The property
One property per run. Doing several? Finish one, save it, then start the next.
Fixed costs
You pay these whether anyone stays or not. Annual figures.
Variable costs
Why the fixed / variable split is the whole trick
Most hosts add up every cost, divide by nights, and call that their break-even. That number is too high, and it makes you refuse bookings you should take.
Fixed costs happen whether anyone stays or not. Mortgage, insurance, taxes, internet. On an empty Tuesday in February you pay them anyway. They cannot go in your nightly floor, because a night that covers its own variable cost and puts anything toward the fixed pile beats an empty night.
Variable costs only exist because a guest was there. Cleaner, laundry, consumables, the extra utilities. This is the half that sets your floor.
The fixed costs are not ignored. They drive the year-round break-even number instead, which asks a different question: does the whole year clear, rather than does this booking clear.
These only happen because a guest was there. This is the half that sets your floor.
Floor settings
Why there is a buffer on top of bare cost
Bare marginal cost is the point where a booking breaks exactly even on the day. Nobody should price there, because it ignores two real things.
Wear. Every stay uses the property up a little. Towels, paint, the sofa, the mattress. None of it shows up in this month's costs and all of it comes due eventually.
Guest risk. The cheapest bookings tend to bring the most work. A night sold at bare cost that turns into a damage claim or a bad review cost you far more than the money.
The buffer is your margin for both. A higher buffer means a higher floor and fewer bookings you are willing to take. It is a judgment call, not a calculation, which is exactly why you can change it.
How you book
Why nights booked decides everything here
Nights booked is the denominator of the whole cost side. Your variable costs are an annual lump. To turn that into a cost per night it gets divided by the nights you actually sold. That cost per night, plus your buffer, is your floor. No nights, no floor.
And cleaning is a per-stay cost, not a per-night one. Your cleaner charges the same for a one-night booking as a five-night one. So the same house, same cleaner, same everything, has a completely different floor depending on how long people stay. Short stays spread that turnover cost across fewer nights.
Which means your minimum-night rule quietly sets your floor before you take a single booking. Most new hosts set it to one night because an empty calendar is frightening, and never work out what that decision did to their break-even.
If you fill in only some months: your whole year of variable cost gets divided across fewer nights, so your floor comes out too high. That errs safe rather than dangerous, but it will have you turning down bookings you could have taken.
Pull it from Airbnb: Insights, then Earnings, and set the range to the last 12 months. Nights booked, not nights blocked. Owner stays and maintenance blocks are not booked nights.
Nights booked and number of bookings for each month. Revenue is optional, it is only used to show you what you actually averaged.
| Month | Days | Nights booked | Bookings | Revenue (optional) | Occ | Avg stay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Where the number came from
Nothing to type here. Everything below is built from steps 1 and 2.
How to use it
Put the nightly floor into your pricing tool as the minimum. PriceLabs, Wheelhouse, Beyond and Airbnb's own smart pricing all have a minimum price setting. That is where this number goes. Then let the tool move your rate around above it.
The floor is not your rate. It is the line under your rate. Pricing at your floor every night would be a year of work for nothing.
Redo it whenever your costs move. Your cleaner raises their rate, insurance jumps, you change your minimum-night rule. Any of those and the floor moved.
The two numbers answer different questions. The nightly floor asks whether this booking loses money. The year-round break-even asks whether the year loses money. You can clear the first on every single booking and still miss the second.