Airbnb cleaning fee calculator
Short-let turnover fees are the most commonly under-priced work in cleaning, because the visible part — the cleaning — is the smaller half. This calculator adds the parts that get forgotten: linen, consumables, both directions of drive time, and the mileage, then puts your margin on top of the real cost.
Before you set the fee
- Time one real turnover before you quote a fee
- Count the consumables the host actually expects you to replace
- Agree who buys the linen, and who owns the spares
After a month of turnovers
- Re-check the fee after a month of real turnovers
- Charge separately for a stay that leaves the place wrecked
- Photograph the reset — it is the evidence and the marketing
Turnover fee
$225
- Labour
- $140.00
- Mileage
- $10.64
- Linen
- $18.00
- Total cost
- $179.64
- Per bedroom
- $112
- Effective rate
- $76.99 / hr
The costs hosts forget
Linen is a real per-turnover cost whether you launder it or own spare sets. Consumables — paper, soap, coffee, liners, dishwasher tablets — are a real cost on every single turnover. Drive time is paid time. Mileage is a real vehicle cost, which the IRS values at 76 cents a mile for business use from 1 July 2026.
Internal Revenue Service, read 2026-09-04
A fee set by looking at what other listings charge captures none of that. A fee built from these lines survives a bad month.
The turnover window
Most short lets have a three to five hour gap between checkout and check-in. That constraint is what makes short-let work worth more per hour than domestic cleaning: you cannot be late, and the work is judged against photographs.
If the gap is same-day and there is no on-site laundry, you are running a linen swap. Price the second set and the transport, or refuse the job — it cannot be done properly at a domestic rate.
Watch the effective rate
The effective rate at the bottom is the number to argue about. It is the fee divided by all the minutes the turnover really consumes, including the drive. A fee that looks generous can hide an effective rate below your domestic work once a forty-minute round trip is counted.
If the effective rate is short, the honest fixes are a higher fee, a tighter cluster of properties, or fewer, larger units — not working faster.