Figuring out how the Airbnb serive fees work can be challenging. This holds true whether you are just starting out or if you are an experienced host. Airbnb has several fees, usually categorized as Airbnb fees for hosts and Airbnb fees for guests.
In addition to the fees the platform charges, Airbnb allows the hosts to charge guests for the services they offer. These fees are generally called additional fees. Additional fees, include but are not limited to, Airbnb cleaning fees, extra guest fees, or even community fees. These fees are entirely up to hosts and usually have been decided according to the host’s pricing strategy. To learn more about determining your pricing strategy, you may read our article “Airbnb Pricing: How to Set your Best Price.“
Airbnb service fees and tax policies are constantly changing. As a host, its important to understand Airbnb fees for hosts so you can see Airbnb’s deductions from your pay outs. This is not enough for you to feel the market’s pulse to come up with innovative and creative strategies. For creating smart and profitable pricing strategies for your listings, you also have to understand how the Airbnb fees for guests work.
In this article, we will cover the Airbnb Service Fees in detail. You also find more information about Additional Fees on Airbnb and Taxes in our article
What are Airbnb Service Fees?
Service fees are the main fees that Airbnb charges to maintain the platform and provide support to both hosts and guests. Airbnb Service Fees include Airbnb fees for booking and fees for Airbnb experiences. (To learn more about Airbnb Experiences, you may see our article here.)
You can use the Airbnb fees calculator. This calculator simulates the exact Airbnb fees for guests and hosts will pay. This tool will allow you to set your nightly rate while taking any Airbnb fees for hosts and guests into account.
What Fees does Airbnb Charge for Booking?
Until recently, most of the hosts have been splitting the Airbnb fees for booking with the guests. However, in December 2020, Airbnb started applying a host-only fee structure to most of the Airbnb hosts. Let’s have a look at these 2 different types of booking fee payment systems that Airbnb offers.
What is the Airbnb Split Fee System?
The split fee system is the most common way to pay Airbnb booking fees for the hosts. In this model, the fee is split between the hosts and the guests. The hosts are generally charged 3% of the total reservation cost, and the guests are charged 14.2% as an average.
We are talking about these percentages in general terms because the 3% charge for the host might increase depending on the cancellation policies used. This percentage may also change should the listing be part of a pilot program run by Airbnb. However, the most majority of Airbnb hosts pay the 3% service fee of the total reservation.
When it comes to the guest side for service fees, the percentage can go as high as 20%, depending on various factors. It is known that Airbnb lowers the rate for the guests if they spend over a certain amount for their booking. This means that if your guest books your Airbnb house for the long term, Airbnb will offer a lower rate for their service fee to compensate the larger sum they spent on the booking.
However, Airbnb does not specify how the service fee has been calculated. We are left to guess the minimum amount of booking costs required to offer lower rates. This secrecy Airbnb holds might affect the quality of the customer support you are giving your hosts on some occasions.
Keep this in mind should the guest have questions related to fees. The best thing you can do is to direct your guests to the Airbnb customer services with any questions related to the service fees. This will help to prevent any misinformation or dissatisfaction.
Airbnb Split Fee Summarized
Before moving to the host-only fee structure, let’s summarize the split fee with a simple example to make everything clear. The example below pretends you have a listing with a $100 nightly rate. The table below shows your nightly profit after the booking service fee deduction and your guests’ cost.
| Nightly Rate | Booking Service Fee | Total | |
| Host | $100 | $3 | $97 (Your Profit) |
| Guest | $100 | $14.20 | $114.20 (Guest’s Cost) |
Here, the sum of your and your guests’ booking service fee ($17.20) refers to the amount of money Airbnb makes out of this booking.
What is the Airbnb Host-only Fee System?
This system eliminates the guest fees and charges the entire booking service fee by the hosts. The service fee, which is 15% or higher depending on various factors such as cancelation policies, will be deducted directly from the host’s pay out.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be earning less! You will be deciding your nightly rates taking the host only fee into account. Your final rate has the service fee included. This new structure may sound like its bringing an extra financial burden to the hosts. However, it can work for the host’s benefit and doesn’t substantially affect the money that their making.
1. Easy Control Over Pricing Across Platforms
This aspect is applicable to hosts that have their property listed on multiple platforms. This new pricing structure allows you to price your properties in the same way across the platforms. Many other rental platforms charge this 15% fee to the hosts as well. If you use Airbnb concurrently with these other platforms, your price will match automatically.
2. Increase Perceived Value of Your Listings
Your guests see the service fee as a break down at the checkout phase in the split fee model. If your guests are regular Airbnb users, they must have been used to this system already. If not, this fee will catch them as a surprise. They might even get annoyed when they try to see how this fee is calculated as Airbnb does not share it.
On the other hand, by integrating the service fee for booking into your nightly fee, your host will see the service fee as 0 at the checkout stage. Therefore, you’ll increase the perceived value of your property. Let’s see how the increase of the perceived value works in an example.
Example for Fee Perception
Let’s say you are looking for booking a place for 3 nights. You found a place that costs you $350 for this on another rental site. Then you want to check your options on Airbnb and find an almost identical place for $300 for 3 nights. In addition to this, on Airbnb, you need to pay a service fee for this booking. For the purpose of this example, let’s use $50. Therefore, your total costs on Airbnb will be $350 too.
So whichever platform you chose, you’ll be spending $350 for a 3-night stay. However, if you use Airbnb, you will be paying $350 for a place worth $300. Even if the place on the other rental site has integrated platform fees, the end cost would be the same for you as a customer. Guests are more willing to get a place that has higher perceived value than paying an extra $50 as a booking service fee.
This also can allow for a more transparent relationship with your guests. This leads to higher customer satisfaction, getting better reviews, and higher rankings on Airbnb listings.
Service Fees for Airbnb Experience
Airbnb started as a booking platform for short-term rentals. Now there is the option of the Airbnb Experience. Through the Airbnb Experience program, Airbnb hosts can offer activities to their guests. You can combine these experiences with their stays. This would allow guests can meet other travelers and discover the locality of the area they are visiting.
Creating and offering those experiences generates extra income for hosts. If you are interested in offering Airbnb Experiences as well, the Airbnb service fee to the host is 20% of your total fee to the guest. Airbnb automatically deducts this fee during the payment process. Keep in mind that Airbnb Service Fee for Experience is only charged to the host. Airbnb guests do not have any fees in these cases.
Airbnb Experience Service Fee Benefits
If the 20% fee to be an Airbnb Experience Hosts seems a bit steep, let’s look into what you receive for this fee:
To start with, you don’t have to have proof of qualification or a license to run an experience program. You can simply share your local knowledge or your hobby with your guests. You are free to set your own prices for the experiences you offer. This means that you can cover the fee deduction while making sure that your prices are fair.
In exchange for the service fee, you’ll have a dashboard of tools that helps you measure the success of the experiences you offer and manage them efficiently.
You’ll also have access to a 24/7 support center.
Main Takeaways
As a host, it is very important to understand your fees for hosting as well as the fees for the guests. Knowing the fee structures in detail will also help you to deal with any possible illegitimate acts that you encounter. It will also help with any general questions the guests may have.
All in all, you always have to keep in mind that Airbnb policies are not constant. Fees are subject to change, so make sure that to periodically check these policies to stay up to speed. Additionally, the Airbnb fees calculator clearly displays your nightly rate and how the fees are broken down. As deciding on your nightly rate without considering the Airbnb fees for hosts would cause you to lose money. On the other hand, if you don’t think about the Airbnb fees for guests, you might end up being too expensive for the guests, and this could make your place undesirable.