How to calculate Airbnb profit
Revenue is the easy half. Profit needs the platform's cut, the turnover costs that scale with bookings, and the fixed costs that arrive whether or not anyone stays.
The short answer
Airbnb profit is gross revenue minus platform fees, cleaning costs, consumables and fixed costs — where gross revenue is nights booked times the nightly rate plus the cleaning fees you charged, and the number of turnovers is derived from occupancy and average stay length rather than guessed.
The formula
nights = days in month x occupancy
turnovers = nights / average stay length
gross revenue = nights x nightly rate + turnovers x cleaning fee charged
profit = gross revenue - platform fee - (turnovers x cleaning cost) - (nights x consumables) - fixed costs
Turnovers must come from occupancy. Typing in a fixed number of stays is the single most common error in short-let models, because it silently holds cleaning revenue and cleaning cost still while everything around them moves.
Worked example
A flat at $175 a night, 65% occupancy across a 30-day month, average stay 3.5 nights, $95 cleaning fee charged against $65 paid, 6% platform fee, $8 of consumables a night and $1,486 of fixed costs:
nights = 30 x 0.65 = 19.5
turnovers = 19.5 / 3.5 = 5.6
gross = 19.5 x 175 + 5.6 x 95 = 3,942
platform fee = 3,942 x 0.06 = 237
cleaning = 5.6 x 65 = 362 · consumables = 19.5 x 8 = 156
profit = 3,942 - 237 - 362 - 156 - 1,486 = 1,701
$3,942 of revenue becomes $1,701 of profit. The gap is not one big number — it is four medium ones, and three of them move with how busy you are.
Why average stay length changes the answer
The same twenty booked nights can be six turnovers or twenty. On a $65 clean that is a $900 swing inside one month, on identical revenue.
Short stays also cost more in consumables and more of your time. If your calendar is filling with one and two-night bookings, the revenue line can look healthy while the profit line quietly falls.
Cleaning fees are not free money
A cleaning fee charged to the guest is revenue, and the platform takes its percentage of it. What you pay the cleaner comes out afterwards, and any laundry, restock or overtime comes out too.
The honest figure is fee charged, less the platform's cut of that fee, less everything you actually paid to turn the place over. On the numbers above that is roughly $24 a turnover, not $30.
Break-even occupancy, done properly
Break-even is not fixed costs divided by nightly rate. Each booked night carries its own share of turnover cost and consumables, so what covers fixed costs is contribution per night, not revenue per night.
Contribution per night is rate x (1 - platform fee), plus the cleaning margin spread across the stay, minus consumables. On the example above that is $163.44, so break-even is 1,486 / (163.44 x 30) = 30.3% occupancy.
If contribution per night is zero or negative, there is no break-even occupancy at all. More bookings would deepen the loss. That is a pricing problem, not a marketing one.
What this leaves out
- Cashflow, not tax. Depreciation, allowances and local short-let rules are excluded and vary enormously by country.
- One nightly rate. Real pricing moves with season, day of week and lead time — a single rate is an average, not a forecast.
- Fractional turnovers are correct for an average month. Over a year they resolve to whole cleans.
- Fixed costs mean everything you pay when the calendar is empty, including the months it is.
This arithmetic is free to run in your browser — no signup, nothing held back.
Open the free calculatorCommon questions
- Does Airbnb profit include the cleaning fee?
- The fee you charge the guest is revenue, and the platform takes its percentage of it. What you pay your cleaner is a cost. Profit includes both, and the difference between them is usually much smaller than hosts assume once laundry and restocks are counted.
- What is a good profit margin for an Airbnb?
- There is no universal number, because the largest cost — mortgage or rent — depends entirely on when and how the property was bought. The more useful test is break-even occupancy: if you need more than about half the month booked to cover costs, a normal quiet season will put you underwater.
- Why is my Airbnb revenue high but my profit low?
- Usually turnover frequency. Short stays multiply cleaning costs and consumables without raising the nightly rate, so revenue holds up while profit falls. Check profit per booked night rather than revenue per month.
Spreadsheets that do this
The formulas above, already built and checked — so you fill in your numbers rather than the arithmetic.
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Last reviewed 22 August 2026