What service fee should you set on your Airbnb account?

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Introduction

Airbnb have (up to now) set a fee structure or 3% for the host, and up to 20% for guests. This means if you set your price to be $100 on your Airbnb calendar, you were charged $3 by Airbnb for the booking and your guests were charged up to $120.

A new fee structure

Airbnb have introduced a new host-only fee structure of 15%. Guests will see a $0 service fee throughout the booking process.

Is this new fee good or bad?

According to Airbnb, this change is VERY positive for you, if you are connected via channel manager like Uplisting (ie. an official partner of Airbnb). Hosts reported a 21% increase in bookings on this new fee structure (according to official Airbnb analysis).

https://downloads.intercomcdn.com/i/o/180091931/5f6660907fcb001f858ddd77/service-fee.png

Why is this?

  1. **Prices could be cheaper for guests, without impacting your revenue.**The total Airbnb fee with the new structure is 14%, the old fee can reach 23% (3% host fee + a maximum 20% guest fee).
  2. **Guests aren't put off by hidden fees.**All host listings using the new host fee show up as 0% service charge to the guest.
  3. **Airbnb rankings (theoretically)**Airbnb tend to promote listings that implement changes that are beneficial for their business.

But my host fee goes up from 3% to 14%

This is true. To counteract this you need to increase your prices on Airbnb to take this greater fee into account. Bear in mind the price your guest will pay will be roughly exactly the same, or less.

How to I increase my prices?