# Guest Fees & Pet Fees: Revenue or Booking Killer?

_Fees are part of the total price guests see. The wrong structure kills bookings before they start._

## The Total Price Problem

Guests don’t evaluate your nightly rate in isolation. They see the total — nightly rate times nights, plus cleaning fee, plus guest fees, plus pet fee, plus service fee. Airbnb shows a total price toggle in search results. If your total is higher than comparable listings, you lose the booking regardless of how competitive your nightly rate looks.

Every fee you add is a pricing decision, not an administrative one. A $350 cleaning fee isn’t just covering cleaning costs — it’s adding $350 to every booking’s total price. On a 2-night stay at $375/night, that cleaning fee represents 47% of the guest’s total. On a 7-night stay, it’s 13%. The shorter the stay, the more your fees dominate the math.

## Pet Fees

Pet-friendly properties earn more than non-pet properties in most Michigan markets. Roughly 40% of travelers bring pets. The question isn’t whether to allow pets — it’s how to price the pet fee to maximize bookings without leaving money on the table.

We typically recommend a flat pet fee of $75-150 per stay, not per night. Per-night pet fees accumulate too fast on longer stays and discourage the exact bookings you want — week-long family vacations with the dog. A flat $100 fee feels reasonable to guests and generates $1,500-4,000 per year depending on booking volume.

The additional wear from pets is real but usually overstated. A well-screened family with a golden retriever causes less damage than a bachelorette party without a pet. [Guest screening](/guest-screening-bad-guest-filtering/) handles risk better than pet bans do.

## Extra Guest Fees

Charging per guest above base occupancy (typically 2-4 guests) compensates for additional utility costs, towels, and wear. But it creates friction. A family of 6 looking at a 4-bedroom house doesn’t want to calculate per-person fees on top of everything else.

Keep extra guest fees under $25/night/person, or consider folding the cost into a slightly higher nightly rate for simplicity. The reduced friction often generates more bookings than the fee itself is worth.

## The Cleaning Fee Trap

Your cleaner charges $250. So your cleaning fee is $250. That’s how most owners set it — pass-through at cost. But your cleaning fee isn’t a cost recovery tool. It’s a pricing lever.

If reducing your cleaning fee from $250 to $175 books you 8 additional short stays per year at $200/night average, you’ve gained $3,200 in revenue and spent $600 more in cleaning costs. Net gain: $2,600. The math works in your favor almost every time — but only if someone actually runs the numbers.

This is especially critical for [off-season bookings](/maximizing-off-season-revenue-michigan/) in Michigan. Shoulder season guests are the most price-sensitive searchers. They compare total cost across 20+ listings. A $75 cleaning fee difference can swing the booking.

## The Right Fee Structure

There’s no universal answer, but here’s the framework we use: set the cleaning fee based on competitive positioning, not cleaner cost. Use a flat pet fee, not per-night. Avoid extra guest fees unless your property has genuine capacity constraints. And review your fee structure quarterly — what was competitive in January may not be competitive in July.

The goal isn’t to eliminate fees. It’s to structure them so they generate more bookings than they lose. Every fee should survive the question: “Is this fee costing me more in lost bookings than it’s earning in revenue?”

---
_Source: https://roammgmt.com/additional-guest-fees-pet-fees/ — a machine-readable copy of this page. Prices and availability, where relevant, are live on the site._