cleaning fee increase

[Paola2808]

Why is the cleaning fee increasing as well? this is another cost that we need to swallow because we still need to keeo paying our cleaning crew and you are increasing our cleaning fee so you can deduct another 15.5%... airbnb is so desperate to polish their revenue reports to look like they are improving YOY at the hosts costs.

[Rob7820]

If you already used Airbnb’s transition tool, don’t raise your nightly rates again. Airbnb already did that. 

The problem is the cleaning fee. If Airbnb raised a $150 cleaning fee to $174 and that fee is paid directly to your cleaner/co-host, they can now receive $174 instead of the $150 you intended.

The fix is:

1. Put the cleaning fee back to $150.
2. Add a flat $22.19 management fee per reservation.

That $22.19 replaces the gross-up that would otherwise have been added to the cleaning fee. It compensates for Airbnb now taking 15.5% from that part of the booking, while keeping the cleaner’s actual payout at $150.

For a different cleaning fee, multiply the original cleaning fee by 14.79% to get the flat management fee.

This way, the owner isn’t unintentionally giving the cleaner a raise, and the economics stay essentially where they were before the change in the service fee model.

I've tested this out on several rentals, and it seems to be working well. It also works on a co-host + cleaning payout situation.

[David-and-Jenn0]

Yeah but most potential Guests will not go for a random $22.19 "management" fee? Also there is still a lot of confusion around what is seen by the Guest at the last stage of check out. Do they see the itemized turn clean fee or not? Does anyone know for sure? 

[Dinamarta-Jose0]

@David-and-Jenn0 I think those are exactly the two issues that still need to be separated.

The $22.19 management fee may solve the calculation, but from the guest’s perspective it can also look like the host has simply added another fee — which is why I’m hesitant to see that as a complete solution.

As for what the guest actually sees, I think we need to distinguish between the price breakdown during the booking process and the payment breakdown after a reservation is confirmed. Paola has just said that the “Guest Service fee $0” line appears after confirmation.

A screenshot from an actual confirmed reservation would probably settle this question much better than us trying to infer it from the booking preview.

[Dinamarta-Jose0]

Paola, I think your original concern deserves more attention, especially when we are talking about a cleaning fee that is intended to cover an actual third-party expense.

For many hosts, the cleaning fee is not profit. It is money collected to pay the person or team who prepares the property for the next guest.

If my cleaner costs me $150, that cost is still $150 regardless of how Airbnb restructures its service fee.

Yes, mathematically a host can gross up the cleaning fee, adjust other charges, or use a workaround such as the one Rob has described. But I think there is a more fundamental question here:

Why should hosts have to restructure a real operating expense simply because Airbnb changed the way its own service fee is collected?

The cleaner did not change the fee structure. The host did not request the change. Yet the host is the one who has to recalculate the cleaning charge, make sure the cleaner still receives the correct amount, check co-host payouts, and potentially find another workaround to keep the economics where they were before.

And once again, the solution seems to be: “Hosts can adjust the numbers.”

Yes, we can.

But every adjustment, recalculation and workaround becomes another operational responsibility placed on the host.

That is why I believe your concern about the cleaning fee is completely legitimate. Cleaning is a real cost of operating the property, and hosts should not have to complicate how that expense is collected and distributed simply to accommodate a change in the platform’s fee structure.

[Shelley159]

Hi @Dinamarta-Jose0 

How do you suggest Airbnb should've gone about the service fee structure change when it comes to the cleaning fee?

Other than what they did, namely having it update correctly along with all of the other charges when the host runs the conversion tool?

[Dinamarta-Jose0]

@Shelley159 That’s actually a fair question.

If you’re asking what I would have preferred, the simplest approach would have been not to apply the host service fee to a separately stated cleaning fee in the first place.

If a host charges $150 for cleaning because that is what it costs to prepare the property, then $150 remains $150. Airbnb could apply its service fee to the accommodation charges without also taking 15.5% from that separately identified operating expense.

I understand perfectly well that the conversion tool solves the mathematical problem by grossing up the cleaning fee. That’s not what I’m disputing.

What I’m questioning is the logic of creating the problem and then pointing to the tool that compensates for it.

