Airbnb Fees: How Much Are They Really Costing Your Holiday Let?
Airbnb can be a brilliant way to get your holiday let in front of new guests, particularly when you're new or looking to fill gaps in your calendar. But when a large percentage of your bookings come through Airbnb, have you ever actually sat down and worked out how much you're paying in fees over the course of a year?
How much does Airbnb charge hosts?
Airbnb is moving hosts towards a single-fee structure, where the service fee is deducted from the host payout. Most hosts on this structure pay around 15.5%.
And 15.5% might not sound too bad until you actually do the maths.
If you take £30,000 worth of bookings through Airbnb in one year, that's £4,650 gone in fees.
At £50,000, it's £7,750.
And at £100,000, you're looking at £15,500.
That's a pretty big chunk of your revenue going out of the business each year.
What if more of those bookings came direct?
This isn't about ditching Airbnb completely. OTAs can be really useful for getting your property seen by new people, and they do have a place in your marketing.
The problem is when you rely on them for almost every booking.
Let's say you currently take £50,000 a year through Airbnb. If you could move half of those bookings direct, that's £25,000 worth of bookings you're no longer paying a 15.5% Airbnb host fee on. That's potentially around £3,875 in fees avoided, without needing to find any additional guests.
Of course, direct bookings aren't completely free either. You'll still have costs for things like your website, booking software, payment processing and marketing. But the difference is that you're putting money back into your own business.
You're building a website that can be found on Google, growing your own social media audience, creating an email list and building a brand that your guests actually remember.
And that's particularly important when it comes to repeat guests and direct bookings.
Take a look at your own numbers
Go back through your last 12 months of bookings and work out how much you've actually paid in OTA fees. Then ask yourself what difference it would make if even 20%, 30% or 50% of those bookings came directly instead.
You don't necessarily need to stop using Airbnb, you just need to start building other ways for guests to find and book you.
If you're ready to start relying less on OTAs and getting more direct bookings, take a look at my OTA Exit Strategy.
Figures are illustrative and based on a 15.5% Airbnb host service fee. Actual fees and direct booking costs can vary.
Comments