# The Real Math of One Airbnb Unit: Where Every $100 Goes > A worked example of one short-term rental unit: platform fees, cleaning, supplies, rent and more, what's left from each $100, and what moves it. - Author: Tai Pham Phu - Published: 14 Oct 2026 - Tags: Short-Term Rentals, Small Business, Business, Spreadsheets - URL: https://phamphutai.com/2026/10/14/the-real-math-of-one-airbnb-unit/ A guest books your apartment for $100 a night. It feels like $100 just landed in your pocket. It didn't. By the time the platform, the cleaner, the electricity company and your landlord have each taken their share, the number that's actually yours is much smaller. For a lot of hosts, it's smaller than they think, because they've never written it down line by line. So let's write it down. This post walks through one example unit, one example month, and follows every $100 to wherever it ends up. **Before we start:** this is a worked example to show how the money moves. It is not investment advice, and it is not tax advice. Your fees, costs and taxes will be different. Plug in your own numbers. --- ## The example unit Here's the example. All of it is made up for illustration, but the platform fee is real and the other costs sit inside ranges I checked (sources are at the end). **Example: a one-bedroom city apartment, rented by the host and listed on Airbnb.** - Nightly rate: **$100** - Booked nights this month: **20** (about two-thirds occupancy) - Number of stays: **5** (guests stay 4 nights on average) - Cleaning fee charged to the guest: **$80** per stay - The host manages it themselves. No co-host, no management company. So the guest-side money for the month is: - 20 nights × $100 = $2,000 - 5 cleaning fees × $80 = $400 - **Total: $2,400** (before any local taxes the guest pays) Now let's spend it. --- ## Where the money goes ### 1. The platform fee This is the first cut, and it comes off the top. Airbnb has two fee models. Under the **split fee**, the host pays about 3% and the guest pays a separate service fee on top, typically about 14% to 16.5% of the booking. Under the **single fee** (often called the host-only fee), the guest pays one price and Airbnb takes its whole cut from the host's payout. According to Airbnb's own help page, most hosts on the single fee pay **15.5%**, others typically between 14% and 16%, and listings in Brazil and Mexico pay 16%. At the time of writing (October 2026), the split fee is being phased out. Airbnb's help page says hosts are transitioning to the single fee, and that it is already required for hosts who use property management software. Industry write-ups describe the rollout happening in waves since late October 2025, with hosts who don't use software moving country by country. Check your own account to see which one you're on. One detail that matters a lot: the fee is calculated on the nightly price **and** the fees you charge, like cleaning. So it bites the cleaning fee too. In the example: 15.5% of $2,400 = **$372**. If you list on Booking.com instead, the commission works differently but lands in a similar place. Booking.com doesn't publish one rate for everyone. Vendor guides put it at roughly 15% on average, with a range of about 10% to 25% depending on location and property type, plus extra if you join programmes like Preferred Partner or fund Genius discounts. Your extranet shows your actual rate. ### 2. Cleaning Every stay ends with a clean. In the example the host pays a cleaner **$65 per turnover**, which sits inside the roughly $50 to $95 range that 2026 guides quote for a studio or one-bedroom in the US. Big cities and busy holiday towns run higher. In some countries it will be much lower. In the example: 5 turnovers × $65 = **$325**. ### 3. Supplies and consumables Toilet paper, soap, shampoo, coffee, dish tablets, bin bags, the occasional replaced towel. One analysis of short-term rental costs puts supplies and restocking at about $10 to $25 per turnover. In the example: 5 turnovers × $15 = **$75**. ### 4. Utilities and internet Electricity, water, gas, Wi-Fi, maybe a streaming subscription. Guests don't turn the air-con off when they go out. This number depends entirely on where you are and the season, so it's an assumption in the example. In the example: **$160**. ### 5. Software Many hosts with one unit use nothing but the Airbnb app. Once you have two platforms or a few units, you usually add a channel manager (a tool that keeps calendars in sync so you don't get double-booked) or a property management system (PMS, a tool that also handles messages, tasks and payments). At the time of writing, Hospitable has a free plan and a paid Host plan from $29 a month for one property. Smoobu starts at about €29 a month. Bigger systems cost more, and pricing usually goes up per unit. In the example: **$29**. ### 6. Management In the example, the host does everything. Management costs **$0** in cash. Remember that line, though. We'll come back to it, because "$0" is not really what it costs. ### 7. Maintenance and reserve Things break. The kettle, the shower head, the sofa a guest spilled red wine on. Short-term rentals wear faster than a normal home because a different person uses everything every few days. There's no standard rule for short stays. Long-term landlords often quote rules of thumb like 8% to 15% of rent for maintenance, plus a separate fund for big replacements. In the example I'll keep it simple and set aside **5% of revenue**, which some hosts will find too low. In the example: 5% of $2,400 = **$120**. ### 8. Rent or mortgage This is usually the biggest line. In the example, the host rents the apartment for **$1,000** a month. If you own, it's your mortgage, building fees and insurance instead. Whichever it is, it's due whether the unit is booked 30 nights or 3. ### 9. Taxes This one depends on your country, your city and how you've set things up. There may be tourist or occupancy taxes (sometimes the platform collects them, sometimes you do), VAT on platform fees in some places, and income tax on whatever profit is left. I'm not going to pretend there's one number. **Ask a local accountant.** The example below stops at "before tax". --- ## What's left Here's the whole month in one table, with each line also shown per $100 the guest paid. | Line | Month | Per $100 | |---|---|---| | Guest pays (nights + cleaning fees) | $2,400 | $100.00 | | Platform fee (15.5%) | −$372 | −$15.50 | | Cleaning (cleaner) | −$325 | −$13.50 | | Supplies | −$75 | −$3.10 | | Utilities and internet | −$160 | −$6.70 | | Software | −$29 | −$1.20 | | Management (self) | $0 | $0.00 | | Maintenance reserve (5%) | −$120 | −$5.00 | | Rent | −$1,000 | −$41.70 | | **Left before tax** | **$319** | **$13.30** | (Per-$100 figures are rounded.) **In this example, out of every $100 a guest pays, about $13 is left before tax.** Not $100. Not $50. About thirteen.
