Your Complete Guide to Pricing Vacation Rental Cleaning Services

Owners often struggle with setting a price on vacation rental cleaning. It’s not hard to see why – if you take a look at to top two Vacation Rental sites (AirBnB, HomeAway, FlipKey, Tripping, HomeToGo, VRBO, HouseTrip, VayStays, VacayHero and WimDo ) and you’ll see the fees for cleaning a vacation rental can vary from as little as $25 per booking to $200 per booking.

This price can also vary widely depending on location. The price depends on demand, the quality of clean required by the property’s owners (and expectations of the guests), and the cost of living in a given geographical area.
Another problem with focusing in a cost for the service: vacation rental cleaning takes more time than cleaning a residential home. Cleaning services for Vacation Rentals are often asked to take on additional tasks not traditionally found in a general Residential cleaning request: launder linens, create beautiful staging, and restock amenities for example. This additional focus for your Vacation Rental business increases the time required for the services to be done to your exacting specifications.

All these factors can make it nearly impossible for a cleaning service to assess the time and effort it will take for that reason, we put together this helpful guide to assist you in figuring out the going rate in your area – no matter where you are.

First things first.

It’s time to roll up your sleeves and do some sleuthing. The most commonly cited place to check fees for vacation rental cleaning is on listing sites like VRBO and Airbnb. This makes it difficult to determine how to price YOUR property.

The numbers being shown consistently show a range too wide to be useful. Here’s a spread of fees on the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau, for similarly-sized properties: Cleaning fee priced between $75-$175 per stay.
With rates ranging from $75-$175, it’s quite difficult task to determine a reasonable hourly rate from those numbers.
Something to consider here is that the cost that you are asking your guest to pay are the numbers that owners or property managers, and they often have a little or no padding built in to cover the cost of replacement amenities or small repairs. This is one of the reasons we suggest running your Vacation Rental property like a business.

For example, if a cleaning service charges $30/hour, and cleaning a 3-bedroom property takes about 4 hours, the cleaning service will charge the property manager $120.

The property manager, in turn, might charge the owner $150 to cover the cost of keeping the cleaning calendar and finding an available cleaning service for each job.

And the owner might then ALSO decide to set the vacation rental-cleaning fee on Airbnb or VRBO at $150. This builds in a little extra money that can go toward the cost of bathroom amenities and kitchen staples – or replacing the odd broken glass or missing fork.

How should newcomers to the Vacation Rentals set pricing?

Ask Property Managers.

Most property managers are happy to share this information. Explain that you’re new to offering your property for Vacation Rental and one of the cleaning services you spoke to quoted you a $150 flat rate to clean a 3-bed, 2 bath property.

Whatever their reaction, you now know if your initial assessment or the bids you have been receiving is accurate, too high, or too low. Remember, this is just an assessment. Each service will, or should, have an itemized checklist of what is included in the service. Depending on your specific needs, this could change this pricing from one provider to the next.

You can also call and ask cleaning services for quotes.

Be sure to get a range of prices for your specific property type. In full disclosure, most professional services will want to see the property before giving a specific quote. If you have the time, that is advisable. At CabinCare, we offer a complementary estimate, but we also give ballpark estimates based on the property size. With that said, there are details that you might want while we are on-site that will assist you in staging the property. Everything will depend on the level of service you desire.

Be sure to specify you are inquiring about the cost of a vacation rental cleaning, rather than the price to clean a residential home. You should also ask if this business has serviced short-term rentals in the past. If that business has no experience with vacation rental cleaning, their quote may not be accurate, as they may not be aware of the extra time and services needed for this type of clean.

Hourly or flat rate?

While CabinCare works on a flat rate for services of this nature, usually a Vacation Rental Cleaning partner will offer (or should offer) their price structure based on a flat rate charge per booking. A flat rate is a more advantageous agreement, as the owner of the property will have a better approximation of what the service will cost and will be able to charge a slightly higher rate for the service to the guest. This will allow a buffer that can be kept in a property “slush fund” for when something unanticipated comes up… as it always does.

Remember that some booking will leave the property in such a messy condition that extra time from the Cleaning service might be required. This extra cleaning isn’t a cost you as the owner should bear. Guests who leave an uncommon mess at a property should be charged for the additional hours of labor required to clean it. With that said, it is difficult, if not impossible, to recoup these costs from the guest. The occasional extra costs of cleaning are a part of running a short-term rental business.

In either case, the cleaning service should always be paid for the additional hours worked.

If a property has been thoroughly trashed, a good cleaning service should be provided you with digital photos as evidence of the property’s state upon a guest departure. With these photos the Cleaning Service can provide an estimate of the additional time that may be required to bring the property back to a guest-ready state.

