Cleaning fee - yes or no?

[Wolfhard1]

Hi all,

do you in general advise to charge a cleaning fee or not?

What are the pros and cons of charging a cleaning fee?

Thanks!

Wolfhard

[Barry-and-Lera0]

@Wolfhard1: Yes we do. It does not go toward a cleaning crew or anything since we clean the space oursleves but it goes toward the extras we supply for every guest. Beer, wine, baked goods, snacks, fruit, coffee etc. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Wolfhard1

yes we charge 10€ CF for studio, 20€ for 2 bedroom apartment and 30€ for 3 bedroom apartment. It covers the cost of cleaning lady + loundry service.

You know it is possible to set weekly or monthly discount....  well, cleaning fee is like a daily discount. It makes price difference between 1 - 6 days.

[Antonio-Luis0]

I use them because I feel it is  more fair towards guests that have longer stays. Otherwise I would have to increase the price per night to cover for the cleaning cost.

[Ned-And-Laura0]

We do not charge a cleaning fee.  We do the cleaning ourselves so we don;t have any out of pocket expense other then the cost of running a load of laundry.  It's a one bedroom guest house so cleaning takes less than an hour.  If it was a full multi bedroom home and we used a cleaning service that charged us $100+ then we would have a cleaning fee.  But since we do it ourselves what I really fear is that if we charge a fee then people will not tidy up becasue they are charged the fee.  So far 99% of the guests have left the place spotless which makes our lives a lot easier.  Also, we get a LOT of one night guests and I fear a cleaning fee would deter this which would in the end cost us bookings and reduce profit more than the income gained by the cleaning fee.  

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

We charge a fee for our guest room and private bath. It's small - $15 - but it makes one-night stays worth the effort since it is essentially a premium.  So if we have 7 guests in 7 days for $50/night with our $15 cleaning fee we actually bring in $350 for the rent and $90 for cleaning ($440 total).  If we only had one guest it would only be $365.  We make more money when we have more turn over.

The room stays cleaner when we have a new guest every day, so cleaning TIME is less but the extra work of running 7 loads of sheets and towels vs. 1 at the end of a 7-day stay needs to be accounted for ultimately.  There is wear and tear on the sheets, towels, washer, dryer, and costs cleaning supplies, water, electricity, etc. for every load of laundry and every time you wipe down the sink.  Charging a fee for every time you have to go through the process takes the costs of doing business into account - not just whether you pay a service or not.  You can build it into the nightly price - but that guest who stays for 7 nights paying the built in costs of doing business vs. charging him a 1 time cleaning fee - is paying the premium because you are only doing the work 1 time instead of 7.  Meaning you are "essentially" getting paid for cleaning charges every night instead of only getting paid when you are actually cleaning.  

If you do a search of the forums here for this topic, you'll find lots of conversation about it and hosts are pretty divided on whether to charge or not to charge.  

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?advanced=false&allow_punctuation=f...

[Allison2]

Here are the things I've learned from prior discussions about cleaning fees:

Many hosts use it to make short stays more worthwhile.

Other hosts don't want guests to feel "nickel and dimed" with extra charges, so don't charge a cleaning fee.

Some hosts argue that guests leave the place cleaner if there's no cleaning fee. Some hosts who tried both ways say it doesn't make a difference.

Some hosts charge a large cleaning fee and a lower nightly rate so the price per night looks attractive in search results. Some hosts and guests think this is deceptive and won't book places with low nightly rates and a large cleaning fee.

Some hosts don't like that the cleaning fee is refunded if the guest cancels, so they roll cleaning costs into the nightly rate.

So what I think is that there's no right or wrong. You might try both ways to see what works best for you and your listing. I personally don't charge a cleaning fee. I like that guests don't see an "extra" fee.

[Kath9]

@Wolfhard1, I didn't charge a cleaning fee initially but then quickly realised that 1-night guests were a lot more work for me than 2-3 night guests. So, I dropped my overall price from $60/night to $50/night and added a $10 cleaning fee - that way, guests who stay longer pay less per night, which is only fair. If you don't want to charge a cleaning fee, you could always offer a discount for guests who stay for 2 nights or more.