The Real Cost of Airbnb Fees: Impact on Your Bottom Line

For years, vacation rental managers have treated Airbnb commissions like utilities: fixed costs you can't control. 

But this fall, at conferences like the Women’s Summit and VRMA, we talked with dozens of managers who are waking up to the fact that Airbnb fees are actually your marketing budget. 
 
And the moment you realize that, you start asking much harder questions about where that money should go.

This article will show you what Airbnb fees actually cost — and how to start making more intentional decisions about your marketing budget.

Note: While we’re focusing on Airbnb here since it’s the platform most hosts start with, everything we’re discussing applies equally to Vrbo, Booking.com, and other vacation rental booking platforms (collectively called OTAs, or online travel agencies). The principle is the same: these commissions represent marketing dollars you’re spending by default, not fixed overhead you can’t control. 

The mindset shift: Airbnb fees ARE customer acquisition costs

Traditionally, Airbnb commission fees were split between the host and the guest. But as of October 2025, any host who uses property management or channel management software (in other words, almost every professional manager) will shoulder the entire fee — now a flat 15.5% service fee deducted from the total booking value, including rent and cleaning fees but excluding taxes.

Let's make that concrete. If you're managing 75 properties generating $2 million in annual revenue from Airbnb bookings, that's $310,000 going to Airbnb each year. For most vacation rental businesses, this margin loss is significant.

The change from split fees to host fees (and the extra .5% Airbnb has tacked on for good measure) isn’t the problem. Hosts can make up that difference by raising their rates, and guests pay roughly the same total amount. And Airbnb plays a valuable role — especially for smaller operations, the platform provides immediate access to millions of travelers without upfront cost. That’s genuinely valuable when you have little brand recognition. 

But the change has started shining a light on a long-overdue conversation in our industry: Airbnb fees aren't "distribution cost." Like any other marketing dollar, they’re part of customer acquisition cost (CAC).

The right way to calculate customer acquisition costs

For years, most vacation rental managers have used this method to calculate marketing costs:

• Count ad spend (maybe)
• Count marketer's salary or agency fees (sometimes)  
• Forget the single biggest line item: Airbnb and platform commissions

And this is exactly what Airbnb wants. Because if you aren’t calculating your true CAC, including platform fees, you’re underestimating what it really costs to bring in a guest.

Instead, here’s a better way to think about customer acquisition costs:

Ultimately, CAC is just a way to measure what it really costs you to bring in each new guest. Take all your sales and marketing expenses (ads, software, agency fees, *and* platform commissions) and divide by the number of first-time guests you gained.

(Note: This is not about returning guests. CAC is strictly the cost to acquire new ones.) 

Why understanding true CAC matters

When you don’t know your full acquisition cost, you can’t compare CAC by channel (Airbnb vs. organic search vs. paid social). And that leaves you in the dark about which channels are actually more efficient at acquiring new guests. 

But when you reclassify those fees as marketing spend, you see the real cost of growth. And you start to think about where you can shift budget into more sustainable direct channels.

This is what the hotel industry started doing a few years ago — and it’s time for short-term rentals to catch up. 

Example: what your real marketing budget actually is

Again, let's say you manage 75 properties generating $2 million in gross revenue annually. Your marketing budget might be:

• 15.5% to Airbnb and other platforms = **$310,000**
• $50,000 in ad spend + $75,000 marketer salary = **$125,000**
• **Real marketing budget: $435,000 (22% of revenue)**

You only control $125,000 of that spend. The other $310k? You've outsourced those decisions to Airbnb and other OTAs. 

Adopt a more strategic approach to your marketing budget

Recognizing Airbnb fees as marketing spend isn't semantic. It's strategic. 

It forces you to ask whether this is the best use of your marketing dollars, and opens up alternatives you actually control — like direct booking. 

Because that 15.5% is only the tip of the iceberg. 

The hidden — and compounding — costs of Airbnb

Beyond the commission percentage, Airbnb dependency costs you three things that directly impact your ability to build a sustainable business: control, customer data, and repeat business infrastructure. 

• Control: Airbnb mediates everything. You have limited pre-arrival messaging opportunities. You can't upsell or cross-sell other properties in your portfolio. Post-stay communication for reviews and referrals is restricted. You're stuck within Airbnb's communication rules, on Airbnb's timeline, using Airbnb's tools.

• Customer data: When you book a guest through Airbnb (or any other platform), the platform owns that customer data — and thus, the ongoing relationship. Not you. You're renting access to guests, not building relationships with them.

• Repeat business infrastructure: Guests return to the Airbnb platform, not your brand. Even when a guest has stayed with you before and wants to book again, they go back to Airbnb, and you pay full CAC for your repeat customers. 

In other words, a guest who books with you three times via Airbnb represents three separate commission payments, when you could have only paid once to acquire them directly. 

Direct bookers cost you nearly nothing to “re-acquire” after that first booking. You can remarket to them for pennies through email and social media. The lifetime value economics aren't even close.

This is why Airbnb and other platforms should be one channel for new guest discovery, not your entire strategy. The goal isn't to cut platforms out completely. It's to stop thinking of those fees as fixed overhead and start seeing them as redeployable marketing fuel that can fund direct acquisition you control.