For most hosts outside North America who use a third-party property management software (PMS), Airbnb charges a host-only fee of approximately 15% (guests are not charged a service fee).
This applies to hosts who use a PMS with software-connected listings where Airbnb removes access to the calendar and/or listing descriptions because they're managed directly by other software. Hosts who do not use a PMS with an integration that meets their criteria can alternatively choose a split fee structure between hosts and guests.
During September and October 2024, Hospitable is upgrading to the Airbnb PMS connection, and therefore some accounts may be required to switch to a host-only service fee.
Who is charged the host-only fee?
All hotels
Mandatory for software-connected hosts (with API-synced listings), unless those hosts have a majority of their listings in the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico, Argentina, Taiwan, or Uruguay.
What is the percentage of the host-only fee?
Airbnb communicates a 15% percentage, but it will "range from 14 to 16%"
You can lookup your percentage in Airbnb account settings > Payments and Payouts > Service fee or by checking a reservation in Earnings.
Airbnb Plus hosts, and hosts who use Super Strict cancellation "may pay more".
What is the percentage of the split-fee?
The total fee ranges from 17% to 23%
Guests see a Service fee line item on their quote of 14-20%
Hosts have a 3% fee deducted from their payout
A case for the host-only fee
Transparency: you set the total price and see the true OTA platform cost.
Competitiveness: we know that guests hate seeing fees and convert at a higher rate when shown the true cost of the booking.
Lower guest total cost: The host-only fee is 2-7% cheaper, savings that you can allocate to a more competitive price or a richer payout, using markup rates.
Hosts that have decided to switch and keep their prices competitive across channels have seen an overall increase in their bookings (~17%*). *See Airbnb's article on Simplified Pricing here.
Offsetting the host-only fee
If you're making a switch to the host-only fee, we strongly recommend offsetting the fee change using Hospitable markup rates.
Most hosts use markup rates to equalize their payout so that no matter which channel a booking is made on, they always get the same payout. To achieve that with Airbnb's host-only fee, go to Settings > Preferences > Properties and set your Airbnb platform markup rate to your host-only fee. Get your host-only fee in Airbnb account settings > Payments and Payouts > Service fee or by checking a reservation in Earnings.
Hospitable will apply your markup rate to your base price whenever we push prices to Airbnb, meaning your host-only fee will be collected from the guest as part of your nightly rate.