Airbnb Fees why do they charge so much?

[Cormac0]

Hi Folks

Why are Airbnb's fees so high?

I'd like some responses from people I see regularly on the CC rather than complete strangers that come out of nowhere.

Has any host made an analysis of Airbnb's fee as a percentage of the profit they make, this is the whole fee as I don't accept the nonsense that the guest pays one fee and the host pays another fee, the fee is paid by the Guest in its entirety and obviously influences the guests view of the value for money proposition.

Twenty percent is a sizeable wedge on turnover but as percentage of the profit a host makes its an eye opener.

Open your eyes and demand better.

I’m calling on Airbnb to reduce their fee’s significantly and initiate an insurance travel product for their guest that covers amongst many thinks not least of all cancelations.

[Susan1188]

Airbnb has a lot of expenses people don't realise:

- developing the APP and website, upgrading and maintaining it

- client support must be colossal.  I have always received timely support.

 -another thing many people don't realise is they have a huge budget for advertising on google and internet.  when a guest clicks on your property, for weeks, months later this property will appear in his email, on his cell phone, on his google searches.  this costs a huge amount of money and no individual person could ever promote their website as well as airbnb does it

- legal and liabilities I'm sure eat up a chunk of the budget

Airbnb is expensive but they truly offer a service to hosts and guests.

[Cormac0]

@Susan1188 

"client support must be colossal." lol 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Susan1188 

developing the APP and website, upgrading and maintaining it

Airbnb please stop "upgrading" and save some money !  :)))))))))

[Ann489]

@Susan1188

Thank you for the good laugh.

[David122]

yes it is great support if you can understand the reps  english.

[Susan17]

@Susan188 

We're talking about a decade-old company with $4.4 billion  in VC and investor funding behind them here - not some scrappy little boot-strapping start-up with a few euro seed money in the piggy-bank. 

If they were running the company shrewdly and competently, rather than squandering shedloads of cash on ill-conceived and poorly implemented vanity projects (Experiences, Plus, China etc), they'd be able to cover their own expenses, as opposed to shoving their greedy paws deeper and deeper into host pockets, to make up for their shortfalls and failings. 

[Ana1136]

But in reality it is not that much more from the other websites. Booking charges 15% and you can up the percentage more if you want to increase your exposure and you have to if you don't want to be at the bottom. It is pretty much the same, except here the host pays the whole fee. There is an option on Airbnb for host - only fee which is 14-20%. I believe HomeAway isn't much cheaper too. We have no way of knowing Airbnbs expenses, I am sure that they earn milions too, it is not like i feel sorry for them and the money they have to spend and it would be nice if the fees were lower but they are pretty much the same with the others. 

[Lawrene0]

I like the cancellation insurance idea a lot, @Cormac0 . A lot.

I wouldn't care who makes what in fees if I could just stop playing the role of Insurer of Bad Planners.  

[Susan17]

@Cormac0 

The question we really need to be asking is, "Why is there now a two-tier service fee system, under which Airbnb's total take from the bookings of regular hosts is up to a whopping 25% (mandatory Shared Host/Guest fee), while since June 4th, professional and commercial operators on the platform have the option of the Host Only fee, with Airbnb's total take on those bookings being just 14%?

Whether it's called guest fees, host fees, shared fees or just plain old booking fees... no matter what way you slice and dice it, the end result remains the same -  Airbnb creams off up to 11% more from the bookings of regular hosts, than it does from the bookings of Pro "hosts". Some would see that as Airbnb gifting yet another unfair competitive and pricing advantage to the pros, making it harder and harder for small hosts to fight for their lives on the horribly (and in many jurisdictions, unlawfully) unlevel playing field that we're wrongly being forced to compete on. 

Only a matter of time until the Pro listings have "No Service Fees to Guests!!" emblazoned all over them, obviously making them a much more attractive propostion for searching guests than the offerings of regular hosts, with their sky-high charges for guests. (And still, in clear breach of EU rulings that should have been complied with a full 7 months ago, Airbnb continues to force small hosts to battle for survival in the same searches as huge corporate players with their preferential tools and policies, thousands of listings and hundreds of millions in venture capitalist and investor funding behind them. But we don't seem to have much of a problem with that grossly inequitable, discriminatory, anti-competitive treatment at all - or if we do, we certainly aren't voicing our objections to it very loudly)

Just the latest nail being hammered into the coffin of small, independent hosts by Airbnb itself. And we've all been way too distracted by the likes of the never-ending review/ratings/SH insanity, to even recognise our impending - and carefully  orchestrated - demise creeping up on us. 

[Davidand-Julie0]

how does one become a Pro host? never seen it advertised on their site.

[Jeff158]

@Davidand-Julie0  

You need a lot of listings and then no service fees are charged to the guest.

[Susan17]

"Under the new business model, property managers that create accounts starting June 4 and connect to Airbnb via software will be charged a 14 percent host-only fee by default. Until now, the default was that Airbnb charged hosts a 3 to 5 percent fixed fee, and guests paid a fee of up to 20 percent of the rate for the listing.

Existing and newly enrolled property managers will have the choice to switch to a 14 percent host-only fee “or a shared host and guess fee,” Airbnb has informed hosts in an internal communication"

https://skift.com/2019/05/27/airbnb-eliminates-most-guest-fees-to-take-on-booking-holdings/

[Karyo0]

As 'business' hosts get to put their private details in their listing what stops guests from contacting them directly and getting offered a % discount by booking direct - cutting out Airbnb entirely??

[Lisa723]

@Cormac0 because they can.