I Stopped Charging Cleaning Fees on All 100+ Airbnb Properties. Here’s What Happened.
Cleaning fee charged across all of Sean’s Airbnb listings. Five properties on a fresh account hit 100% occupancy within 24 hours.
- Sonder, a 9,000-property operator, dropped cleaning fees entirely. I followed their lead across my portfolio and got results I did not expect.
- Airbnb is believed to be throttling listings with cleaning fees because of cart abandonment data. Not using a cleaning fee is now like turning on a new widget Airbnb wants you to use.
- No-cleaning-fee listings get more clicks in Airbnb search because guests filter by total price and react to lower displayed rates.
- Eliminating the cleaning fee does not mean cleaning is free. You fold the cost into your nightly rate.
- The strategy works best for shorter average stays where the fee spreads across more nights.
- You need rule sets to fix the pricing math. Without percentage discounts for longer stays, your 7-night rate will price you out of the market.
- Occupancy uplift from lower displayed rates can more than offset the cleaning cost spread into nightly rates in competitive markets.
Why I Ran This Experiment
This started with Sonder. If you do not know Sonder, they are a professional short-term rental operator with over 9,000 properties. Mostly apartments. In-house cleaning staff. Low turnover costs. They announced they were getting rid of cleaning fees across their entire portfolio.
I watched that and thought: if a company with 9,000 units thinks this is the right move, I should pay attention. I am not 9,000 properties. I run 100+ units across multiple cities. But the logic was the same. So I followed them.
The Cart Abandonment Problem
Here is why Airbnb cares about this. They track cart abandonment. That is the percentage of guests who start a booking but leave before they finish it. This is standard in online shopping. You see a product for $15. By the time shipping and fees stack up, it is $45. You leave.
Airbnb found the same pattern. A guest sees a listing at $80 a night. They click on it. Then they see the cleaning fee, the Airbnb service fee, and the taxes. A 3-night stay that looked like $240 turns into $450. They leave. They go back to hotels where the price is the price.
Airbnb is afraid of that. They want guests to stay on the platform. So they started watching cleaning fees closely. And the data suggests they are now throttling listings that use high cleaning fees in search rankings.
The Trust Crisis
There is a bigger picture here too. Airbnb has been getting hit hard in the media over expensive cleaning fees. Guests post screenshots of $150 cleaning fees on $80 a night listings. For every one great host, there are five who create negative surprises. Hidden costs. Long checkout lists. Things that are not the way they should be.
Airbnb is trying to rebuild trust. They now fine hosts up to $1,000 per reservation for cancellations the host causes. They want consistent, plannable travel. The cleaning fee problem is part of that bigger trust issue they are working to fix.
Eliminating the cleaning fee does not mean your guests stop paying for cleaning. The cost rolls into your nightly rate. A $75 cleaning fee on a listing with an average 3-night stay becomes an additional $25 a night. The total guest cost is the same. What changes is how it is displayed and how it affects search click-through rates.
How No-Cleaning-Fee Pricing Actually Works
The basic math is simple. If your cleaning cost per turnover is $90 and your average guest stay is 3 nights, you need $30 a night extra in your nightly rate to cover it. Instead of listing at $120 a night plus a $90 cleaning fee, you list at $150 a night with no cleaning fee.
In Airbnb search with total price display, both listings show the same 3-night total. But guests see the nightly rate first. A listing showing $120 a night with a separate cleaning fee creates a shock at checkout. The no-cleaning-fee approach takes away that shock.
The Algorithm Angle: Not Using a Widget Is Using a Widget
This is the part that matters most. I ran a split test on my own listings. Three conditions:
- Listing completion only (checking all the boxes you missed): 400% increase in views
- Smart Pricing only (just activating Airbnb's Smart Price widget): 11x increase in views
- Both together: 23x increase in views
The lesson? Airbnb pushes listings that use its features. When you turn on a widget Airbnb wants you to use, you get rewarded with search ranking.
