Introduction

Airbnb has (up to now) set a fee structure or 3% for the host, and up to 20% for guests. This means if you set your price to be $100 on your Airbnb calendar, you were charged $3 by Airbnb for the booking and your guests were charged up to $120.

A new fee structure

Airbnb have introduced a new host-only fee structure of 15%. Guests will see a $0 service fee throughout the booking process.

Is this new fee good or bad?

According to Airbnb, this change may be VERY positive for you, if you are connected via a channel manager like Uplisting (ie. an official partner of Airbnb). Hosts reported a 21% increase in bookings on this new fee structure (according to official Airbnb analysis).

Why is this?

1. _Prices could be cheaper for guests, without impacting your revenue. _The total Airbnb fee with the new structure is 15%, the old fee can reach 23% (3% host fee + a maximum 20% guest fee).
2. Guests aren't put off by hidden fees. All host listings using the new host fee show up as 0% service charge to the guest.
3. Airbnb rankings (theoretically). Airbnb tend to promote listings that implement changes that are beneficial for their business.

But my host fee goes up from 3% to 15%

This is true. To counteract this you need to increase your prices on Airbnb to take this greater fee into account. Bear in mind the price your guest will pay will be roughly exactly the same or less.

How do I increase my prices?

You have two options, depending on what you are most comfortable with.

1. Continue using 'Smart Rates' on Uplisting and change your Airbnb channel markup to be 15%). This is less impactful for you as Uplisting does the calculation. Remember, Uplisting 'Smart Rates' are the prices you want to earn.
2. Refactor your pricing to take into account this extra 14%. Bear in mind you will also need to revise your Booking.com and Homeaway channel markup settings.

How to reset the Airbnb commission to 3%

Unfortunately, we have no insight into the host commission fee set on your account (this information is not provided as part of the integration).

Airbnb has explained to us that all new connections will automatically move to the new 15% commission setting. However, it may be possible that your account remains on the 3% commission setting.

Follow the instructions below in either case and if you would prefer the 3% commission setting (or this is already the setting you are on and want to remain) just change the Airbnb markup Uplisting has automatically set from 15% to 3%. Your updated prices will sync from Uplisting to Airbnb within a few seconds.

How to review and change the Airbnb host commission fee setting:

• Confirm your host fee setup on Airbnb here. If it's set to 3%, continue to step 2. If not, set it to 3% (if you wish).
• If you wish to reset prices to what they were prior to connecting to Uplisting, change your Airbnb markup on Uplisting to 3% here.
• Done - all prices are back to the original values.