“Cleaning Fees Should Be Covered by Guests”: Set the Right Price and Outsource It

As a vacation rental operator, wanting to keep more profit in your pocket is only natural. But if you’re doing that by grabbing a vacuum cleaner yourself to save on cleaning costs, it’s time to rethink your approach right now.

Let’s get straight to the point of this article.

In vacation rentals, the cleaning fee isn’t an “expense” that owners should absorb out of their own profit—it’s a “cost to be collected from the guest,” separate from the nightly rate. Platforms like Airbnb are built with a mechanism that lets you set the cleaning fee as its own independent line item. By passing the cleaning fee you collect from guests straight through to a professional cleaning company, you as the owner pay nothing out of pocket and lose none of your own time, while still delivering hotel-quality cleanliness and earning glowing reviews.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the correct way to think about “cleaning fees” unique to vacation rentals, tips for setting a fair price that won’t turn guests away, and why outsourcing cleaning is directly tied to maximizing your business’s profitability.

The Fundamental Structure of “Cleaning Fees” in Vacation Rentals

First, you need to understand the crucial difference between how hotels and vacation rentals structure their pricing. If you misunderstand this point, you’ll end up with unnecessary worries like “won’t nobody book if I raise the cleaning fee?”

A “Per-Stay” Charging System, Unlike Hotels

At a typical hotel, cleaning costs and amenities are all bundled into the “per-night room rate.” Because of this, the longer a guest stays, the more the hotel’s costs pile up, since sheets are changed fresh every day.

On vacation rental platforms like Airbnb, however, you can set a separate “cleaning fee” in addition to the per-night rate—one that’s charged only once per booking (per stay).

Whether a guest stays for one night or five, the cleaning that happens after checkout only occurs once. That’s why the system is designed so the cleaning fee is collected as a fixed amount “per stay,” regardless of the number of nights.

The Cleaning Fee Is Money “Held on Behalf of the Guest,” Not an “Owner’s Expense”

Because of this structure, owners don’t need to pay cleaning costs out of their own pocket.

For example, if outsourcing cleaning to a professional company costs ¥7,000 per visit for your property, all you need to do is set the platform’s cleaning fee field to “¥7,000.”

The moment a guest books, they pay ¥7,000 as a cleaning fee, separate from the accommodation cost. The owner simply passes that money straight through to the cleaning company. In other words, the cleaning fee isn’t an expense that eats into the owner’s profit—it’s “money held on behalf of the guest and paid to a vendor as an actual cost.” This is common practice among vacation rental hosts worldwide.

Why You Should Stop Cleaning Yourself and Outsource It

“If I collect the cleaning fee from the guest AND clean it myself, doesn’t that money become pure profit for me?”

Some owners may think this way. But from a business management perspective, this actually creates a significant loss.

The Hidden Cost of Your Own “Hourly Wage”

Round-trip travel time, cleaning bathrooms and kitchens, washing sheets, and drying them at a laundromat—doing all of this yourself eats up 3 to 5 hours per checkout.

If your hourly earning rate at your main job is, say, ¥3,000, you’re effectively spending ¥9,000 to ¥15,000 worth of your own labor on a single cleaning job. Even if you collect a ¥7,000 cleaning fee from the guest, when you factor in your own high hourly value, you’re essentially performing labor at a “loss.”

Using that time instead to adjust your pricing strategy or search for your next investment property will multiply your overall business profit many times over.

Professional Quality Delivers the Ultimate Marketing Tool: Better Reviews

When an amateur cleans under time pressure, fatigue inevitably leads to mistakes like leftover hair on the floor or water spots left unwiped in the bathroom. Today’s guests are extremely sensitive about cleanliness, and even a single “dirty” review can bring your bookings to a complete halt.

Professional cleaning companies, on the other hand, use linens pressed at high temperatures in specialized facilities and leave not a single water drop behind. As a result, when your cleanliness rating stabilizes at 4.8 stars or higher, your search ranking naturally rises, allowing you to set higher rates than competitors while still filling your calendar. Outsourcing cleaning is the ultimate SEO strategy and marketing investment.

3 Key Points for Setting a Fair Cleaning Fee

That said, you can’t just set the cleaning fee to any amount you like. If you don’t find the right balance, guests will be put off.

1. Base It on the Actual Outsourcing Cost

The most basic approach is to set the fee to match exactly what you pay the cleaning company.

For a studio or 1K unit, the going rate is typically ¥5,000–¥7,000; for larger family-sized properties or houses, expect ¥8,000–¥15,000. It’s also a smart move for stable operations to build in a small buffer (actual cost + ¥500–¥1,000) to cover consumables like toilet paper and detergent.