Now think about the cleaning fee. It used to be a neutral widget. Everybody used it. But now the cleaning fee has a negative reputation. Airbnb is trying to move hosts away from it. So here is the framing that changed everything for me:
Not using a cleaning fee is the same as turning on a new widget that Airbnb wants you to use. The reward is search ranking.
This is how I think about it now. Airbnb is not punishing you for having a cleaning fee. They are rewarding you for not having one. The effect is the same, but the framing matters for how you build your strategy.
What the Numbers Showed
The Fresh Account Experiment
I was going through a rep handoff at Airbnb. My outgoing rep asked me something I did not expect: "How many admin accounts do you have?"
That surprised me. Most hosts think you can only have one account. But when I looked at Sonder, I saw they have Sonder Austin, Sonder Houston, Sonder Philadelphia, Sonder Boston. Separate accounts by market. At the enterprise level, it makes sense to split things up.
So I created a fresh account for Austin. I took my 5 best properties (the ones I had recently repainted) and moved them to the new account. I set zero cleaning fee on all five. Then I waited.
Occupancy reached within 24 hours of listings becoming visible on the fresh account with zero cleaning fee.
Here is what happened. The listings went live on a Tuesday around 6pm. By Wednesday morning, no views yet. The listings had just become active. I took a screenshot to document it. By Thursday, within 24 hours of the listings becoming visible to guests, all five were fully booked. 100% occupancy.
I documented every step with screenshots. This was not a fluke. This was the combination of a fresh account, zero cleaning fee, and a tight listing that follows every algorithm signal Airbnb cares about.
Old Listing vs. New Listing: The Rate Math
Here is what really got my attention. On the old account with the old listing, I was pricing at a certain rate and could not get booked for same-day or next-day stays. The calendar just sat there.
On the new account with zero cleaning fee? I was charging twice the rate for same-day and next-day bookings. And they still sold out.
Let me say that again. The old listing was at half the price and still not getting booked. The new listing with zero cleaning fee was at double the price and fully booked. That is not a small difference. That told me the algorithm boost from the fresh account plus zero cleaning fee was real and measurable.
Key Results Summary
- 100% occupancy in 24 hours on 5 properties with fresh account and zero cleaning fee.
- 2x the nightly rate compared to the old listing on the old account, and still fully booked.
- Higher click-through rate from search even at equivalent total prices.
- Fewer abandoned checkouts because there is no sticker shock at the end.
- Shorter minimum stays possible: A 1-night booking at $150 covers cleaning. A 1-night at $120 plus a $90 fee feels wrong to guests.
- 3-8% higher occupancy across properties over a 90-day comparison when cleaning fees were removed.
The Pricing Math: Why You Need Rule Sets
This is the part that trips people up. The math gets tricky fast when you remove the cleaning fee. Let me walk through the real numbers so you can see why.
The Problem
Say your listing is $100 a night with a $100 cleaning fee. Here is what guests pay right now:
| Stay Length | With $100 Cleaning Fee | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 1 night | $100 + $100 fee | $200 |
| 3 nights | $300 + $100 fee | $400 |
| 7 nights | $700 + $100 fee | $800 |
Now you remove the cleaning fee. You want 1-night guests to still pay $200. So you set your rate to $200 a night. That works for 1 night. But look what happens to longer stays:
| Stay Length | At $200/Night, No Fee | Old Total | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 night | $200 | $200 | Same |
| 3 nights | $600 | $400 | +$200 |
| 7 nights | $1,400 | $800 | +$600 |
See the problem? Your 3-night guest now pays $200 more. Your 7-night guest pays $600 more. You will lose those bookings. Nobody is paying $1,400 for a week that used to cost $800.
The Fix: Percentage Discounts by Stay Length
This is where rule sets come in. Airbnb lets you create percentage discounts for different stay lengths. You use those to bring the longer stay totals back down to a competitive range.
