Short let or long let: the arithmetic and the hourly rate
A short let can earn two and a half times the income and consume five hundred hours a year. The right comparison is per hour, not per year.
The short answer
A short let usually produces substantially more gross income and substantially more cost, risk and work. The comparison worth making is the additional net income divided by the additional hours, because that number tells you whether you are running an investment or a business.
The formula
long let net = (rent x 12 x (1 - vacancy)) - operating expenses
short let net = (nights x rate + cleaning revenue) - platform - cleaning - consumables - short-let-only costs
additional hours = short let hours per year - long let hours per year
implied hourly rate = (short let net - long let net) / additional hours
Short-let-only costs are the ones that catch people: utilities, wifi, a different insurance policy, licensing, and the furnishing replacement reserve. A long let has none of them.
Worked example
The same two-bedroom flat, letting long at $1,450 a month or short at $175 a night with 62% occupancy:
long: 17,400 x 0.94 = 16,356 - 3,200 expenses = 13,156
short gross: 226 x 175 = 39,550 + cleaning 64.7 x 95 = 6,147 → 45,697
platform 6% 2,742 · cleaning paid 4,206 · consumables 1,808
utilities and wifi 2,400 · insurance uplift 800 · furnishing 981
short net = 45,697 - 12,937 = 32,760
difference = 19,604 · additional hours ~520
implied rate = 19,604 / 520 = 37.70 an hour
$19,604 more a year for about ten hours a week, which is $37.70 an hour before tax. That is a real job, and whether it is a good one depends on what else those hours could earn.
The costs that only exist on a short let
Utilities and internet, which a long tenant pays. On the numbers above they are $2,400 a year and they are frequently omitted from short-let projections entirely.
Insurance. Standard landlord cover usually does not extend to short-term letting, and discovering that after a claim is the expensive way to find out.
Licensing, registration and in some cities a cap on nights. These vary enormously, they change often, and they can end the comparison before it starts.
The risk profiles are different in kind
A long let concentrates risk in one relationship: one tenant who might not pay, might damage the property, might be hard to remove. When it goes wrong it goes wrong for months.
A short let spreads that across many guests, so no single one can hurt you much, and replaces it with volatility. A bad season, a platform ranking change, or a licensing decision can halve the income with no warning and nothing you did wrong.
Neither is safer. They fail differently, and which failure you can absorb is a personal question rather than a financial one.
The middle option people forget
Medium-term lets of one to six months, aimed at relocations, contractors and people between homes. Furnished, higher than a long let, far less work than a short one, and usually outside short-let licensing rules.
It rarely appears in the comparison because it has no obvious platform and no obvious community, and in a lot of markets it is the best return per hour of the three.
What this leaves out
- Occupancy and rate are the two assumptions doing all the work. Both are optimistic in most first-year projections.
- Hours are an estimate and vary hugely with whether you use a co-host or manager. Full management typically takes 20% and roughly halves the difference.
- Excludes tax, which frequently treats the two differently and can change the ranking on its own.
This arithmetic is free to run in your browser — no signup, nothing held back.
Open the free calculatorCommon questions
- Is Airbnb more profitable than long-term renting?
- Usually higher gross and often higher net, at the cost of substantially more work and volatility. Convert the difference into an hourly rate before deciding, because that is the number the comparison actually turns on.
- What occupancy do I need for a short let to beat a long let?
- Solve it directly rather than guessing: find the occupancy where short-let net equals long-let net. On the numbers above that is around 35%, which is why the comparison looks so favourable and why the hourly rate matters more than the total.
- What about the risk of regulation?
- It is the largest single risk and it is not modellable. Several major cities have introduced caps or bans with short notice, and a property bought on short-let numbers that can only be let long is a very different investment.
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