Property Management Companies: Do you take your management fee from the gross revenue coming in or excluding cleaning fee?

If you're managing the cleaners, it should be part of the revenue calculated in the commission.

More importantly, everyone else is charging it, why wouldn't you? Airbnb calculates their fee on the total revenue inclusive of cleaning fee. The government calculates their fee (taxes) on total revenue inclusive of cleaning fee.

Revenue is revenue. Expenses are expenses. "Passthrough" is a misnomer. Cleaning is no more of a pass-through than toilet paper or electricity, do you deduct those before calculating commission?

I feel very strongly about this. I think that hosts that don't include it have done the entire industry a disservice. It's weakness from hosts afraid to have the conversation. If you want to be cheaper, just advertise a lower fee.

Alex, I have a different approach to management fees, I take a flat 20% of the booked accommodation revenue only.  Credit card fees are an expense to the owner so I charge off the gross revenue.  

For the cleaning, we charge a very high rate and pay our cleaning crew a very fair wage for the cleaning and laundry, which we expect them to take and launder off site.  They understand we are number 1 on the schedule and they can never miss a day.  BTW,We launder everything, including pillow protectors and mattress covers.  We want and expect our places to be very clean.  We have about $30-45 left over on every cleaning and that goes into a slush fund to pay for items that get destroyed over the course of time.  The owner keeps this money and pays for all expenses for the properties.

On the management side, we manage the coordination of the cleaning team.  But, don’t take a fee on the cleaning crew, we look at them as partners in our whole operation and expect them to be our eyes after every guest and report back if anything is broken or missing so everything is in perfect working order for each and every guest.  If something is broken or amiss after a stay we will either contact the guest for reimbursement or will pay for it out of the slush fund.  If I did take a fee it would pretty much eat up the slush fund or we would have to raise our cleaning costs even higher.

My situation is different as in, we have our own cleaners. That’s also why I’m curious in regards to how other people do it. Anyone else have their own cleaners? I’m in Thailand. So labor is cheap 

Revenue is revenue.  Again, Airbnb charges their fee on everything including cleaning.  The government charges their fee on everything including cleaning.  A waiter’s tip is based on all revenue, not subtracting out any phantom “pass-through” costs first.  Commission is always based on revenue.  Cleaning fee is part of revenue.  $1000+$0 cleaning is the same as $800+$200 cleaning is the same as $900+100 cleaning (and you should factor that in to your pricing strategy, as Airbnb’s algorithm does consider how your cleaning fee weighs against your competitors).

Just my $0.02.

For the properties we host for other owners we get 100% of the cleaning fee to cover paying the cleaners as well as buying cleaning supplies, paper products, and consumable items like soap shampoo and coffee for guests. Then we get 20% of the revenue after any OTA fees and taxes and the owner gets 80%. Interested to hear other businesses models. 

Dont forget that on Airbnb, they seperate the cleaning fee and your management fee. Ex. 15%+cleaning fee. So its harder to be consistent

BNB PLANET is a pure online property manager based in France.

We work exclusively with property owners who handle cleaning and on-site logistics themselves, while we take care of everything online:

• Listing management on Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and more
• Calendar synchronization to avoid double-bookings
• Price optimization for higher occupancy and revenue
• Guest communication before, during, and after each stay
• Booking administration with secure payment follow-up

💰 Unlike traditional property managers who charge 30%–50% of gross income for “A to Z” services, we only charge 10% of your net rental income.

This means your property remains far more profitable, while you stay in full control of your cleaning and maintenance.

👵 Many of our customers are retired owners who have the time and availability to clean their property themselves—but no desire to spend hours juggling multiple platforms, guest questions, and pricing strategies.

With BNB PLANET, you get the profitability of self-management combined with the peace of mind of professional online management.

Regards,

Michel, CEO