Using the example above, here is how you would set it up:
- Base rate: $200 a night (covers 1-night stays)
- 3-night discount: Around 15-20% off (brings 3-night total closer to $400-$510)
- 7-night discount: Around 25-35% off (brings 7-night total closer to $800-$1,050)
- Monthly discount: 40-50% for stays of 28+ nights
The discounts do not have to match the old totals exactly. They just need to be in a competitive range for your market. Check what similar listings charge for 3-night and 7-night stays and work backward to your discount percentage.
I built a custom Excel calculator for my RE:Algorithm webinar that does this math for you. You plug in your current nightly rate, current cleaning fee, and average stay lengths. It tells you exactly what base rate to set and what discount percentages to use for each stay length. The goal is to make the switch without losing money at any stay length.
When the Strategy Works
Ideal Conditions
- Urban markets with high competition where guests comparison shop and price sensitivity is high.
- Short average stay markets (2-3 nights) where the per-night cleaning cost increase is small.
- Business traveler segments who stay often and see cleaning fees as a per-stay tax.
- Properties where you control cleaning costs. If you have in-house staff, your per-turnover cost stays low and predictable.
The In-House Cleaning Math
This is a big factor. My team pays housekeepers about $15 an hour on average. Before COVID and inflation, it was $12. In a building with 5, 10, 15, or 20 apartments, one housekeeper can clean 2 to 5 units per day.
When you own your cleaning labor, your per-turnover cost for an apartment might be $40 to $60. At that cost, zero cleaning fee is easy. You roll $15 to $20 a night into your rate on a 3-night average stay and the guest never notices the difference.
This is exactly what Sonder does. They have mostly apartments. They have their own cleaning staff. Their costs are low. Going to zero was simple math for them. If your setup looks like that, it is simple math for you too.
When It Does Not Work
Conditions That Favor Keeping a Cleaning Fee
- Long-stay destination markets (7-14 night average) where a cleaning fee spread over 10 nights is only $9 a night on a $90 clean. Guests expect it and it barely moves the needle.
- Low-competition markets where guests are less price-sensitive and comparison shopping is minimal.
- Large properties with high cleaning costs where rolling a $250+ clean into the nightly rate pushes you out of your competitive range.
The Hybrid Approach for Big Properties
If you have a large property with a $350 cleaning fee, going to zero is too much of a shock to your pricing. The rule set discounts would have to be so steep that your longer stays barely make money.
The better move for big properties is a hybrid approach. Keep a small cleaning fee, maybe $80 to $120, and increase the nightly rate a little. This way the pricing math is less extreme. Your rule set discounts are more modest. And you still get some of the algorithm benefit because your cleaning fee is much lower than competitors who charge $250 or $350.
My general rule: properties that are two bedrooms or smaller should go full zero cleaning fee. Some three-bedroom apartments can handle it too. Large homes with $250+ cleaning costs should use the hybrid approach. A small cleaning fee plus a slightly higher nightly rate gives you the best of both worlds.
How to Implement the No-Cleaning-Fee Strategy
Implementation Checklist
- Calculate your cleaning cost per turnover from invoices. Average the last 3 months.
- Calculate your average stay length from the Airbnb host dashboard. Use the last 90 days.
- Calculate per-night cost: cleaning cost divided by average stay nights equals the additional nightly rate you need.
- Set your new base price in your pricing tool. Add the per-night cleaning cost to your old base.
- Create rule sets with percentage discounts for 3-night, 7-night, and monthly stays to keep those totals competitive.
- Remove the cleaning fee from your Airbnb listing.
- Run for 60 days and compare occupancy and RevPAN to the previous 60-day period.
- Decide based on data. If occupancy improved enough to offset the rate increase, keep it. If not, revert.
The Fresh Account Launch Strategy
If you want to go further, here is what I did in Austin and what I plan to do next in Dallas and Houston.
Create a new Airbnb host account. Move your best properties to it. Set zero cleaning fee. Then watch the first few days very carefully.
