@Shelley159 And beyond the numerical example, I think there is a broader reason why some of us are concerned about this change.
For me, this has never been only about whether the math can be adjusted to preserve the same payout. It is also about where Airbnb’s service fee now sits and how the resulting price is perceived by the guest.
Under the previous structure, part of Airbnb’s service fee was clearly charged on the guest side. Under the single-fee structure, Airbnb deducts the service fee from the host payout, so hosts who want to maintain approximately the same earnings have to account for that cost in their pricing. My own example shows this clearly: Airbnb’s adjustment tool moved my nightly rate from $95 to $109 and my cleaning fee from $50 to $57.
That means the higher nightly rate and cleaning fee shown on the listing can appear to be coming from the host, even though part of that increase is there to accommodate Airbnb’s service fee. That perception matters to me because guests compare our prices, not Airbnb’s internal fee structure.
And there is another part of this discussion that I don’t think should be separated from the fee increase: what hosts receive in return for that fee. We agree to Airbnb’s terms and hosting rules in order to use the platform, and hosts also establish listing rules that guests agree to when booking. When problems arise, I believe hosts reasonably expect those rules to be understood and consistently applied by support.
If the service being provided is primarily visibility, booking infrastructure and payment processing, while hosts still experience inconsistent support when their own agreed listing rules need to be enforced, then I think it is reasonable for hosts to question whether a 15.5% host fee represents good value compared with the previous 3% host fee.
That is the larger concern I have been trying to express. It isn’t just about moving numbers from one column to another.
