Know Your Ideal Vacation Rental Cleaning Price

Setting your vacation rental cleaning price probably isn’t your favorite part about being a host. That’s okay as long as you realize how important it is towards filling up your vacation rental’s calendar!

A cleaning fee guests consider fair can encourage more and longer bookings. A cleaning fee guests consider unfair can lead to guests looking to stay elsewhere. Modern Innkeeper hopes your cleaning fee falls into the first category. To help you out we researched what to do to find the sweet spot for your vacation rental’s cleaning fee.

 

What Affects Your Cleaning Fee

Before deciding on a cleaning fee it’s helpful to know what will affect your pricing. iGMS provided some tips about what you should consider before deciding on a final number.

 

Your Type of Property and Guests

Cleaning an apartment in the city is different from cleaning a house in the countryside.

The type of vacation rental you have matters and affects your cleaning fee. You also must consider the type of guest who stays at your place. If your vacation rental attracts guests who travel on a budget, high cleaning fees may turn them away. But if your guests don’t mind paying a little extra for the finer things in life, a more expensive cleaning fee may not be too big of a deal.

 

Your Competition

A cleaning fee that’s higher than your competition can give your competition an advantage over you, and one that’s lower can lower your profitability because you’re paying too much out of your own pocket. How hosts in your area set their cleaning fee may give you an idea of how to set yours, such as raising your nightly rate to cover cleaning costs instead of raising the cleaning fee. Following Hospitable's process can give you an idea of how to set your fee based on your competition:

●     Search for cleaning fees and nightly rates for up to 20 similar listings in the area.

●     Calculate their average.

●     Add up the costs of your rental.

●     Compare the average cleaning fee and your costs to determine if they align.

●     Set your fee based on what you come up with.

 

Your Cleaning Service

What you’d pay for a cleaning service is more than it costs to clean your place yourself. Don’t feel like you should be fully responsible for this expense! A professional cleaning service can help you enhance the guest experience by making the place sparkle before guests arrive. Let your guests know why your cleaning fee is higher by including you use a professional service in your vacation rental’s description.

If you clean your place yourself, make sure your cleaning fee covers your time and cleaning supplies.

 

The Importance of Setting a Fair Cleaning Fee

Guests can find out if your vacation rental cleaning price is too much, and use it as a reason to stay elsewhere. Trying to profit from your cleaning fee may backfire and turn guests away, but setting it too low can leave you stuck covering most of your cleaning expenses. It’s all about finding a happy medium that doesn’t lose you money and provides guests a clean place to stay.

 

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