[Thoughts] First 30 days as an Airbnb host

My wife and I just started our Airbnb business! I’m writing this short blog retrospectively but I felt like it’d be valuable to others thinking about dabbling into the Airbnb game to write up our experience at 30 days in. For starters, you can ignore the first 2 stays on the calendar. That was actually our family members helping us test out our automated booking process and vibe of the rental. This is something that I’m extremely thankful that we did because it helped us discover what we were missing and gaps in our process completely stress-free. Hint: This is also how we started off on the right foot with two 5-star reviews. Ain’t no shame in our game.

The data

Calendar

Reviews

Stats

The good stuff 💲🚀

With these numbers keep in mind that we started in the middle of the month with 2 family bookings, had a 20% new listing promotion live for the first 3 bookings, and all of these were booked non-refundable for an extra 5% off. With that taken into account, here was our final 30 day numbers with the breakdown(totals are rounded for safety):

July:

13 night stay = $2660

• $120 cleaning fee
• -$1085 discounts
• -$ 50 host fee

Total: $1640

2 night stay = $420

• $60 short stay cleaning fee (2 or less days)
• -$40 discounts
• -$13 host fee

Total: $425 /2 (July 31)= $212

July total: $1852 (I don’t think the Airbnb metrics factor in the cleaning fees for bookings where the checkout day is in another month)

August:

2 night stay = $420

• $60 short stay cleaning fee (2 or less days)
• -$40 discounts
• -$13 host fee

Total: $425 / 2 (Aug) = $212

5 night stay = $1270

• $150 cleaning fee
• -$0 discounts
• -$40 host fee

Total: $1380

11 night stay = $2820

• $150 cleaning fee
• -$640 discounts
• -$70 host fee

Total: $2260 / 0.18(2 of 11) = $411

August total: $2003

30-day total: $3855

As you might be able to tell by the data, Aug had a strong finish but for the 30 days on Airbnb ever(from the first real booking), I’d say that this is a pretty good turnout! Especially after we factor in the discounts given and only 24 of the 30 days we’re available for bookings!