New Stats on Cleaning Fees

[Peter1]

I'm sure there have been countless past conversations on the topic of Cleaning Fees, but The Hustle recently published some new and noteworthy stats from The Wall Street Journal:

"Some cleaning fee stats:

• Fees increased 9.8% between 2020 and 2021, and then another 6.6% by 2022.
  
  
• The average fee for 1-bedroom properties is $73 (up from $59 in 2020), and $410 for a 5-bed coastal property."

https://thehustle.co/04142022-airbnb-vs-hotel-chains/

Every property is different, so it would be almost impossible to judge simply from the amount and size of the listing whether the cleaning fees charged is reasonable.

But, have you raised your cleaning fees recently, and given the stats above, are you more likely to raise them in the foreseeable future?

Tip: A member of my local Host community group told me how he raised his daily rate to incorporate his cleaning costs, and then advertised (in the listing title) that his listing did not charge a separate cleaning fee.  He saw his booking rate immediately go up.

What strategies do you use to determine what is the best level of cleaning fees for you?

[Suzanne302]

@Jennifer2682I hope those are false rumors. It wouldn't affect my hosting but it would suck for those with whole home rentals who have to pay a cleaning crew. Those hosts would have to raise their rates considerably to cover cleaning costs for shorter stays, or risk losing money. That would also make longer stays way more expensive because the nightly rate is more. Not a good idea!

[Debra300]

@Peter1,

I charge a cleaning fee only at my Atlanta listings which are solely long-term rentals.  The long-term cancellation policy makes it less likely to lose the cost of cleaning.  The cleaning fee goes directly to the cleaner, and I will raise it, because she has had to raise her rates.

At the St. Lucia guesthouse, I incorporate the cleaning fee in the nightly rate to protect it from cancellation refund.  Although I've chosen the firm cancellation policy and offer a non-refundable rate, during this past winter approximately 30% of my bookings resulted in last minute cancellations prior to check-in.  We usually do the cleaning, but I did recently raise the room rate to account for increased costs for energy and supplies.

[Fiona256]

I don't charge a separate cleaning fee as I believe this is a cost which should be included in the overall fee guests pay. I understand the reasoning why hosts charge separately, but to do so seems to lead to guests feeling they need not clean up after themselves before departure. I would never stay in a place which had a separate cleaning fee.

[Amanda660]

We have a 4 bed house spread over 3 floors and charge £25 - it obviously doesn’t  cover costs in entirety.

Years ago it was £40 but I reduced it, incorporated it into my nightly rate and scrapped 1 night bookings (with the exception of filling an odd gap night here and there).  

Generally our guests are pretty neat and respectful.

[Anonymous]

On other corners of the internet, disgruntled customers and travel bloggers are constantly bemoaning what they feel are excessive cleaning fees on Airbnb - especially when they don't find their rentals to be as "clean" as hotels and other accommodations without cleaning fees.

I think most savvy hosts have figured out that the cleaning fee has nothing to do with the actual cost of cleaning; effectively, it's a penalty for shorter stays. Calling it a "changeover fee" would probably lessen the confusion among both guests and newer hosts alike, as what it really represents is the time and labor required to turn the property over from one stay to another. Airbnb has reported that the median length of stay increased during the pandemic, which might have led to some hosts toggling their "cleaning fee" to tilt the balance toward longer bookings. But strong-arming hosts into a ludicrous "cleaning pledge" undoubtedly put some pricing pressure on the small minority of hosts at the budget end of the spectrum who actually took it seriously.

[Pat271]

@Anonymous  I think some of those “disgruntled customers” are bogus, especially when they are hosts trying to persuade other hosts to drop the cleaning fee. Why would they do that? Good business would be to differentiate themselves by not charging a cleaning fee, to favorably compete with those who are.

I’ve seen the same types of alleged hosts try to persuade people to not “gouge their guests” and to drop their rates. These individuals are very unlikely to be real hosts, They are more likely to be Airbnb shills.

