Airbnb’s new 1  5.5% host-only fee — let’s get the math straight.

[Jacob Morgenstern]

There’s been a lot of debate on what markup you need to keep your payouts whole.

If you want to offset the entire 15.5% fee, the correct markup is 18.34%.
That’s because you’re covering the full fee from scratch.

But here’s the key: most hosts (myself included) were already absorbing the old 3% fee as an acquisition cost.
In that case, you don’t need to markup that part again — you only need to offset the extra 12.5%.

Example:

• Old rate = $100

• Airbnb takes 12.5% → you’d only get $87.50

• To get back to $100: $100 ÷ 0.875 = $114.29
  That’s a 14.29% markup (multiply rates by 1.1429).

So which is correct?

• 18.34% if you’re offsetting the full 15.5%.

• 14.29% if you were already absorbing the 3%.

Many PMS systems let you apply this markup automatically. Update your markup percentage once, and it flows through to all your listings.

How are you handling the new fee—passing it all on to guests, absorbing part of it, or somewhere in between?

[Patricia Andriolo-Bull]

A couple of thoughts, in the end, the guest is "supposed to see" the same rates, it just won't be broken down by host fees vs. airbnb fees vs. taxes.  In practice, my guests will now be paying MUCH more and will be advantaged to shop elsewhere, namely VRBO.  When I increase my rate based on the 15.5% to cover what was once the guest fee (I also did the math and increased my rate by 18.34%), I am doing so on all of my fees (rate, cleaning, etc.), before I used to absorb the 3% because it wasn't that much on things like cleaning.  That is no longer the case so now my guests are paying more for cleaning fees as well as the nightly rate.  And the kicker, the taxes (11% for my area) are based on my fees so now the guest pays an even higher amount of taxes also.  Airbnb is hurting themselves.  My rates on Airbnb are now higher than they are on VRBO, BDC etc.  It will be interesting to see how consumers react.  I have done a day for day comparison across all my channels including direct and Airbnb is now the highest rate because of this.