When we travel, we use AirBnB & found it a wonderful experience and a great way to submerge into the local culture in a way a traditional hotel can’t offer.  Over the past few years Vacation Rental Booking sites like AirBnB, HomeAway, FlipKey, Tripping, HomeToGo, VRBO, HouseTrip, VayStays, VacayHero and WimDo have grown in popularity and are fighting for top dog positioning. As a Property owner there are are few things that you need to consider, especially if you are going to be using a 3rd party service like CabinCareWNC.com to help you managing the process.

With that said, each property / location has it’s own difficulties. Allow me to give a little of what I know as it pertains to these services & residing here locally.

RESIDENTIAL CLEANING

We hope that a guest in our homes will take the same type of care we would. Wipe water when it gets on the floor, don’t steal the Buck’s coffee mug or the Ugly Dog Pub Glass (it’s called the Ugly Puppy here in Cashiers), don’t leave trash exposed to attract bears, if something breaks tell us, etc. The reality is, we need to be vigilant & treat this as a business transaction.

Residential Cleaning for Vacation Rental Bookings is only one of the items you will need if you are renting our your property on a Vacation Rental Booking site. The good part is one of the line item charges passed on to the renter covers cleaning per visit.  Now, let’s be honest, there are many homeowners that try to “make money” or save money not using this as a pass though expense, but they find (as I did) that the turn over is high, reliability is low, quality is poor and in the long run I was spending more in money and time.

Besides getting a cleaning service that will do on-call work when you have a booking departing and another schedule to arrive, a high importance needs to be places on the quality of the work being provided. A case in point was a recent conversation I had with someone in my local community. He and his wife have been renting out their mountain home through a service locally. He is being charged $150 per booking to cover the cost of cleaning and preparing the home for the next short term renter. He told me that there was a 12 day gap a few months back where the property was not rented. they decided to take the 9 hour drive to use the house themselves during this break and enjoy the local dining. When they arrived the house was not only dusty, but there was pet hair along the molding in the living room and the carpet was filled with dirt, dust and dog hair. It was obvious that the house was not done properly. He checked the external security cameras and saw that the “cleaning crew” sent as a part of the $150 contract was in his home a grand total of 19 minutes.

For any of you doing the calculation – that is $7.89 per minute.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

I have clients who asked us to design a itemized checklist list of every item in the house – broken down by room.  Each item is then cross-reference on every final review walk though when a short term rental departs. This small financial investment upfront, can save you a significant amount of time, money and effort later when you are looking for items you purchased for the house to make it a beautiful experience. Remember, these items are a cost and if you keep replacing them you are loosing profit. If you are going to do Vacation Rental Bookings, you might seriously consider treating your guests as a business transaction.

PROPERTY MAINTENANCE

The cleaning charge allowed through most of the Vacation Rental Booking sites sadly will not help compensate you for upkeep and property management required.  Truth be told – those tasks would be easy “for us to do ourselves” if we were living in a close proximity or renting the property while we were away – but still living at the property. Using an online Vacation Rental Booking service to book guests does take steps to assist you, including offering “best practice” suggestions, but we also need to have people we can trust locally to help with the things that we would have been doing ourselves.

If you need a plumber, a roofer, etc., your typical cleaning person cannot be expected to do that, nor should they. What that “team member” MUST do for you, is provide you with vital information important to your property.  We call it the “need to know” conversation. This is vital to you so the issue can be addressed & not get worse.We here at CabinCare WNC developed a checklists and very specific processes for each service we provide. What these checklists do is help our customers address issues and manage risk that someone working out of his or her vehicle cleaning could never provide.

My father was fond of saying, “look at it as a cost and not as an investment, and you will pay less for it now but really pay for it later.”

Again, I am not implying to spend wildly, don’t take cost into consideration, or do more than is reasonably expected to maintain the property for long term income generating viability.

WAIT SERVICES

One of the services we provide is called Wait Services. When the need comes up for you to get some large repairs done or something delivered when you are not here (especially if you are using Vacation Rental Bookings), we can help you manage the property and the vendor (or the full project for you locally), or you can manage it from your location.

I or one of my team will go to your property with the key (another service we offer for Free is called Key Holder Services) and connect with the vendor you have selected and help you oversee the project locally to make sure it is done correctly and as you requested.

If your need is something I or my team can do without the need of an outsourced team, like freshen up a bedroom with a coat paint, wash the towels, order new towels (or anything from Amazon), put in a new garage door opener, install a Nest Thermostat, put a new screen on the patio door, etc., we will give you an estimate for what you need done and handle it before your next guest arrives.