EXAMPLE: where $100 of guest payment goes (one month, self-managed) Guest pays $100 Platform fee $15.50 Cleaning $13.50 Supplies $3.10 Utilities $6.70 Software $1.20 Maintenance $5.00 Rent $41.70 Left before tax $13.30 Illustrative numbers only, rounded. Taxes and the host's own time are not included.
An example, not a benchmark: in this made-up month, about $13 of every $100 is left before tax.
Your version will look different. If you own the place outright, the rent bar disappears and the picture changes completely. If you're in a cheaper market, cleaning and utilities shrink but so does your nightly rate. The point isn't the exact number. The point is that **the big bars are fixed, and the bar that's yours is thin.** Thin bars move a lot when anything else moves. --- ## The levers that actually move the number Once you see the split, a few things become obvious. Here they are, using the same example. ### Lever 1: Nightly rate vs occupancy Most hosts chase occupancy. A full calendar feels like success. But compare two ways to earn more in the example month: **Option A: raise the rate 10%** to $110, same 20 nights, same 5 stays. - Guest pays $2,600. Platform fee $403. Reserve $130. Everything else unchanged. - **Left: about $478.** That's $159 more than before. **Option B: two more nights** at $100, which in practice means one more stay (22 nights, 6 stays). - Guest pays $2,680. But now there's a sixth clean, a sixth set of supplies, a higher fee and a higher reserve. - **Left: about $462.** That's $143 more than before. Similar money. But Option A came with no extra turnover, no extra guest to message, and less wear. Option B came with all three. This isn't a rule that higher prices always win. Raise the rate too far and occupancy drops, and then the fixed rent bar eats you. It's a reminder that **a dollar of rate mostly drops to the bottom line, while a dollar of occupancy brings costs with it.** Test both, carefully. ### Lever 2: The cleaning fee that quietly loses money Look at one turnover in the example: - Guest pays an $80 cleaning fee. - The platform takes 15.5% of it: $12.40. You keep $67.60. - You pay the cleaner $65 and use $15 of supplies: $80. **Each turnover loses $12.40**, even though the cleaning fee "covers cleaning." Over 5 stays that's about $62 a month, and it's easy to miss because the fee and the cost look equal on paper. You have a few options: price the cleaning fee to cover the platform's cut, add the shortfall to the nightly rate, or reduce the number of turnovers. ### Lever 3: Length of stay Which brings us to minimum stays. Every turnover costs a clean, supplies, a check-in, a checkout and a batch of messages. Fewer, longer stays mean fewer turnovers for the same nights. In the example, if the same 20 nights came as 4 stays of 5 nights instead of 5 stays of 4 nights, you'd do one less clean a month. The cash difference is small, because you also lose one cleaning fee. The bigger win is everything that doesn't show up in the table: one less day of coordinating a cleaner, one less set of check-in questions, one less chance of something going wrong. The trade-off: a longer minimum stay can leave gaps in your calendar that nobody books. That's why this is a lever to test, not a setting to max out. ### Lever 4: Direct bookings If a returning guest books with you directly, there's no 15.5% platform fee. You still pay to take the money. A card processor like Stripe charges about 2.9% plus 30 cents per domestic card payment in the US, at the time of writing. In the example, if one of the five stays (about $480) came direct, you'd skip about $74 in platform fee and pay about $14 in card fees. **About $60 more that month.** Useful, but not magic. Direct bookings also mean you handle the trust, the payment issues, the house rules and any damage yourself, without the platform in the middle. They work best with repeat guests you already know. Check your local rules on taking direct bookings too. ### Lever 5: Your own hours Which brings us back to that "$0" management line. --- ## The hidden cost nobody counts Go back to the table. The management line says $0, because the host does it all. But the host isn't free. Someone answered the "what's the Wi-Fi password?" message at 11 p.m. Someone checked the cleaner had actually come before the next guest arrived. Someone opened Airbnb, then WhatsApp, then the calendar, then the spreadsheet, to work out who is arriving tomorrow. That someone is you. Let's put an example number on it. Say each stay takes about **1.5 hours** of messages and coordination, from the booking question to the checkout review. And say you spend another **3 hours a month** on pricing, calendars and supply runs. That's: - 5 stays × 1.5 hours = 7.5 hours - plus 3 hours = **10.5 hours a month** In the example, $319 left over ÷ 10.5 hours = **about $30 an hour**, before tax. That's your real wage for this unit. If those hours are more like 20, it's about $16 an hour. Now compare that to paying someone. Guides I checked put co-host fees at roughly **10% to 25%** of booking revenue, and full-service management at roughly **15% to 30%**, with plenty of variation. At 15% of $2,400, a co-host would cost $360 a month. **In the example, that's more than the whole $319 left over.