Airbnb's algorithm watches the first month of a new listing's occupancy closely. Empty days in that first month hurt your interest metrics going forward. So you want to get booked fast. Here is how:
- Drop your rate slightly on day one. Not a lot. Just enough below market to get booked right away.
- Those early bookings snowball. Airbnb sees future bookings as an interest signal. When you are booked for tomorrow, Airbnb pushes you more for next week.
- Next week you book at full rate. The early momentum carries. The compound effect builds long-term interest data in the algorithm.
This is exactly how my 5 Austin listings hit 100% occupancy in 24 hours. Fresh account. Zero cleaning fee. Competitive launch pricing. Every algorithm signal turned on.
Scaling Across Markets
After Austin worked, the next step is to create new accounts for different parts of Dallas (one account per market zone) and one for Houston. Same approach every time: zero cleaning fee, fresh listing, launch pricing strategy. We are building a playbook to roll this out across the full portfolio.
The no-cleaning-fee experiment is one pricing decision. Sean's Cracking Superhost courses cover the complete pricing system, from dynamic tool setup to rule sets that maximize RevPAN. The RE:Algorithm webinar goes deep on everything in this article, including a custom Excel calculator that tells you exactly what to change. Used by 5,000+ students in 76 countries.
See All Courses300,000+ subscribers get Sean's real-world STR experiment results every week.
Common Questions About Airbnb Cleaning Fees
Should I charge a cleaning fee on Airbnb?
It depends on your market and average stay length. In competitive urban markets with short average stays (2-3 nights), removing the cleaning fee and increasing the nightly rate often improves occupancy enough to be worth it. In destination markets with 7+ night average stays, a cleaning fee is standard and guests expect it. Run the experiment in your specific market to find out which approach produces better RevPAN.
How do I calculate the right nightly rate increase to replace a cleaning fee?
Divide your average cleaning cost per turnover by your average guest stay length in nights. For example, $90 cleaning cost divided by 3 nights average stay equals $30 per night additional rate needed. Add this to your current base price before removing the cleaning fee.
Does Airbnb show total price including cleaning fees in search?
Yes. Since 2023, Airbnb shows total price (including all fees) in search results by default, with an option to toggle back to nightly rate. Despite this, the nightly rate displayed on the listing card still influences click-through behavior. Guests still anchor on the nightly rate shown on the card before seeing the total.
What do guests think of no-cleaning-fee listings?
Guests react positively in most cases. The absence of a cleaning fee is increasingly a search filter for price-sensitive guests. One thing to watch: guests who see no cleaning fee sometimes assume the property requires less care on checkout. Include your checkout instructions clearly in your messages to set the right expectations.
What is the fresh account strategy for Airbnb listings?
The fresh account strategy means creating a new Airbnb host account, moving your best properties to it, and setting zero cleaning fee. You then launch with slightly lower rates for the first few days to get booked fast. Airbnb's algorithm watches the first month of occupancy closely. Early bookings create an interest signal that snowballs into more visibility. I tested this with 5 properties in Austin and hit 100% occupancy within 24 hours of the listings becoming visible.
How do I use rule sets with no cleaning fee?
When you remove your cleaning fee and raise the nightly rate, shorter stays work fine but longer stays get too expensive. Rule sets solve this. Create percentage discounts for different stay lengths. For example, a 3-night discount of 15-20% and a 7-night discount of 25-35%. This brings the total cost for longer stays back to a competitive range while keeping 1-night stays profitable. I cover the exact setup in my RE:Algorithm webinar with a calculator that does the math for you.
Sources
- Airbnb Fee Policy Documentation 2026 — airbnb.com
- PriceLabs Pricing Strategy Guide — pricelabs.co
- Airbnb Newsroom — news.airbnb.com
- Airbnb Host Resource Center — airbnb.com/resources
- Vacation Rental Management Association — vrma.org