If a $150 cleaning cost now has to be displayed at a higher amount simply so that, after Airbnb deducts its service fee, approximately $150 remains to cover the cleaning, then yes, the calculation works — but the guest sees a higher cleaning charge.

And that brings me straight back to my original concern: once again, a platform fee is ultimately reflected in a higher amount displayed under the host’s charges.

So my alternative would have been quite straightforward: leave separately stated cleaning fees outside the host service-fee calculation.

[Shelley159]

If Airbnb didn't charge a service fee on the cleaning fee @Dinamarta-Jose0 , all.of us would drop our nightly rates to zero and move our entire price to the cleaning fee. That way we'd never have to pay a service fee at all.

[Dinamarta-Jose0]

@Shelley159 That’s a fair point, and I agree that simply exempting the cleaning fee entirely could create an obvious loophole, because hosts could shift accommodation charges into the cleaning fee to avoid the service fee.

So I’ll refine what I said. My concern isn’t that Airbnb should create a structure that can be easily circumvented. It’s what happens to a legitimate, separately stated cleaning expense under the new 15.5% structure.

If the actual cost of cleaning is $150, the host now has to display a higher cleaning fee simply to retain approximately $150 after Airbnb’s deduction. The cleaner still costs $150, but the guest sees a higher cleaning charge.

That’s the part of the change I’m questioning: how a genuine operating expense can be handled without either creating a loophole or making the host appear to be charging more for cleaning than the cleaning actually costs.

[Shelley159]

@Dinamarta-Jose0 if you click through on a listing you'll see that the cleaning fee isn't shown anywhere on a listing. It's not even visible in the "price breakdown" pop-up.

It's just a per-booking charge instead of a nightly rate, and forms part of the guest total.

The service fee applies to the total, including its per-night and per-booking components.

[Dinamarta-Jose0]

Yes, Shelley — and that is exactly the distinction I’m making.

The cleaning fee may be a per-booking component rather than part of the nightly rate, but as you said, the service fee applies to the total, including the cleaning fee.

So if a host charges $100 for cleaning, that does not mean the host receives the full $100 to pay for cleaning. Airbnb’s service fee is also applied to that amount.

That is the point I’m discussing — not whether the cleaning fee is technically classified as a nightly or per-booking charge.

[Shelley159]

Then we're back to what would you like Airbnb to do @Dinamarta-Jose0 😀

We've established that there has to be a cleaning fee and that there has to be a service fee on the cleaning fee. What would you like Airbnb to change?

[Dinamarta-Jose0]

That’s a fair question, Shelley. 😊

What I would like Airbnb to change is quite simple: exclude the cleaning fee from the amount on which the host service fee is calculated.

For many hosts, the cleaning fee is there to cover a specific operational cost of preparing the property for the next guest. If Airbnb also takes its service fee from that amount, the host either absorbs part of that cost or has to increase the cleaning fee to receive the amount actually needed for cleaning.

For example, if the cleaning cost is $100 and Airbnb applies a 15.5% host service fee to it, part of that $100 goes to Airbnb rather than toward the cleaning cost.

So my suggestion is straightforward: charge the host service fee on the accommodation price, but not on the cleaning fee.

That would be a meaningful and practical change for hosts.

[David-and-Jenn0]

What I am trying to confirm is what is shown to the Guest at the time of finalizing the booking. I am getting contradictory information online. I know they don't see an itemized clean fee through all the steps I can view myself, i.e., search, initial price breakdown, etc., but I don't know what is shown in the final steps before finalizing. Is the clean cost ever itemized at any time or are just the taxes itemized? So in other words, rent+any host fees shown as total accommodation and then taxes are the only two itemized costs. I am doubting that is the case because then it would not be very transparent as it relates to individual host fees, e.g., clean, management, pet, etc. 

[David-and-Jenn0]

They could prevent that from happening, obviously, but we all know they are not going to take a 15.5 cut on fees, so the question is, how can they help Hosts still compete after putting this additional financial burden on them.

[David-and-Jenn0]

How about absorb it?  Wait, forgot what reality I am living in for a moment...  They could have created a pricing tool that spreads the cost of the clean out dynamically based on the length of the stay.