Starting October 27th, Airbnb is transitioning all PMS-connected hosts from the split fee to their 15.5% Host Only Fee.
If you don't adjust your rates to compensate, you're effectively taking a 14-18.4% pay cut on every booking (depending on your current markup rates). But don't worry – we're here to make this transition smooth and simple.
You can switch over in Airbnb today if you'd like, but if you prefer to stay on the split fee until the last possible moment, we'll handle the timing for you automatically.
How are we helping?
Two weeks ago we released the first version of our Airbnb Host Only Fee Transition Tool. The feedback from the community was invaluable, and we heard three main things:
Markups should apply to all fees, not just base rates
Hosts need full visibility into how markup changes affect your prices
The math needed to be more precise
Here's what we've built for you:
Our engineers have rebuilt the calculations from the ground up. The tool now determines exactly what your markups need to be to maintain the same payout you're getting today (or slightly higher, if you prefer).
The markup applies to all your fees, and you'll see a complete preview of how it affects your pricing. Want to adjust the numbers? Go ahead – the preview updates in real time so you can make informed decisions and stay in control.
The updated tool is live now for everyone currently on the split fee, and it'll be available Monday for hosts already on the host only fee (we're also helping you navigate the 0.5% fee increase). You can find it in your Home page (even if you dismissed it before - we think you'd like to check it again!).
We know navigating fee structure changes can be stressful. That's why we built this – so you can focus on hosting while we handle the details.
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This looks great! Thank you.
Is there a way to pick and choose where I apply the markup. I don't really want to make my pet fee 58 because the market average is 50. And my homes with already over market cleaning fees will price themselves right out
Will this affect bookings people have already made, and will they be notified of the changes?
Oops, Airbnb listings with two cleaning fees depending on the length of stay -- 3+ nights stay “Cleaning fee” versus 1 or 2 nights “Short-term cleaning fee” -- are shown as if both fees will be collected when only one is collected by Airbnb, which throws off the math a bit.
Re increasing the cleaning fees by the same % as the nightly fee, I understand that this is the most straightforward way to ensure that a guest pays the same total prior to Airbnb’s fee changes. However, increasing cleaning fees has a few unintended consequences too.
As mentioned in a previous comment, a cleaning fee 18% higher than what the host has determined is fair market price and, moreover, what a potential guest knows to be fair market price within that market may reduce conversion.
Currently I have Airbnb setup to collect from guests (as always) then directly pay me, the property manager, 20% of the owner’s payout and 100% of the cleaning fee to payout to my cleaner. If the cleaning fee is higher than what I pay to my cleaner then I have overcollected from the owner albeit not very much.
It seems to me that the ideal solution is to maintain the cleaning fee as-is and increase the nightly rate like this:
That is, further increase the nightly rate by the increment of the cleaning fee.
Is this correct? If so, it may be a good option for Hospitable property managers.
Warmly, Rob
Will this affect bookings people have already made, and will they be notified of the changes?
It shouldn't affect bookings that happened before the 27th of October!
Wanted to add my hat into the ring Re: Cleaning and Pet Fees and a potential work around I found with chatting with hospitable support.
Cleaning and Pet Fee-- Pricing out of Market I don’t think this is a concern any more because guests ONLY see the final price, they don’t see any breakdowns anymore for cleaning fee vs pet fee, though I guess the only way they would “see” a pet fee is if they looked at the price before and after adding a pet as a guest.
Cleaning and Pet Fee Mark-Up -- Accounting Nightmare From everything I’m reading, the cleaning fee and pet fee will be itemized the same way on reporting. So, if you have a cleaning fee of 130 before mark up, and then that cleaning fee becomes 154 after mark up, I don’t think the breakdown in Airbnb, or any of our metrics or reporting will reflect that cleaning fee as 130, they’ll reflect it as 154, so unless you manually go credit those funds to the service fee debit that happens before payout, then funds won’t properly be allocated to off-set the rate increase.