[Anonymous]

@Pat271   I'm not talking about content directed at Airbnb hosts, or the kind of social media stuff that Airbnb and its dubious sycophants might have an interest in manipulating. Most of what I've seen has been far less targeted. But also, I see it now with friends and relatives planning trips - every now and then, someone will just send me a screenshot of the price breakdown when they're looking at an Airbnb listing (or VRBO, etc) with a big circle drawn around the "Cleaning Fees" and "Service Fee" to show that they add up to something like double the room rate. Sometimes I'll just see "LOL" crudely drawn across the frame. 

From the perspective of someone who's not in the accommodation business, the real "value" of the property is the base nightly rate. You can hardly blame people for feeling like the pile of added fees is a bit of a racket, considering how widely they vary when you're comparing prices across different platforms. Calling it a Cleaning Fee sounds absurd when you're looking at two similarly-sized homes in the same neighborhood, and one of them charges $50 for "cleaning" and another charges $300. You know the latter one isn't six times cleaner than the other, so it's not unreasonable to wonder what you're actually getting for that extra $250. Coke and hookers?

If Airbnb wants to nudge hosts away from those hefty cleaning fees, there's one really simple solution that it hasn't even put on the table:  give hosts the option to charge a flat per-booking fee but let them call it what they want to. In some countries, that's where you would put a tourist tax that's charged per stay rather than per night. But it could also be branded as a short-stay supplement, changeover fee, check-in fee, Fabulous Host Surcharge, or whatever feels right. Point is, it's one way to let hosts align their pricing model with their hospitality concept without Airbnb scribbling all over it with its sloppy millennial marker.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

Removing cleaning fees and incorporating them in the nightly rate results in an increase of 1-night bookings ONLY. Hosts whose target groups are 1-nighters don't have a cleaning fee.

Higher cleaning fee always results in longer bookings.

As @Anonymous said - CF is a penalty for short stays.

[Cherie71]

Airbnb offers the option on each listing to charge a lower cleaning fee for a short stay.

[Ann72]

@Peter1  Presumably you saw this discussion/poll posted by @Sybe?  https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Do-you-charge-a-cleaning-fee/m-p/1587831#M365104

And perhaps the poll wasn't successful, so you were asked to write this manipulative post?  With a "tip"?

To hell with cheapskate guests who are collectively ruining Airbnb's reputation.  The more Airbnb bends over to accommodate them, the more they feel they can demand anything at any time, not only of the platform but of every host.

Grow a spine, @Airbnb.

[Mary419]

@Ann72 thank you for putting my thoughts down Exactly!!

Speaking of that poll it can be filled out repeatedly I tested it. I also tested the one where they ask if you self manage or have a team. I think the posted question is just telling us where their next PR campaign is headed. The results aren’t necessarily legit since one person can fill it out over and over at the same computer. So whether they reveal the results or not and what the results are is all silliness. 

[Ann72]

"I think the posted question is just telling us where their next PR campaign is headed."  100% @Mary419!  The next round of "improvements" to the site designed to badger us ceaselessly.

[Sybe]

@Ann72 @Mary419  I can assure you that @Peter1  and my post are unrelated. 😉

We OCMs write our own topic depending what we see being discussed on the CC or what we notice people are searching for. One of these was cleaning and specifically the fees around that, so we decided to create a poll. These polls are just for the community and it was also my first poll so I may have forgotten to limit to just one answer. 🤫

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Peter1 Were you asked/encouraged/suggested to write this post as @Ann72 suggests? Or does your NDA preclude you from saying?

[Lorna170]

@Peter1  If I had a home at the beach that rents Saturday to Saturday ONLY, I would be able to roll my cleaning fee into the nightly rate.  But I have a home in the mountains that rents for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 nights, and my housekeeper charges a set fee for EVERY turnover clean.  So I charge a separate fee.  You want pristine, clean cabin with a fresh water refill of the sanitized hot tub?  It is X amount.

I guess I could look at my history on number of rented nights per year and how many cleanings occurred and then add a percentage to my nightly rate so that I can "break even" on what I pay my cleaner, but that would assume that the percentage of 2 night rentals remains the same.

I don't want to do away with my cleaning fee, and frankly, I have had zero push back from my guests to reduce it or remove it.  I rent better than my neighbor who has a similar property and no fee.

P.S.  I raised my base cleaning fee when the entitled pet owners who claimed Fido was a service animal refused to pay the separate pet fee.  We still have to deep clean the property, treat for animal borne bugs and pick up feces.