How to calculate your profit on each Airbnb booking
Why per-booking profit matters
A nightly rate can look healthy while a specific booking quietly loses money. Seasonal discounts, last-minute cancellations, extra cleaning for a long stay, or a higher platform fee on a large booking all shift the math from one reservation to the next. Knowing your profit per booking tells you whether a particular guest is actually paying for the use of your home, or whether you are subsidizing them.
The formula in plain words
Start with what the guest pays in total: multiply your nightly rate by the number of nights, then add any cleaning fee you charge. Subtract your platform's fee (a percentage of that booking total) to get your payout. From the payout, subtract the real costs of preparing the home for that stay — the cleaner's fee and consumables like linens, toiletries, and coffee. What remains is your profit on that booking. Divide by the number of nights to see what each night actually earned you, or divide by the booking total to see your margin.
Example numbers
The table below walks through a single three-night booking using example figures. The platform fee rate of 15.0% is an example only — check your own listing's terms for your actual rate.
| Step | Amount |
|---|---|
| Nightly rate | $150.00 |
| Nights | 3 |
| Cleaning fee charged to guest | $90.00 |
| Booking total (rate × nights + cleaning fee) | $540.00 |
| Platform fee (example: 15.0% of booking total) | $81.00 |
| Payout (booking total − platform fee) | $459.00 |
| Cleaning cost you pay | $70.00 |
| Supplies per stay | $12.00 |
| Stay costs (cleaning + supplies) | $82.00 |
| Profit on this booking (payout − stay costs) | $377.00 |
| Profit per night | $125.67 |
| Margin (profit ÷ booking total) | 69.8% |
Costs hosts often leave out
Beyond the obvious cleaning and supplies, several expenses can quietly erode your per-booking profit:
- Wear-and-tear reserves. A broken lamp or a stained mattress is not billed to the guest. Setting aside a small amount per stay keeps your furniture from aging faster than expected.
- Utility spikes. An extra night of heating in winter or air conditioning in summer changes your electric and gas bill, but most hosts spread utilities evenly across all stays rather than assigning them per booking.
- Linen replacement. Sheets, towels, and pillowcases have a limited number of wash cycles before they need replacing. Amortizing that cost across stays gives a truer picture.
- Lost-time costs. If you self-manage, the hours you spend coordinating check-in, handling messages, and arranging cleaning are real labor even if you do not pay yourself for them.
- Payment processing or currency fees. Some platforms or payment providers take an additional small percentage that is separate from the main platform fee.
You do not need to model every one of these in a single spreadsheet. But if your margin looks higher than it feels, this is usually where the gap lives.
Using the result to find your minimum nightly rate
Once you know your stay costs and your platform's fee structure, you can work backwards. Decide the profit you want per night, add back your stay costs spread across the expected length of stay, then gross up for the platform fee so that after it is taken your payout still covers both. The resulting figure is the lowest nightly rate at which a typical booking breaks even or reaches your target. Compare that floor to what the market in your area actually pays, and you will know whether your current pricing leaves money on the table or is already stretched thin.
This is general bookkeeping math, not tax or financial advice.
Our STR Host Profit Tracker lets you plug in your own rates, fees, and cleaning costs to see deal analysis and per-turn cleaning roll-ups in one workbook.