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Comment by amanzi | Hacker News Reader

I've been an Airbnb host for the last 3 years. We've never expected guests to do any cleaning or washing of dishes (although it's always appreciated when they do!) We charge a small cleaning fee to cover the costs of cleaning our studio which only takes an hour. We also have maintained a really high rating over the last few years (currently at 4.96). I would hope that other rentals that have ridiculous rules and high cleaning fees would suffer from average ratings?

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The market is more complicated than that, unfortunately. Some properties can sustain high ratings on their other strengths (e.g. location, decor, view, heritage) regardless of the host rules and the clientele that's interested in them. There's also a problem with the rental market getting very thin for some locations and property types (e.g. 3+ bedrooms), so ratings effectively stop mattering.

As a personal example, I once stayed at a place that charged a $150 cleaning fee, but also required dishes + taking the trash out and down the street, which wasn't known until we opened the door. And of course there was a threat that failure to do so would incur a fee. Also a bit of ceiling plaster fell on my wife during the night. Still had a fantastic rating because it was a castle and I'd stay there again if someone else paid.

Out of curiosity, why is the cleaning fee not included into the rental rate? Is it required to be listed separately or does that simplify accounting somehow?

It is a dark pattern causing the advertised rate to be lower so the listing will get included in more filters etc.

[edit] I checked and they changed this in April of 2025, as of then the fee is rolled up in the advertised rate.

Because this way they can lie to you and offer low rates to pull you in until you go to check out.

Airbnb includes the cleaning fee (and other fees) in the advertised price. I just checked our own listing and it shows the total cost.

For a very long time they didn't. They still don't by default in the US, only in certain jurisdictions.

Maybe to encourage longer stays? The cleaning fee is paid once per stay, not once per night. I get why it is a separate charge, since they aren't cleaning the place daily (like a hotel), only at the end of your stay.

For us, we charge the same cleaning fee whether you stay for 1 night or 7 nights. So I don't know how we can incorporate that into the nightly fee without either over-charging or under-charging for cleaning. Having it listed separately keeps it consistent and clear to guests.

In some locales, it is included

That was entirely on Airbnb for presenting it that way. Hosts would enter in their per-reservation cleaning cost so it could be integrated into the price paid by guests, but Airbnb stubbornly itemized it on the checkout page for years. I believe they finally did away with it (in favor of building into the nightly rate) about a year ago.

My father runs a few guest suites and he explained to me why the cleaning fee is really helpful in terms of keeping a room's price reasonable per night but him not getting a bad deal for a single night guest.

The more often you wash linen then the faster it wears out and needs to be replaced.

While he has a cleaner who daily makes the bed and does basic cleaning (labour is far more affordable in South Africa), on checkout rooms need a more proper clean with additional use of a cleaning detergents.

Without a cleaning fee which is charged per stay, you'd have to increase the per night fee to cater for single night guests.

With the cleaning fee he can still keep per night rates as low as possible with single night guests still covering their actual overheads.

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