Pricing tools: Pet fees, cleaning fees, and price previews

To make life as a Host a little easier, Airbnb is introducing new hosting tools to support three specific tasks: adding a pet fee, offering lower cleaning fees for shorter stays or fewer guests, and previewing the price guests will pay.

Add a pet fee

Guests love traveling with their pets—they’re part of the family. To make it even easier for Hosts to welcome pets, you can now add a pet fee to your pricing. If you choose to charge a pet fee, it’ll be spread out equally over the course of the stay and shown both as part of the nightly rate, and in the total price at checkout.

Guests can now say how many pets (0–5) they plan to bring, which you as a Host can review. If you’d previously selected “No pets allowed” but now want to include a pet fee, you’ll get a message explaining that your listing will be changed to “Pets allowed.” You can charge a flat fee that covers multiple pets, but remember: Your pet fee can’t be more than your nightly base rate.

By adding a pet fee, you no longer need to request one through our Resolution Center after you accept a booking—or chase guests who are slow to pay it. But remember: It should only be used to cover the cost of the expected cleaning you’d do after hosting fuzzy guests. For unexpected damages, you have AirCover, which offers $3 million USD in damage protection.

Service animals always stay for free. If a service animal damages your property, you can still request payment under AirCover through the Airbnb Resolution Center. For more information about service animals, emotional support animals, and fees, read about our Accessibility Policy.

Customize your cleaning fee

As a Host, you’re always in charge of your nightly price and whether you want to add a cleaning fee. But until now, you could only set one fixed fee to cover cleanup costs after guests check out.

Our new pricing tools give you the flexibility to customize your cleaning fee. So, you can now offer a lower fee to guests who stay only 1 or 2 nights. If you opt in, your regular cleaning fee for longer stays remains the same unless you change it.  

Your cleaning fee typically pays for the housekeeping you expect to do after hosting guests. For unexpected cleaning costs, such as removing smoke odors, AirCover offers $3 million USD in damage protection.

Preview guest total 

As you know, your nightly rate can vary with seasonality, length of stay and other factors. If you’re thinking about adding fees or offering discounts, you may want to run some numbers to keep your pricing strategy on track.

To find out what guests would pay for a stay before it’s booked, you can check your Calendar for the total price. Here’s how:

You can specify the number of guests and pets, and any range of dates, to preview the total price (including taxes and fees) for that particular booking. You’ll get a breakdown of the cost to a guest—and your payout—right from your hosting account. Depending on what you learn, you can always update your pricing.