As you know, “cleaning services” is the generic title for what you are looking to get done to help you manage your Vacation Rental Bookings, but there is much more that you need to consider. You need someone you can rely on to be there when you need them, especially if something unplanned happens. Depending on your needs, we can do it all, from large to small. If you don’t have the time, we can even assist you with setting up the proper program for the Vacation Rental Booking business to be successful long-term if desired.

Let CabinCare, even when you’re not there!

I hope this overview helps. Happy Vacation Renting!

Hiring the right housekeeper through CabinCareWNC can be life-altering for a busy family like yours. It’s more than just tips for Cleaning with Hydrogen Peroxide. Think about your life where it is right now – whether single, a couple, retired or a family of any size. Maybe you struggle to fold laundry, clean ovens, get groceries, clean counter tops, or scrub bathrooms. Maybe you need to clean your house fast for a party, need help to scrub guest rooms, or are looking for a professional to help with general housekeeping tasks. The long and the short of this is simple, you have no time to keep your home as organized or clean as you would like. Do you feel like you can’t find the time to do the smaller tidying jobs that would make a huge difference?

Now this suggestion of life-altering may seem to be a little over-the-top for most, but I am serious.

It seems cliched to say it, but often we let things slip through the cracks. We spend too much time thinking about them, too much energy worrying about them. You deserve the support that CabinCareWNC provides, whether that’s a house cleaner or someone to get to the Honey Do list that continues to grow. The goal is to make your life easier. The fact is, you deserve professional house cleaning, or even the reliability of a dedicated housekeeper. Now to be realistic, all relationships whether working or personal, have a starting point, and with the right match, can grow into something much more. It is certainly so with a new housekeeper. You look for certain qualities in a person, offer them a job and hope that it was a good choice.

Here is the question that we would like to ask you:

“What is the one quality that you would have to have to see when hiring a new housekeeper?”

Before you answer, here are 10 clever uses for Hydrogen Peroxide… in the off chance that you are going to clean yourself!

When it’s time for us to clean our Cabin in the Mountain, we have our trusty green clean supplies ready – baking soda, vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. The little know truth is you can use Hydrogen Peroxide anywhere, and if your cost conscious like us… you can’t beat the price: A 16-oz. bottle only costs a buck or so.

Here are 10 ways you can use hydrogen peroxide in your home:

In Your Kitchen

1. Clean the cutting board! Hydrogen peroxide bubbles away any all that gunk left after preparing meat or fish for dinner. As you should know by now, the small cuts in the wood of a cutting board is an area to get clean. Let everything bubble for a few minutes, then scrub and rinse clean.

2. Inside your refrigerator & dishwasher. A non-toxic cleaner, hydrogen peroxide is great for cleaning places that store food and dishes.

3. Clean kitchen sponges. Soak them for 10 minutes in a 50/50 mixture of hydrogen peroxide and warm water in a shallow dish. Rinse the sponges thoroughly when done.

4. Remove baked-on crud from pots and pans. Combine hydrogen peroxide with enough baking soda to make a paste, then rub onto the dirty pan and let it sit for a while. Come back later with a scrubby sponge and some warm water, and the baked-on stains will lift right off.

In Your Bathroom

5. Whiten grout. If excess moisture has left your tub grout dingy, spray it down with hydrogen peroxide and let it sit. for a little for 15 to 20 minutes. Grab an old tooth brush scrub the grout. You may have to repeat the process a few times, depending on how much mildew you have.

6. The toilet bowl. Pour half a cup of hydrogen peroxide into the toilet bowl, let stand for 20 minutes, then scrub clean.

In The Laundry Room

7. Remove stains from clothing, curtains, and tablecloths. Hydrogen peroxide can be used as a pre treatment for stains — just soak the stain for a little while in 3% hydrogen peroxide before tossing into the laundry. You can also add a cup of peroxide to a regular load of whites to boost brightness. It’s a green alternative to bleach, and works just as well.

Other Places

8. Brighten floors. Combine half a cup of hydrogen peroxide with one gallon of hot water, then get down on your hands and knees and start focusing on the flooring. Because it’s mild, it’s safe for any floor type, and there’s no need to rinse.

9. Kids’ toys. Hydrogen peroxide is a safe cleaner to use around kids, or anyone with respiratory problems, because it’s not a lung irritant. Fill an opaque spray bottle with hydrogen peroxide and spray toys, toy boxes, doorknobs, and anything else your kids touch on a regular basis. You could also soak a rag in peroxide to make a wipe.

10. On plants. To ward off fungus, add a little hydrogen peroxide to your spray bottle the next time you’re spritzing plants. Use a 1/2 cup of hydrogen peroxide added to one gallon of water for your plants.