This gets EXTRA tricky if you are a property manager like me. We do a commission based on nightly rate, and analyze the payout, less cleaning and pet fees, and then take a commission from that number. If we upped the cleaning and pet fees like this, we’d be giving ourselves a raise, basically, or creating an absolute nightmare to back out the “overage” and credit it back to the owner?
The easiest thing to do, as mentioned above, would be to figure out the additional funds / percentage needed to cover the flat cleaning and / or pet fee (tough to get perfect because the pet fee isn’t always used, but can work to get it “close enough”) and then apply the mark-up ONLY to the base price.
You can’t do this with hospitable’s new tool, as it applies it across the board, but you could use that tool to get an idea of what you need to do percentage-wise and then use the channel-specific mark-up tool.
This tool, to my knowledge, only works with base rate, and can be set at the global platform level OR overridden at the listing level, so you could set a listing specific mark-up for each listing on Airbnb that only effects the base price, leaving the pet and cleaning fees alone.
@Hospitable-- it would be really great if you could, quickly, come up with a tool that does this instead of the current one, as it really doesn’t function the way we need it to.
If anyone has any insight on how Airbnb is going to handle stays greater than 30 days, I’m all ears. We have a portfolio of 30-night minimum stays that I have no idea how to protect. Airbnb typically gave breaks on fees for longer stays, but have not clearly said what there plan is going forward.
I’d love to hear what any other hosts are thinking with how to implement this as we get closer!
I cant find this feature, dose it have anything to do with country? Im in Norway.. Im also already on the host-fee soloution if that has anything to do with it
Thank you to Hospitable for making this so easy for us! You’re the best team!!🤗
Re increasing the cleaning fees by the same % as the nightly fee, I understand that this is the most straightforward way to ensure that a guest pays the same total prior to Airbnb’s fee changes. However, increasing cleaning fees has a few unintended consequences too.
As mentioned in a previous comment, a cleaning fee 18% higher than what the host has determined is fair market price and, moreover, what a potential guest knows to be fair market price within that market may reduce conversion.
Currently I have Airbnb setup to collect from guests (as always) then directly pay me, the property manager, 20% of the owner’s payout and 100% of the cleaning fee to payout to my cleaner. If the cleaning fee is higher than what I pay to my cleaner then I have overcollected from the owner albeit not very much.
It seems to me that the ideal solution is to maintain the cleaning fee as-is and increase the nightly rate like this:
Wanted to add my hat into the ring Re: Cleaning and Pet Fees and a potential work around I found with chatting with hospitable support.
Cleaning and Pet Fee-- Pricing out of Market I don’t think this is a concern any more because guests ONLY see the final price, they don’t see any breakdowns anymore for cleaning fee vs pet fee, though I guess the only way they would “see” a pet fee is if they looked at the price before and after adding a pet as a guest.
Cleaning and Pet Fee Mark-Up -- Accounting Nightmare From everything I’m reading, the cleaning fee and pet fee will be itemized the same way on reporting. So, if you have a cleaning fee of 130 before mark up, and then that cleaning fee becomes 154 after mark up, I don’t think the breakdown in Airbnb, or any of our metrics or reporting will reflect that cleaning fee as 130, they’ll reflect it as 154, so unless you manually go credit those funds to the service fee debit that happens before payout, then funds won’t properly be allocated to off-set the rate increase.
This gets EXTRA tricky if you are a property manager like me. We do a commission based on nightly rate, and analyze the payout, less cleaning and pet fees, and then take a commission from that number. If we upped the cleaning and pet fees like this, we’d be giving ourselves a raise, basically, or creating an absolute nightmare to back out the “overage” and credit it back to the owner?
The easiest thing to do, as mentioned above, would be to figure out the additional funds / percentage needed to cover the flat cleaning and / or pet fee (tough to get perfect because the pet fee isn’t always used, but can work to get it “close enough”) and then apply the mark-up ONLY to the base price.
