September 11th, 2022

Everything You Need to Know About Cleaning!

Updated: 8/22/23

We get a lot of questions around cleaning, after all its important!

Unsatisfactory cleaning --> negative reviews --> worse home ranking --> less income --> everyone loses

I wanted to cover a host of different topics here, all under the umbrella of "cleaning" so everything is transparent and understood! Let's get into it...

"Is cleaning included in the management fee?"

The simple answer is no, but there's more information to understand so please read on!

Our management fee our compensation to step into your shoes to manage your home on your behalf. The best way to think of it is you are the business owner and we are your manager. As the owner, you still have to pay for the expenses to run the business. In this case, it's things like cleaning, restocking materials, cleaning the hot tub, etc. We organize that, make sure the people show up, do their job to a high standard, bring the materials by the home, etc. We do not assume those costs for you. Another way to think of it is if you were to self-manage your home, these are all still costs you would need to pay. You pay the cleaners, you buy the toilet paper, you have to pay Airbnb 3% to list your home, so on and so forth.

"How much is the cleaning?"

This depends on the size of the home. But first, a point of semantics...

Cleaning Fee = what guest pays on the platform
Cost of Cleaning = what owner pays to have the home cleaned

Okay, not that's covered, one of the reasons we created our own cleaning arm of the business is not only to ensure we're doing the job right (sometimes a hard thing to accomplish when using 3rd party contractors) but also to make sure we're managing costs. This is not a profit center for us, but we do need to compensate our cleaners adequately to attract talent and keep everyone around.

To test this, we used Turno which is an open marketplace connecting cleaners to STR hosts. This allows us to specifically see what other cleaners would "bid" in order to clean one of our homes. We aggregated the bids and put them in an average next to what our charge is to our clients (see below!)

2 Bedroom Home

PRM charge = ~$125
Turno charge = $138 (avg, 5 bids)

3 Bedroom Home

PRM charge = ~$150
Turno charge = $180 (avg, 4 bids)

4 Bedroom Home

PRM charge = ~$180
Turno charge = $248 (avg, 3 bids)

5 Bedroom Home

PRM charge = ~$215
Turno charge = $261 (9 bids)

So by working with us, you might be saving anywhere between $13 and $68 per turnover, and we take all the coordination off your hands!

And if you don't believe us, here are the bids.

"So the Cleaning Fee covers the Cost of Cleaning?"

Yes and No. In the past, we have had it set up where the 'Cleaning Fee' covered all the one-time fixed-costs to rent your home, including the entire 'Cost of Cleaning', Materials , Hot Tub, Registration, and more. For the below reasons, we have changed out stance...

High Cleaning Fee = Worse Performance - with all the baked-in costs included within the cleaning fee, we know some potential renters were balking at the cost because they did not know what was truly included. They see "cleaning fee" and think cleaning but they aren't thinking about the cost of registration, cleaning the hot tub, materials and more. They just see a $275 cleaning fee, think it preposterous, and book elsewhere.
Expectations and Reality - for the guests that did book, they're expectations were sky high. We can't perform a deep clean every time, and the guests that were paying near $300 for cleaning were looking under furniture to find things to nit-pick on. This unintentionally led to bad reviews, something we desperately try to avoid.
Airbnb's Stance - in 2023, Airbnb made it clear that they were going to penalize hosts with high cleaning fees and extensive check-out procedures. To comply, we have reduced the Cleaning Fee to help ensure better future performance with out homes.

So, we have instead elected to standardize our Cleaning Fees, reducing them across the board, and baking that cost into the accommodation total (which is the nightly rate x the number of nights). In the end, revenue is revenue, whether it comes from the cleaning fee or the accommodation total, so the net result is...

More Reservations - with fewer barriers around the Cleaning Fee
Same Revenue - being baked-into the accommodation total
Better Reviews - with more realistic expectations around cleaning and cost

"What's covered in the cleaning?"

Its not just a cleaning service, it's also a turnover service. We're cleaning the linens on site while simultaneously cleaning the home. When the wash is done, then we're making the beds, staging the home, and ensuring our home looks as proper as possible to continue to earn SuperHost and Premier Host status with Airbnb and VRBO respectively.

We then like to perform a Deep Clean every 3-4 months, or as needed, which includes a more robust cleaning to make sure your home is being properly maintained. This cost is 2x the standard cost of cleaning and typically takes twice as long for us to properly perform.

If you do need anything done specifically, please let us know! We're not so rigid as to not help our homeowners set their homes up in a way they see fit and prefer :)

"Who cleans the home?"

We use assigned cleaners, and not cleaning teams, to clean your home. Reasons being...

Accountability - by having the same cleaner clean your home every time we are able to make sure that one particular cleaner is help accountable for any missteps they might be taking. Cleaning is a hard job, and we might not get it 100% perfect every time, but we also want to make sure there isn't finger pointing and a lack of accountability on our end!
Performance - its far easier to clean a home that you've cleaned before, and are more intimate with, which speeds up times and reduces costs.
Damage Mitigation - using the same cleaner, it's easier for us to spot "new" damage, knowing what was/wasn't there before the last guests.
Less Confusion - with multiple cleaners in the same house, it can be hard to know who is doing what and things can get missed (or duplicated). Having one cleaner performing the task in full helps ensure nothing slips between the cracks!
Preferred by Cleaners - this allows for more job flexibility and an easier work environment which all translates to happier team members with longer working relationships with us and your home :)

And to ensure consistency throughout, we have regular team meetings, spot checks and reviewing reviews to make sure we're performing the best we can be!

Thanks for reading, and please let us know if you have any questions :)