prices come up very different on a search

[Jim-And-Jeanne0]

i have my nightly price set at $99.  when i search in my city to see what others are charging, i see my listing photo along with others, but my listing now shows as $199.  when i click to the listing, it's back to $99.  but the first thing anybody looking in my area sees is this price that's a hundred dollars more than i charge.

i charge a $50 cleaning fee, so that can't account for it. 

i would like to know why the price is different on the search results screen.

anybody got an idea?

[Jim-And-Jeanne0]

it's not just that.

i've been getting a graph that keeps showing demand going down, and the price tips want me to charge the same amount as motel 6.

but when i search my neighborhood, the page says to choose quick because there's only 17% availability.  and the prices of the available hotels in my area are three times what i'm charging.

i've seen lots of complaints by people all over the world about how demand is plummetting.  but i'm almost fully occupied.  i'd like to understand the algorhythms.

[Dave-and-Deb0]

Hi @Jim-And-Jeanne0,

What price do you want to set your listing at?  I believe you have your "nightly rate" set at $99 which can be changed in your listing on the left hand side under "Pricing" and then "Base Price".  So basically, if I find your listing without putting in a check-in and check-out date, it will display that it is $99 a night.  However, when I then scroll over your calendar, it will show me how much you have each night set at which you have set up on your calendar.  If you want every night to be $99, you need to go to your calendar and change each night at $99.  What you are doing, or did, was take Airbnb's suggested pricing by clicking on "see price tips for all days" and then you chose "save these prices".  That would have changed all your prices to their suggested prices which range from $82 - $165 per night.  All you will need to do is change the prices for January as you did not apply the "suggested pricing" to the other months.

I took a screen shot without dates put in and you can see the daily price but you can also see that on your calendar, you have January 13th set at $165.  With your cleaning fee, your listing would cost $215 plus Airbnb's fees for one night.

If you want to set individual days or a whole group of days, check out this "How To" guide for setting prices for single or multiple days.

Now that you applied Airbnb's suggested pricing, you will have to manually set them to the prices you wish to have.

I hope this helps @Jim-And-Jeanne0.

Dave

[Jim-And-Jeanne0]

dave, thanks for all that effort to help me.

what you were seeing when you had a look was what it looks like after half an hour of fiddling, and not what it looked like when i wrote my query.  at that time i had accepted airbnb's price tips, then messed with them individually, and basically set a bunch of nights at 89 and a bunch at 99.

my set price no longer looks anything like what the calendar says.

i notice that lots of listings come in at a comletely different price on the search engine and when you check the listing individually, the price changes to whatever is current.  i think this is very confusing to the prospective guest.

but, hey, in my case, the problem was that i had set the charge for extra guests.  my last guest brought an unexpected fourth to a three bed apartment, and i slapped 50 bucks onto any extra guests that very evening (being proactive). but what i did wrong was set the charge for any guest after 1.  when i should have set it for any guest after 3.  so what the listing was reflecting was an extra hundred dollar charge, because i was searching for room for 3 when i was searching for similar listings in my area.

so.  i removed that and went back to check the listing, and i was now tons cheaper than everyone around me.  so i have reset my base price.

such a learning curve.

[Bruce6]

Hey Dave & Deb,

How did you insert that image?

When I click on the camera above it gives me some fields. In the "source" field are they looking for html code or something?

Also, why isn't my response to your comment subordinate to your comment?

It looks like I'm replying to Jim & Jeane. 😞

[Dave-and-Deb0]

Hi @Bruce6,

To insert a picture, ensure you are logged in.  When you are not logged in, it will ask for a source but when logged in, you can upload a file.  I also agree with what you say about the "subordinate".  I wish they would attach the comments to the person you are commenting to instead of putting everything at the bottom of the page.  I should add that to the suggestions/feedback post.

[Bruce6]

Thanks so much!

Great. So there is the listing. Any idea why it's from three or four edits ago? Or why the price is the first one we entered and not the current nightly price?

I appreciate your help.

[Bruce6]

Hi Dave. Two things.

One, once I follow the link all the info is what I've currenty set it at, so I think this a Google artifact and not an AirBnB one. So, not really anything I'm going to mess with now. I'll leave SEO for another day.

Two, I requested your help in another thread regarding altering reservations. The submit button had been greyed out and is now functional. I don't know why, maybe they were fixing something. Anyways, it works now, but I am not able to log into the thread because of an "unexpected error Exception ID: 17E2C03F". Once I can log in I'll remove that post or edit it.

Thanks!

[Dave-and-Deb0]

Hi @Bruce6,

I would have to agree with your assessment of point one.

I must have missed your question in the other thread.  In the future, type in "@" followed the name of the person you wish to direct your question to and then they will receive a notification.  I am glad your issue was fixed.  

Dave

[Chris325]

Where is this base price? I see $250.00 when I find my condo, but I'm actually charging $175.00/night.  I want to see $175!

So how can I fix this?

Thanks

Chris

[Laura619]

The only way to change the price that shows up on your airbnb landing page is to toggle the smart pricing OFF.  When you do that there is a Base Price box.  When you change that number that's what shows up!
After you change that you can toggle smart pricing back on.

[Jean40]

Hi I have just noticed the same on one search it was $38 & another was $60, I don't understand either.... it's all new to me. Jean

[Gareth2]

I've got the same problem . Nobody from Airbnb can help me and I'm getting no bookings because my price shows much higher than anyone else's when my nightly price is nowhere near what it's showing . I'm even getting now my $50 cleaning fee showing up as $52 . It's been over a month I've spoken to maybe 10 people and nobody can help in the meantime I'm losing out on rentals because people pick the cheaper property next to mine ! Crazy how can this be a big that lasts this long. We are only talking pricing the most important part of the site !

[Ridgewood-Mod-Housing0]

I have had this same problem on my listings. Of course when I called they had NO IDEA this was happening! Clearly many people have complained! This is what I am thinking. The company posts certain properties at different prices in order to give other properties chances to book. If someone happens to book our space at the blown up price, Airbnb with show that the guest is paying our quoted price and takes the inflation and pockets it. If your listing is $50 and it shows $59, the guest stays for 10 days that's $90 unaccounted for and pocketed. Now add that to 10,000 hosts with the same issue and you see the pocketed profit.

[Glauber1]

i have had the same problem, and after reading everything above, I think I can change things to be a little better. However, it is very confusing. 

I was having one price (higher) in the big map. Once you click on the listing, the bubble show a different price (middle price). A lastly, when you see the full listing you get even a third price, the cheapest one. Very frustrating. 

My guess was that this smart price does not update throghout the site ecqually.

Let's try the the pieces of advice above mentioned. 

Thank you, AirBnb Community. 

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This to no mention that this auto-saving feature deletes everything you do once you try to have multiple windows opened. Took hours to get this. My first day of frustation. I'd rather prefer the button.