Transparency builds trust. Guests seeing the real price upfront means fewer surprises and angry messages like “I didn’t know cleaning was 150 dollars.”
Fewer abandoned bookings. Guests are less likely to bounce mid-checkout when the price doesn’t spike at the end.
You can stand out. If your pricing is clean and fair, you’ll look great next to listings that inflate fees.
Why it might sting:
High-fee listings could suffer. If you rely on low nightly rates with big cleaning or service fees to look cheap in search results, this change exposes that.
It forces you to get competitive. Pricing strategy matters more than ever now, no more burying the true cost.
It’s ultimately good for the guest experience, which long-term is good for hosts who run a tight ship and price honestly. If you’ve already been transparent and thoughtful with your pricing, this levels the playing field in your favor.
I agree. I have been using ‘management fees’ to minimize the bit of the cleaning fee at checkout. It hurts on the front page, but I think it results in less abandoned reservations. I agree with your perspective that this is a pro-guest benefit. I think it should be host neutral.
Probably does not matter. Folks surfing for properties online seem to be pretty good at math.
I would disagree. This is the same country where A & W introduced a 1/3 lb burger to compete with the Quarter Pounder, only for it to fail because the average consumer thought it was smaller.
Consumers in general are tired of junk fees, especially with several years of inflation. Airbnb has been taking heat on social media for fees so they are now wrapping it all in, while VRBO still has itemized fees that are confusing. Smart move IMO
Probably does not matter. Folks surfing for properties online seem to be pretty good at math.
I would disagree. This is the same country where A & W introduced a 1/3 lb burger to compete with the Quarter Pounder, only for it to fail because the average consumer thought it was smaller.
Consumers in general are tired of junk fees, especially with several years of inflation. Airbnb has been taking heat on social media for fees so they are now wrapping it all in, while VRBO still has itemized fees that are confusing. Smart move IMO
Ha, I once asked for 2/3 lb. of lunchmeat at a grocery store counter, the guy didn't know how much that was!
Transparency builds trust. Guests seeing the real price upfront means fewer surprises and angry messages like “I didn’t know cleaning was 150 dollars.”
Fewer abandoned bookings. Guests are less likely to bounce mid-checkout when the price doesn’t spike at the end.
You can stand out. If your pricing is clean and fair, you’ll look great next to listings that inflate fees.
Why it might sting:
High-fee listings could suffer. If you rely on low nightly rates with big cleaning or service fees to look cheap in search results, this change exposes that.
It forces you to get competitive. Pricing strategy matters more than ever now, no more burying the true cost.
It’s ultimately good for the guest experience, which long-term is good for hosts who run a tight ship and price honestly. If you’ve already been transparent and thoughtful with your pricing, this levels the playing field in your favor.
The problem has always been that the “public” is used to hotels, and hotels are priced per night, so three nights is 3 times one night, for TOTAL price. Since most STR hosts provide cleaning one times per STAY, the fee will of course result in a one night stay costing significantly more per night than a 7 day stay (even double on a nightly basis). Add in the other fees and the platform isn’t so “user friendly”. The hotel frustration most like this for the user is the hotels that, in certain areas, add on a “resort” or “facility” fee, which they define as use of all the resort amenities, to be paid whether or not the guest utilizes the said amenities. More annoying is the limited service motels in a resort area that add on a “resort fee” despite having no resort amenities.
I’ve been both an owner of STR housing and I am a “guest” at least twice a year for the last 15 years. In my opinion this is long overdue. Give the user all the information upfront and easy to use- STR is in numerous instances far superior to hotel stay.
Let’s be real here the only reason Airbnb did this was to hide their increased fees. It has nothing to do with transparency. If you notice you need to go to price breakdown and then price details to even see what Airbnb is charging guests.
Let’s be real here the only reason Airbnb did this was to hide their increased fees. It has nothing to do with transparency. If you notice you need to go to price breakdown and then price details to even see what Airbnb is charging guests.
This X100. Airbnb would be the antithesis of transparent.
I love it and I've been waiting for this to happen for a long time. Now we won't charge cleaning fees so we will be so much more competitive. I'm planning on our occupancy going up since we will be a better value.
About time. As a host, I have no reason to want customers to NOT see all my fees upfront. As a guest, I tried booking my first AirBnb 2 years ago. Went to book, and the fees added something like $100 a night to the overall price. I walked away and never touched AirBnb again.
I’m all for it — transparency helps build trust, and long term that's a win for hosts who are already pricing fairly. We never tried to hide fees anyway, so this change really just levels the playing field. Plus, anything that reduces abandoned bookings at checkout is a good thing in my book!
As Madelyn Morris mentioned, this was just a self-serving move by Airbnb, which is par for the course for them. They did it to disguise their own fees.