Host Guides › How Much to Charge for an Airbnb Cleaning Fee: A Simple Formula
How Much to Charge for an Airbnb Cleaning Fee: A Simple Formula
Most hosts set their cleaning fee by looking at a few nearby listings and picking a similar number. That's a reasonable sanity check, but it skips the important part: what a turnover actually costs you, and how much of the fee you keep after Airbnb's service fee. Get those two numbers right and the fee almost sets itself.
This guide walks through a four-step formula, with worked examples, and then covers the trade-offs: short stays, total-price display, and when it makes sense to skip a cleaning fee entirely.
Step 1: Add up your true cost per turnover
Your cleaning cost isn't only what you pay the cleaner. List everything that happens because a guest checked out:
| Cost | How to estimate it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaner's pay | Flat rate per turnover, or hourly rate × hours | $95 |
| Laundry | Linen service, laundromat, or your own machine time and detergent | $18 |
| Consumables | Toilet paper, soap, coffee, trash bags, dishwasher pods used per stay | $9 |
| Supplies wear | Cleaning products, mop heads, linen replacement spread across stays | $5 |
| Your time (optional) | Inspections, restocking runs, coordinating | $0–$15 |
| True cost per turnover | $127 |
If you don't know these numbers yet, track a month of turnovers. The cleaner's invoice and your supply receipts are all you need. An expense tracker with a "cleaning and maintenance" and "supplies" category makes this a two-minute calculation at month end (see our expense tracker spreadsheet guide).
Step 2: Gross it up for Airbnb's service fee
Under Airbnb's single service fee, hosts pay a 15.5% service fee in most countries (16% for listings in Brazil and Mexico), deducted from the payout (Airbnb: simplifying service fees). The fee is calculated on the booking subtotal, which includes your cleaning fee. So if you charge exactly what cleaning costs you, you'll lose 15.5% of it on every booking.
To keep your full cost, divide by what's left after the fee:
Cleaning fee to charge = true cost ÷ (1 − 0.155) = true cost ÷ 0.845
Using the example above: $127 ÷ 0.845 = $150.30, so you'd round to $150.
A few more examples:
| True cost per turnover | Charge (÷ 0.845) | You keep after the 15.5% fee |
|---|---|---|
| $60 | $71 | about $60 |
| $90 | $107 | about $90 |
| $127 | $150 | about $127 |
| $180 | $213 | about $180 |
If you list on Vrbo too, check the commission and payment-processing rates on your Vrbo plan and apply the same idea: divide your cost by 1 minus your total fee percentage. Vrbo also requires cleaning fees to be entered in the listing's fee fields and disclosed before booking (Vrbo host-collected fees and taxes policy).
Step 3: Check it against short stays
A cleaning fee is charged once per booking, but guests compare the total price per night. That hits short stays hardest. With a $150 nightly rate and a $150 cleaning fee:
| Stay length | Nightly total | Cleaning fee | Total | Effective price per night |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 night | $150 | $150 | $300 | $300 |
| 2 nights | $300 | $150 | $450 | $225 |
| 3 nights | $450 | $150 | $600 | $200 |
| 7 nights | $1,050 | $150 | $1,200 | about $171 |
The one-night guest is effectively paying double the nightly rate. You have three ways to handle that:
- Set a minimum stay (often 2 nights) so the fee is spread over more nights.
- Use a lower cleaning fee for short stays. Airbnb's fee settings include an option for a separate cleaning fee on 1–2 night stays in many markets. Check your listing's pricing and fees settings to see if it's available to you.
- Fold part of the cleaning cost into the nightly rate. For example, charge a $100 cleaning fee and add about $15 to each night. Longer stays then pay a little more for cleaning, and short stays pay less.
Remember that guests increasingly see a total price that includes cleaning when they search, so a high cleaning fee shows up immediately in the price comparison.
Step 4: Sanity-check against comparable listings
Now look at the market, but with your own number already in hand. Pick 8 to 10 listings that are genuinely comparable (same bedrooms, similar amenities, same area) and check the total price for a 2-night and a 5-night stay on the same dates. If your total is far above the pack for short stays, use one of the levers in Step 3. If it's in range, keep your cost-based fee.
Don't set your cleaning fee below your true cost just to match a competitor. A cleaning fee that doesn't cover cleaning means every turnover quietly eats into your nightly profit.
Should you charge a cleaning fee at all?
Some hosts drop the cleaning fee entirely and raise the nightly rate instead. It can make your listing look simpler, especially for 1–2 night stays. The trade-off: on long stays you collect more for cleaning than you need, and on short stays you may collect less. A no-fee approach tends to work best when your typical stay length is consistent. A cleaning fee tends to work better when stays vary a lot in length.
Either way, run the numbers. The question is always: across a typical month of bookings, does the money you collect for cleaning (as a fee or built into the rate) cover what cleaning costs you?
Keep the fee fair, and reviews kind
Guests will accept a cleaning fee more easily when checkout is simple. Airbnb's guidance says guests expect an easy checkout without cleaning tasks, and guests can flag "excessive checkout tasks" in feedback (Airbnb Resource Center). If you charge a cleaning fee, don't also ask guests to strip beds, vacuum or start laundry. A short list (trash out, dishwasher on, lights off, door locked) is plenty.
In California, any fee or penalty tied to checkout cleaning tasks must be disclosed before booking under AB 2202 (California Legislative Information).
Review your fee every season
Costs move: cleaners raise rates, linen services change pricing, and a new hot tub adds 30 minutes to every turnover. Set a reminder each season to:
- Pull last quarter's cleaning and supply costs from your expense tracker.
- Divide by the number of turnovers to get your current true cost.
- Re-run the ÷ 0.845 formula.
- Re-check the 2-night total against your comparables.
Frequently asked questions
Does Airbnb take a fee from the cleaning fee?
Yes. Airbnb's single service fee (15.5% in most countries) is calculated on the booking subtotal, which includes the cleaning fee. Gross up your cleaning cost by dividing by 0.845 to keep the full amount.
What's a typical Airbnb cleaning fee?
It varies widely by home size, location and stay length, so a national average isn't a reliable guide for your listing. Start from your true cost per turnover, gross it up for fees, then compare total prices with similar listings near you.
How much should I pay my Airbnb cleaner?
Ask several local turnover cleaners for quotes based on your home's size, number of beds and bathrooms, and whether laundry is done on site. A written checklist makes quotes comparable, because every cleaner prices the same job.
Should my cleaning fee be the same on Airbnb and Vrbo?
Your cost is the same, but platform fees differ. Gross up your cost using each platform's actual fee rate so you keep the same amount wherever the guest books.
Know your real cleaning cost
The Key & Kit STR Income & Expense Tracker (Excel and Google Sheets) logs every booking's cleaning fee next to what you actually pay for cleaning, so you can see per property whether your fee covers your costs. It also tracks occupancy, ADR, RevPAR and net profit by month for up to 10 properties.
See the STR Income & Expense Tracker →
Want consistent turnovers before you price them? Start with our free one-page Apartment Turnover Card, or try the free STR profit calculator.
This article is general information, not financial or tax advice. Platform fees and features change; check Airbnb's and Vrbo's current fee pages for your listing.