You can’t do this with hospitable’s new tool, as it applies it across the board, but you could use that tool to get an idea of what you need to do percentage-wise and then use the channel-specific mark-up tool.
This tool, to my knowledge, only works with base rate, and can be set at the global platform level OR overridden at the listing level, so you could set a listing specific mark-up for each listing on Airbnb that only effects the base price, leaving the pet and cleaning fees alone.
@Hospitable-- it would be really great if you could, quickly, come up with a tool that does this instead of the current one, as it really doesn’t function the way we need it to.
If anyone has any insight on how Airbnb is going to handle stays greater than 30 days, I’m all ears. We have a portfolio of 30-night minimum stays that I have no idea how to protect. Airbnb typically gave breaks on fees for longer stays, but have not clearly said what there plan is going forward.
I’d love to hear what any other hosts are thinking with how to implement this as we get closer!
Hi @Renée N ! I’m working on insuring that this doesn’t have any unintended consequences on Owner Statements. We’re considering reporting fees as they’re received (so after Airbnb removes their service fee), but keeping a Host service fee line item on Owner Statements. This prevents “double charging” owners for any markups that were done to mitigate a platform service fee, when they’re already potentially responsible for paying the full service fee.
Wanted to add my hat into the ring Re: Cleaning and Pet Fees and a potential work around I found with chatting with hospitable support.
Cleaning and Pet Fee-- Pricing out of Market I don’t think this is a concern any more because guests ONLY see the final price, they don’t see any breakdowns anymore for cleaning fee vs pet fee, though I guess the only way they would “see” a pet fee is if they looked at the price before and after adding a pet as a guest.
Cleaning and Pet Fee Mark-Up -- Accounting Nightmare From everything I’m reading, the cleaning fee and pet fee will be itemized the same way on reporting. So, if you have a cleaning fee of 130 before mark up, and then that cleaning fee becomes 154 after mark up, I don’t think the breakdown in Airbnb, or any of our metrics or reporting will reflect that cleaning fee as 130, they’ll reflect it as 154, so unless you manually go credit those funds to the service fee debit that happens before payout, then funds won’t properly be allocated to off-set the rate increase.
This gets EXTRA tricky if you are a property manager like me. We do a commission based on nightly rate, and analyze the payout, less cleaning and pet fees, and then take a commission from that number. If we upped the cleaning and pet fees like this, we’d be giving ourselves a raise, basically, or creating an absolute nightmare to back out the “overage” and credit it back to the owner?
The easiest thing to do, as mentioned above, would be to figure out the additional funds / percentage needed to cover the flat cleaning and / or pet fee (tough to get perfect because the pet fee isn’t always used, but can work to get it “close enough”) and then apply the mark-up ONLY to the base price.
You can’t do this with hospitable’s new tool, as it applies it across the board, but you could use that tool to get an idea of what you need to do percentage-wise and then use the channel-specific mark-up tool.
This tool, to my knowledge, only works with base rate, and can be set at the global platform level OR overridden at the listing level, so you could set a listing specific mark-up for each listing on Airbnb that only effects the base price, leaving the pet and cleaning fees alone.
@Hospitable-- it would be really great if you could, quickly, come up with a tool that does this instead of the current one, as it really doesn’t function the way we need it to.
If anyone has any insight on how Airbnb is going to handle stays greater than 30 days, I’m all ears. We have a portfolio of 30-night minimum stays that I have no idea how to protect. Airbnb typically gave breaks on fees for longer stays, but have not clearly said what there plan is going forward.
I’d love to hear what any other hosts are thinking with how to implement this as we get closer!
If the markup is not applied to fees like the cleaning fee then wouldn’t you as the PM be taking a loss on the cleaning fee if the markup is not applied?
IE if you pay your cleaners $250, and your cleaning fee is $250, Airbnb will only pay out $250 x 0.845 = $211.25.