2. Find the Right Balance Between Room Rate and Cleaning Fee

When a guest books, the final checkout screen shows the total: “room rate + cleaning fee + platform service fee.”

For example, if you have a budget property at ¥5,000/night but set the cleaning fee at ¥10,000, guests will feel like “the cleaning fee is higher than the room itself—this is a rip-off,” and hesitate to book. As a general rule, keeping the cleaning fee within 50%–100% of the single-night room rate is considered the sweet spot where guests feel little psychological resistance.

3. Use the “Cleaning Fee Magic” to Encourage Longer Stays

The mechanism whereby the cleaning fee is fixed per stay actually becomes a powerful tool for encouraging longer bookings.

For instance, with a ¥6,000 cleaning fee, a guest staying only one night feels the burden is heavy, but a guest staying three nights only feels “¥2,000 per night,” and a guest staying six nights feels just “¥1,000 per night”—the longer the stay, the more of a bargain it feels.

By intentionally setting the cleaning fee at a fair (slightly higher) price, you naturally filter out low-margin one-night bookings and give priority to attracting higher-value guests booking 3 nights to a week or longer.

How to Present the Cleaning Fee Without Frustrating Guests

Once you’re charging guests a proper cleaning fee, you must deliver value that matches it—otherwise, you’ll invite complaints.

Overwhelming Cleanliness That Says “This Was Worth Paying For”

If a guest thinks, “I paid a hefty cleaning fee, yet there was dust in the corner of the room,” their frustration will be twice as intense.

The number one condition for making the cleaning fee acceptable to guests is delivering “overwhelming cleanliness that’s obviously the work of professionals the moment you walk in.” Crisply made beds, beautifully folded towels, a pleasant scent in the air—only when all of these come together will guests genuinely feel “of course this cleaning fee was worth it” and leave you a 5-star review. That’s exactly why outsourcing to professionals—not amateur cleaning—is essential.

Transparent Communication in Your Listing

It’s also effective to state clearly on your listing page, before booking: “This property is cleaned by a professional cleaning company that maintains hotel-standard linens and hygiene protocols, which is why this cleaning fee is charged.”

By transparently explaining “why” the fee is what it is, guests will start viewing the cleaning fee not as a negative add-on cost, but positively—as an “insurance premium for buying peace of mind and cleanliness.”

Conclusion: Letting Go of Cleaning Is a Non-Negotiable Condition for Vacation Rental Success

Shifting from a “worker’s mindset”—where you think you have to earn the cleaning fee yourself—to a “business owner’s mindset,” where you collect the cleaning fee from guests and hand the work to professionals, is the single biggest key to scaling your vacation rental as a real business.

1. Setting the cleaning fee separately from the room rate and having guests cover it is the basic rule of vacation rentals.
2. By allocating the cleaning fee directly to outsourcing costs, owners pay nothing out of pocket and free up their time.
3. Setting a fair, cost-based cleaning fee helps attract longer-staying guests and boosts profit margins.
4. Flawless professional cleaning quality is essential to earning guest satisfaction with the fee.

Put down the cleaning rag and invest your valuable time in the core business tasks that matter—pricing strategy and guest acquisition. That decision is the first step toward transforming your vacation rental into a true source of passive income, one where reduced effort and maximized profit go hand in hand.

For Fairly-Priced Outsourcing and High-Quality Cleaning, Choose Stay Buddy

“I want to outsource cleaning, but I’m not sure how to set a fair fee and worry it might scare off bookings.”

“My current vendor is cheap, but the quality is low, and I’m getting complaints from guests that it doesn’t match the cleaning fee.”

“I want to hand everything over to professionals—not just cleaning, but pricing adjustments and guest communication too.”

Whatever your concern, leave it all to us.

We at Stay Buddy Inc. are a team of professionals specializing in vacation rental property management and cleaning services within Osaka City.

We’re not just a cleaning company. We’re your operating partner, dedicated to maximizing your revenue as an owner.

• Hotel-quality dedicated linens and rigorous cleaning standards that deliver the overwhelming quality guests expect
• Real-time transparency through our proprietary app, with 50+ detailed photo reports for every cleaning job
• Competitor-based revenue management to find the optimal balance between room rate and cleaning fee
• Everything from restocking consumables to 24/7/365 guest support—complete hands-off management for owners

Say goodbye to cleaning fee headaches and hello to stable operations with zero complaints and a streak of 5-star reviews.

Stay Buddy will draw out the full potential of your property and become your strongest partner in boosting its asset value. Feel free to reach out anytime for a free assessment of your current cleaning setup or a quote consultation.