** The unit would lose money every month. That's not a reason to never hire a co-host. Lots of hosts do, and with better pricing, a good co-host can pay for themselves. But it shows why so many small hosts end up doing it all themselves, and why their hours matter so much. **For a small host, your own time is the management fee.** If you don't count it, you're not seeing the real cost. It's also why the time-saving tools and habits that look minor can matter a lot. Cutting coordination from 1.5 hours to 45 minutes per stay doesn't show up in the table, but it changes your hourly number a lot. This is the problem I've been working on with [Santara](https://phamphutai.com/projects/santara/): the daily checking across apps is the part that eats a host's hours. I wrote about [why we chose one morning briefing](https://phamphutai.com/2026/10/14/why-santara-sends-one-briefing-not-a-chatbot/) instead of another app to check. Whatever you use, even a simple routine, the principle is the same. As I've argued before, [people don't pay for features, they pay to do less](https://phamphutai.com/2026/10/06/people-pay-to-do-less/). --- ## Do this for your own unit You don't need software for this. One sheet, one row per line, one column per month. (If you want a starting point, I wrote about [the one Google Sheet that runs a small business](https://phamphutai.com/2026/10/14/the-one-google-sheet-that-runs-a-small-business/).) 1. **Write down what guests actually paid** last month: nights plus fees, before taxes. 2. **Take off your real platform fee.** Check your payout reports, not the help page. Know whether you're on the split fee or the single fee. 3. **List every cost**: cleaning, supplies, utilities, software, rent or mortgage, insurance, repairs. Use real receipts. 4. **Set aside a reserve.** Pick a percentage and stick to it, so the broken washing machine doesn't wipe out a month. 5. **Count your hours** for one month. Roughly is fine. Then divide what's left by your hours. 6. **Ask an accountant** what you owe in tax, and take that off too. The first time you do this, the number might surprise you. That's fine. A surprising number you know about is far better than a comfortable number that isn't true. --- ## The takeaway A $100 night is not $100. In this example, it's about $13 before tax, and less once you count your time. The biggest bars, the platform fee and the rent, are mostly fixed. The bar that's yours is thin, so small things move it: a cleaning fee that doesn't cover the platform's cut, an extra turnover, a 10% rate change, the hours you spend in your inbox. **Know your numbers per $100. Count your own time. Then pull the lever that moves the thin bar, not the one that just keeps you busy.** And again: this is an example to help you think, not investment or tax advice. Your market, your country and your contract will change every line. --- *Sources: Airbnb Help Centre, "Airbnb service fees" (airbnb.com/help/article/1857), for split fee (host about 3%, guest 14.1% to 16.5%) and single fee (most hosts 15.5%, others 14% to 16%, Brazil and Mexico 16%), the phase-out and fee base; PriceLabs, "Airbnb host fee update", and Hostfully, "Airbnb Host Fees: The 15.5% Host-Only Fee Explained", for the rollout timing since October 2025; Guesty, "How much does Booking.com charge hosts?", Smoobu's guide to booking portal commissions, and Holidayfox's Booking.com commission breakdown for 2026, for Booking.com's roughly 15% average and 10% to 25% range; Hostfully, "Airbnb cleaning fee", BnbCalc, "Airbnb cleaning service cost", and Red Awning, "Is Airbnb worth it in 2026" (citing AirROI), for cleaning costs and supplies per turnover; Hospitable Help Centre, "Hospitable pricing and subscription costs", and Smoobu's pricing page for software prices; Guesty, "How much do Airbnb property managers charge?", PriceLabs, "Vacation rental property manager fees", Hostaway's glossary entry on commission rates, and TIDY's guide to short-term rental management fees, for co-host and management fee ranges; BiggerPockets community discussion and VerticalRent's guide to maintenance reserves for landlord maintenance rules of thumb; Stripe, "Pricing", for US card processing fees. All checked October 2026; prices and fees change.* *Related: [Why Santara Sends One Briefing, Not a Chatbot](https://phamphutai.com/2026/10/14/why-santara-sends-one-briefing-not-a-chatbot/), and [Your Spreadsheet Keeps Beating Every App You Try](https://phamphutai.com/2026/10/14/your-spreadsheet-keeps-beating-every-app/).*