I know of some vacation rental agencies that charge the guest a larger amount for cleaning than the cleaner’s rate, with the explanation that the extra helps to offset the situations in which there are extra cleaning charges, stains/damage to towels, linens, etc.
One could argue that this isn’t equitable to every guest, in that good guests are incurring some of the charges for bad guests. Also, if this were the reason given to the housecleaners, it might encourage them to charge more extra cleaning fees than they otherwise would have.
Another way to handle your situation is to not have a cleaning fee and just raise the nightly rate and earmark more for your cleaning expenses. More and more, the total charges are being shown to the guest, so they might end up paying a similar amount, and it has the additional benefit that you can advertise that you have no cleaning fees, which is a hot button these days. You could take your average stay length and divide your higher cleaning fee by the number of rental days, and raise your rental rates by that amount. Shorter stay guests would end up paying less for cleaning than longer stay guests, but it may all average out in the end.
