As this thread has progressed, another thought has occurred to me about cleaning fees that we have not discussed:
Some hosts may have a higher cleaning fee because the quality of the guests renting their space is not very high.
Let me explain:
I co-hosted a whole-house property over the summer. The home was adequate but it wasn't luxury. It had a fresh coat of paint on most things, the hardwood floors were patched but nicely refinished, the bathrooms were, well, bathrooms - nothing wrong, but nothing especially special about them either. The kitchen had new tile that wasn't quite finished (no toe kick) and the appliances were mis-matched (at the beginning of the summer the refrigerator was just plain OLD - I was glad it finally broke so the owners had to replace it). I could sort of equate it to the first apartment you might rent for yourself - nothing "wrong" but nothing is perfect either.
That being said, the house was a little ways outside of downtown too, so guests would have to drive everywhere. It was a 2-bed, 2-bath house with a full kitchen and it could house up to 8 people. It was priced at $65/night with a $45 cleaning fee and we had a 2-night minimum (so spread that cleaning fee out). The average stay was 3-nights. I thought this was a fair price and expected the guests to be of the same quality as the guests that stay in my own 1-bedroom guestroom space in town (that I rent for $45/night with a $15 cleaning fee). I coulldn't have been more wrong.
The "cheapness" of the home attracted pretty crappy guests who treated the house pretty poorly. One guest threw/dropped their eyeglasses into the toilet and flushed them down causing the toilet to back up (but of course, not right away and since we couldn't tell WHICH guests had done this, Airbnb wouldn't pay the homeowners for the damage to the toilet and calling the plumber). One set threw something on the ceiling of the kitchen by the stove - I'm thinking pancakes - that I had to get on a ladder to clean off. One set stayed for 4 weeks and never cleaned the coffee pot after making a pot probably on the first day - and it got moldy. Another group left 5 bags of garbage inside the house when there are garbage cans right off the back porch. One group left an out-of-date uncooked chicken dripping in the fridge. I kid you not, the guests treated the house like it was a flop home. I swore that I would not co-host again without making the fee $75 the next summer. I would work my a$$ off between guests getting things washed, cleaned, mopped, and reset and only once did I get the place cleaned in less than 3 hours (it was a turn for one couple staying in one bedroom to another couple staying in one bedroom so laundry was a minimum and I didn't have to make 2 beds, only one). I complained so much about how awful the guests were, that it never occurred to me that it might be better to just raise the price and eliminate this type of budget renter who were all, clearly, raised in a barn by wolves.
Oh, and by the way, at that cheap price, we had about 35% of the guests lower the "value" score. One group of 8, who broke the recycling can inside the house that we asked them to replace for $30, actually gave us a 3! Lets do the math there... 8 people for 3 nights at $65 plus $45 (we typically charged $10 per air mattress set up but they decided to bring their own instead) plus the cost to replace the can.... That's $11.25 per person, per night. WHERE THE FCK ARE THEY GOING TO STAY ELSEWHERE FOR A BETTER VALUE?! - a shelter perhaps or sleeping on a park bench?! They couldn't even pay to park overnight in a parking deck and sleep in their cars for less. Plus they left the place a wreck - with a few dishes in the sink, the glass dining table completely covered in food and grime, and so much long hair everywhere! Yes, I'm still bitter....
But I thought, if I'm going to have to clean more, I should charge a higher cleaning fee. I mean, we received 5-star ratings on cleanliness on all but 1 reservation all summer (yup - the folks who let the coffee pot get moldy and never bothered to clean it for 4 weeks themselves or call and tell me to come clean it - I was there every Monday exchanging sheets and towels - these two women were TEACHERS!) I wanted to charge more because the guests treated the house so poorly and it was taking me way longer to clean up after them. In reality, we needed better guests who wouldn't treat this house like this.
So that's my thinking, perhaps that is why there is such a high cleaning fee on some listings - enough so that it doubles the cost of the space. Perhaps the guests those locations are attracting are less than quality guests who, over time, have forced the cleaning fee higher and higher because of the extra work being required of the cleaners.
IDK, it's speculation on my part and just an observation based on my own experience and feelings. JM2C.