cleaning fees and rate setting

[Joan2745]

Hi-

I am a relatively new host, and I have a question about cleaning fees - after bad experiences with our initial cleaning company, we now have cleaners that are great - and charge about the same / going rate seemingly, as I called a few other companies and asked about their fee. I am in the midst of lowering our nightly rate for the Fall months, and in looking at comparable listings in our area, I was struck by the fact that most cleaning fees were lower (our cleaning fee is 250...which we currently have as the fee for the guests for cleaning)....most all of the other listings' cleaning fees in our area, are under 200.00. So I'm trying to figure out if I should lower the cleaning fee for guests (thus 'eating' some of the fee ourselves), or lower the Fall rate a little more than we were planning, to make the over-all fees for the guest, more comparable to others' listings in our area.  

Any thoughts or advice on this?

Thank you in advance!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Joan2745 Some hosts do not charge any cleaning fee and puts it all on the rate. Others charge just the laundry costs and not the actual cleaning. Some guests expect perfection if a big cleaning fee is charged. Some people outside Europe report the cleaning fee is hidden until later in the booking process so there is more chance of a listing being looked at (and then annoying the potential guest when it doubles in price).

There is no right answer to cleaning fees.