How do you cover your cleaning costs?

[Debra300]

I do have a question for those of you who do not charge a cleaning fee.  How do you quantify the cost and effort within your daily rate?  How long does it take for you to prepare your space for the next guest? Do you have breaks in between your guest stays?  Or, do you allow checkouts and check-ins on the same day?  Are the lengths of stay usually 1-2 nights, or 5 nights and longer?

I ask, because it takes us about the same effort and cost to clean a space after a two day vs. a week-long stay; 5-6 hours, depending upon size.  To me it seems that not having a cleaning fee for a short stay is a losing operation.  For example, if a guest stays for two nights, and $20 of their reservation amount is allotted for cleaning, but it actually costs $50 in time and supplies, then the stay was less profitable.  However, a 7 night stay may have $70 of the reservation amount to cover cleaning.  Both of the stays require the same level of cleaning after each reservation: laundering bed linens, shower curtains, towels and bath mats, cleaning/disinfecting the bathroom and kitchen, cleaning all surfaces (especially high touch areas), mopping, vacuuming (floor, furniture, walls), cleaning windows and patio doors, cleaning outdoor furniture, sweeping the deck/balcony, taking out the trash, making the bed, and staging the space for the next guest.  

[Sarah977]

@Debra300 Home share host, one private room and bath. Takes me about an hour and a half to 2 hours to clean and prepare the space (not counting the laundry). Then another hour to make sure the outside area and the shared kitchen are presentable. I have a 3 day minimum, and most of my bookings average a week-10 days, so that cleaning time spread out doesn't seem that onerous and I don't really consider the cleaning time when pricing, because living in the tropics, between the dust and dead bugs, I'd be going in to clean that room once a week or 10 days anyway, even if I didn't have guests, although I wouldn't spend nearly as much time making sure it was spotless. So my situation is quite different from yours, with a 5-6 hour cleaning and some 2 nighter guests.

I do leave 1 day prep time because I hate rushing around and have another job I can't just drop on a moment's notice to clean the Airbnb space. And the way the flights here are, guests often have a 5PM departure, and might leave here at 2-3PM, whereas they might have a noon flight arrival and get here at 2 or 3. I don't want to make guests check out at 11AM so I have time to do a turn around, when they would just have to drag their luggage around town for hours until they left for the airport. 

The 3 day minimum doesn't really lose me bookings, because people come here on vacation- they aren't just passing through or coming for business or the weekend. If I miss a few bokings because someone just wants to check the town out for a night or two, r attend an event, I really don't care- it's not worth it to me to prepare for a guest for that short a time- I can only charge so much for a room for one guest. I know that wouldn't work for a lot of hosts whose bread and butter is one or 2 night bookings.

[Juan63]

@Debra300 

We have a whole house rental and don't charge a cleaning fee. But we also clean our Airbnb ourselves. It takes us 1-1.5hrs to clean a 850sqft house and a porch. It's only the two of us. 5-6hrs seems very long but not uncommon.

We minimize our time/money by:

• having multiple sets of linens, towels and cleaning rags.

• wash off site at our residential home before the cleaning.

• buy bedding that requires little work. We do not like duvet covers or unfitted bed sheets.

• we charge per guest. On average, less guests means less resources being used.

• we allow same day check-in if they booked before 11 am(our checkout time)

• allow only (1) body towel, (1) hand towel per customer per 3-day stay.

• higher nightly stay with small incremental discounts for 2+ day stays but longer term stays tend to be a little higher or on par with the competition.

When we add all these procedures and pricing, 1 day stays are worth it. Guests book us because other hosts charge a large cleaning fee.

[Debra300]

@Juan63 and @Sarah977,

Thank you for your responses.  It seems that neither of you are have estimated a cost for your time to do laundry.  

Sarah, I totally understand about frequent cleaning in a tropical environment.  By the time you've finished cleaning, the sea breeze has blown in a fresh layer of dust.

Juan, your place looks really nice, and you have great reviews that state it's very clean.  I am digging on the Frida Kahlo picture.  The two of you must be moving like machines, because there is no way that we could do all of the cleaning tasks that I listed in my original post in just 1.5 hours.  It would take us that long just to clean all of the windows and doors in your place.  Then another 1.5 hours for us to clean all of the kitchen appliances. 

Although our kitchens are not large, they take a good deal of time to clean. Even a tidy guest usually doesn't wipe up spills and sticky stuff in the fridge or stove tops from over-boils, grease splatter, baked on spills in the oven and microwave.  They also don't clean the toaster crumb tray, descale the tea kettle and coffee maker, or clean out the sink drain strainer and the dishwasher filter. 

I know we take a lot of time to clean our spaces, but it is a result my military background and our travel experiences.  I make sure to clean all things in our spaces that have grossed me out when we stayed at Airbnbs.

[Sarah977]

@Debra300  The laundry isn't a big deal to me because I only host one guest at a time and like I said, they usually stay for at least a week (I offer clean sheets and towels after a week). So I only have a single bed set of sheets to wash, the pillow cases, a light blanket or duvet cover in the colder months, and the towels, which my guests tend not to be cavalier with (I give 2 bath towels, a hand towel and a washcloth, but some only use one of the bath towels in a week. I don't normally wash the mattress pad or pillow protectors between each and every guest, although I'll probably get a second set of those things to change out each time as far as cleaning to virus standards when I start hosting again) . But if I had to wash bedding and towels for 4 people, you can bet I'd up my rate by a few bucks per night to cover that.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Debra300 

Like @Sarah977  we host only one single occupancy private guest room (w/ private bath, shared living room, kitchen & laundry). I get a lot of exchange student guests who stay anywhere from 1 month to 4 months. We have had some shorter stays and we have a 3 night minimum since we don't charge a cleaning fee.

To do a full turnover of the guest bedroom & guest private bath, plus clean the shared living room and kitchen area Henry would need *at least* half a day (4hrs) alone. If I help, the 2 of us could probably do it in 2~2.5hrs. We always have enough extras so that laundry is never an issue (and we prefer to do full loads). 

Henry and I both have day jobs and hate being rushed when we clean..... so whenever we get a booking we immediately block a few days before and after; 2~3 days for bookings less than 2 weeks, at least 1 week for any booking that is longer. We do a pretty intense deep-clean (that takes us about 2~3 days, depending on how many hrs we dedicate to cleaning per day) after any stay that is longer than 2 weeks. 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

Also here's a link to something I posted a while back about how I breakdown costs. Many other hosts have contributed as well....so I think it might help~

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/How-do-you-break-down-your-costs/m-p/972172/highlight/tr...

[Debra300]

@Jessica-and-Henry0,

Thank you for your response and providing the link to your previous post.