Where Does The Cleaning Fee Go Airbnb

Twitterstorm erupted after "We gotta terminate Airbnb" message shows screenshot of a $114 cleaning fee.

Twitter users and the press complain high Airbnb fees, without noticing that initial tweet was from developed performer.

Cleaning fees are not fix by Airbnb, but by hosts. Discrepancy: On Airbnb, while rates are set per dark, fees are per stay.

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"We gotta terminate Airbnb" said a tweet, forth with a screenshot of a ii-night stay, at $99 per night. The cleaning fee for the stay was $114. The message was retweeted more 23,800 times. The press took it from there and wrote about Airbnb horror stories. Airbnb itself felt that it had to reply the day after and announced a review of cleaning fees practices past hosts. The whole episode was ridiculous, merely also very interesting. The person tweeting the first message and screenshot was actually an adult performer trying to go more followers and exposure for her OnlyFans business relationship. Yet, it shows how piffling guests understand how fees work on Airbnb: No, cleaning fees are not set up past Airbnb, but past hosts. Yes, the service fee (14.2% on average in the US) goes into Airbnb's pocket.

The "Nosotros gotta finish Airbnb" tweet and the $114 cleaning fee

On May 17, a Twitter user chosen Alexa posted a screenshot taken from Airbnb. For ii nights at $99 each, the cleaning fee was $114.

While her tweet collected one,400+ comments, 23,800+ retweets, and 211,400+ likes, she followed upwardly on her message with a blatant promotion of her OnlyFans account. OnlyFans is a subscription-based social media platform where users tin sell and/or buy original content—typically of the developed variety.

While people were busy getting angry at Airbnb, they did non look at the source of the tweet. It is not impossible to think that Alexa got more followers out of this. This is a very smart use of a complimentary social media platform (Twitter) to transfer people over to a paid social media platform (OnlyFans).

The press enters the trip the light fantastic, still not checking the source or wondering why fees are and then loftier

The "Nosotros gotta stop Airbnb" tweet was besides pop for the press to resist jumping on the bandwagon. We got title such every bit 'Nosotros gotta stop Airbnb': The tweet that started a social media backlash against extra charges' (Stuff NZ) and ''We gotta terminate Airbnb': Net shares horror stories of rise fees, filthy homes and scary hosts'. (The Independent).

So, we went from an adult performer trying to go attention to articles about Airbnb horror stories. At Rental Scale-Up, we can be skeptical at Airbnb. But doing goose egg inquiry on a topic is not something we would recommend.

Airbnb wants to review hosts' cleaning fee practices

The twenty-four hours after the tweet, Airbnb felt compelled to reply to the drama. It published an article called "Fee transparency on Airbnb".

To be fair, the article did a practiced task explaining that cleaning an unabridged vacation rental is more than expensive than for a private room.

What Airbnb did not actually add, is that the company adds a 14.2% service to the host'south cleaning fee. So, to a $114 cleaning fee, Airbnb adds $16.19 in service fee. So, yes, Airbnb makes money on the host's cleaning fee, through its service fee.

Let's get the Airbnb service fee out of the way

As people have traded upward and gone from booking a spare room to an entire 4-bedroom vacation on Airbnb, the value of booking has gone up. On Airbnb, bookings for places that tin can host 5 guests and more than were less than 35% of summer nights stayed in 2019 and now account for 54% of summer nights booked in 2021.

The fourteen.2% service fee over a $45 a night individual room is $6.39 per night, while, for a $300 a night holiday rental, it is $42.6 per dark.

As travelers take turned to Airbnb to book more than expensive houses and stay longer, service fees take ballooned in absolute terms. Things do look different.

Let's also mention that, especially in the US, Airbnb is now collecting local taxes, straight from the guest. Before, hosts had to collect the tax coin and transfer it to their local authorities. As some hosts were "forgetting" a bit too often to do and then, municipalities pressured Airbnb in to doing something. So, guests may take the impression that local taxes fees take gone upward, when they are actually simply taken at the source.

At present, as Airbnb customers mutter about the invitee fee, this is an issue for Airbnb. In most countries outside the US, the guest fee is already zero. Airbnb takes a 15% host-simply fee commission from hosts. Airbnb says that hosts in the host-only fee model go 17% more bookings than hosts in the regular split-fee model (3 to 5% on the host, 14.2% on the guest).

Why practice hosts set up a high cleaning fee on Airbnb?

There is no simple respond (sorry, Twitter). But we recollect of the following reasons:

A fixed price: On Airbnb, hosts can only prepare up one cleaning fee amount. Information technology is always the same, whether the stay is for two, 5, or 20 nights. For instance, $114 is our infamous tweet. The price of the stay is (price per night) 10 (number of nights), so in that location $99 10 2. As you tin can run across, the price of the stay is variable, only not the cleaning fee.

So, for a two-dark stay, $114 may seem high. Only for a ten-night stay, information technology would be less of a trouble. Whether the stay is for ii or 10 nights, cleaning a whole vacation rental is time-consuming and expensiveastward. Yous pay your cleaner's time the aforementioned.

The larger the property, the college the cleaning fee. The tweet does not tell the states which type of property our friend Alexa was trying to volume. If information technology was a private room, so it is way also loftier. If it is a three-bedroom house, with a kitchen, a living room, and an outdoor area, then this more than understandable.

Some hosts may set up upwardly a high cleaning fee that only makes sense over a 5 to seven-nighttime stay. Such equally $114 per stay. Just, they may allow people to book for 2 nights. Then, the fee may seem high. But what is expensive to y'all may be ok for others who admittedly want to stay at this identify. As long as Airbnb displays the prices clearly, with the cleaning fee carve up upward from the total cost, it is transparent. And adult people can make their ain choices.

Finally, some hosts may have high cleaning fees considering they've had bug with developed workers who rent an Airbnb to conduct their professional person activities. In urban markets, information technology is a well-known occurence: Short-term rentals are often used by prostitutes to host their clients. And then, information technology comes dorsum total-circle: Maybe our Twitter user Alexa want to book an airbnb to shoot a few of her OnlyFans productions. And she was non happy with the steep cleaning fee for a 2-night stay. Then, she did non book the place. If and then, good for the host!