Now if you mean the line item is going to show $250 so you’d still keep $250 for yourself then you are correct, however now you are charging the owners the 15.5% to cover the fee charged on your “passthrough” cost.
So it would net to…
$250 cleaning fee charged
-$38.75 host fee
$211.25 paid out
So $211.25 was paid out, but you are keeping $250 of that $211.25, which is an overrage. The $38.75 is being charged in the host fee column which is billed to your owner, so they’re covering the expense of your passthrough cost, which is going to PISS them off if they notice.
There is no clean way to handle it. It is going to be an accounting nightmare for any host that uses the model of keeping the cleaning fee instead of just doing gross revenue/gross expenses where the cleaning fee is part of revenue and the cleaning expense is part of expense.
The reality is gross rev/gross expenses is the way it always should have been handled, and this is just yet another tick in the list of why.
Is there a way to pick and choose where I apply the markup. I don't really want to make my pet fee 58 because the market average is 50. And my homes with already over market cleaning fees will price themselves right out
Agreed. I’m looking for a way to not apply the same markup to the pet fee and cleaning fee. But it appears the migration tool is built in a way to push the markup to both the rates and fees. And I’m not able to unsync these fees on the property → pricing tab in Hospitable either, so I can have different fees for direct booking vs. Airbnb.
Is there a way to pick and choose where I apply the markup. I don't really want to make my pet fee 58 because the market average is 50. And my homes with already over market cleaning fees will price themselves right out
The guest doesn’t see the pet fee nor the cleaning fee. Airbnb obfuscates that data and just shows the total to the guest. If your pet fee is $8 more than your neighbors, the guest will have no idea. They can only see total price so unless you’re trying to match your neighbor exactly on total price it wouldn’t have an effect.
I cant find this feature, dose it have anything to do with country? Im in Norway.. Im also already on the host-fee soloution if that has anything to do with it
Try it again and if you can't find it in your dashboard let me know! We enabled it for more hosts yesterday!
Desiree Garcia is asking on Facebook:
(We’re gathering all the questions here so everything stays in one place. 💜)
@OurHomeRentals is curious:
(We’re gathering all the questions here so everything stays in one place. 💜)
Desiree Garcia is asking on Facebook:
(We’re gathering all the questions here so everything stays in one place. 💜)
I'm curious to see what airbnb is offering, can you show us a screenshot?
I would definitely only do it in one place!
@OurHomeRentals is curious:
(We’re gathering all the questions here so everything stays in one place. 💜)
For anyone that is worried about markups applied to all fees:
We have a solution in the making for you to have control of all your fees and prices and it's a new tool - so not available to everyone yet. But we could onboard you over a call and allow you to edit all of your fees directly from Hospitable.
I use PriceLabs for my pricing and it is set to be the managing pricing platform for my listings. I am trying to understand if Hospitable will override that now, or do I need to get PriceLabs to increase my booking rates due to this change. Does anyone know how that will work?
I co-host a property where the $600 cleaning fee goes directly to the owner before my commissions are calculated.
If I mark up the prices the recommended amount it makes the cleaning fee $711 dollars.
After October 27th am I right in thinking airbnb is going to add the new nightly rate with the new cleaning fee before subtracting the Actual Cleaning fee and airbnb commissions before calculating commissions? (80/20)
$888+711= $1,599
$1,599 - $600 - $247 = $752
20% of $752 = $150
Any help would be greatly appreciated
I use PriceLabs for my pricing and it is set to be the managing pricing platform for my listings. I am trying to understand if Hospitable will override that now, or do I need to get PriceLabs to increase my booking rates due to this change. Does anyone know how that will work?
We've already set up the markup to work automatically across all your calendars on top of PriceLabs pricing. So if your markup is set to 20%, any price that comes from PriceLabs will automatically be increased by 20%. It's all taken care of! 😊
@Marina Coimbra any update on when we will have control over setting markup percentages per guest fee? I am still trying to figure out if I need to adjust my pricing strategy and software setup
