correct: (28 * 50) minus 20%=1120,- And for 30 nights it is: 1200,- etc,etc

If you also set custom monthly rates (yes, they are "monthly rates") than there can be a conflict between both types of rating and Airbnb has to make a choice when calculating (I remember it is explained in the settings how it will be done)

I host regularly "long term stay" guests and never experienced problems with the price-calculation. But I do NOT set monthly rates in my listings. And you can allways sent such guests a special offer with the total price for the requested period in it (manually calculated). Extension or shortening the stay can be done by changing the reservation, if this is done by the host it also gives manual control about the pricing. Shortening the stay by the guest can also be effected negativily by the "long term stay" cancellation policy.

[Laramie0]

When you are figuring out what your general monthly rate is going to be and enter the discount, Airbnb displays a monthly rate.  That discount will also apply to stays of 28 days or more but that's only a partial month.  Except for February, everyone is paying their mortgage/rent based on the calendar month.

Airbnb could just let you set a monthly rate that is permanent depending on the month.  Partial months can be done on a prorated basis.  

This system remains pointless and unnecessarily complicated.  

[Andy545]

Hi Emiel1,

Would you happen to know how the Monthly  "Length-of-stay discounts" average is calculated. Following is cut and pasted from my account, and is based on $151/night. I don't have any other price/discount anywhere else on the setting. But for sure the numbers don't add up. It should be:

151 x 30 = 4530 x 0.95 = 4303.50; a difference of 75.5!!!

Length-of-stay discounts

Edit

Weekly

None

Monthly

5% ($4228 average)

[Renee237]

Hi there,

I can only rent monthly... is there a way to set my pricing as weekly with a 4 week minimum?  I cant even find how to just have monthly rates without saying what I want and then backing in a 58% discount!

Any help is appreciated

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Laramie0

Whatever total amount you and your guest agree on, the guest will have to pay that plus guest fees. So the amount the guest actually ends up paying will not be what you agree on and the payout a host recieves will also be less than what you agree on because there are also host fees. 

I do agree that ABB should try to be more transparent about how they come up with the % of the fees. They say guest service fees are about 5~15% but for my guests they always seem to be at the higher end, 12~14% regardless of length of stay. I've had one guest who tried to modify (reduce) a long term reservation by one day and the adjusted total came up higher than her original booking. We agreed to refund the 1 night later after she checked in because we were thinking of blocking a couple nights before and after her reservation anyway. 

[Rebecca7]

I too am finding it a slippery and obscured slope in relation to Airbnb's management of discounts.  I have opted not to offer any prebooking discounts but if the client asks for a discount,  the offer will be considered  and perhaps given with fuller control over that discount.  By premptively "giving it away" I am not convinced the price lowers by the full amount of discount offered.  Airbnb's programming might see it as "throw away"  money by host and claim some of it. I have clients that are requesting to show me what they pay and ask me to see what we receive.  I do not deny this transparancy as both sides are curious to understand what is going on.  The numbers are vastly different.

[Angelune-And-Ian0]

I'm also really confused about their formula. I have a pre-set discount of 15% for stays of 28 days or more, and our daily rate is $75. We had an inquiry for a stay of 120 days, which would be $9,000. After the discount it would be $7,650. Our cleaning fee is $100. However ABB is showing the price for this inquiry as $8529, or $8429 without the cleaning fee, which works out to only a 7% discount... I'm so confused!