Setting a Cleaning Fee and Deposit From Scratch

Two numbers most hosts set once, badly, and then defend for years. Both are easier to get right if you start from the cost rather than from what the listing next door charges.

Last updated: October 1, 2026

Most hosts don't set a cleaning fee or a deposit; they inherit one. The number comes from a nearby listing, a guess made in the first week, or whatever was left in the box when the listing was published. Then it stays, because changing it feels like admitting something. Both numbers are easier than that if you start from what a turnover costs you and what a deposit actually covers. Neither is a market rate you have to match.

Key Takeaways

• Copying the listing next door imports their costs. Their layout, laundry arrangement and own time are inside the number you copied.
• Build the cleaning fee from one turnover. List the parts, count them, and let the total set the fee rather than the other way round.
• A deposit you can administer beats a larger one you can't. If collecting or releasing it is awkward, it won't be applied consistently.
• Write both into the listing before the first booking. A fee discovered after booking is a complaint, not a price.
• Check both against your costs each season. Reviewing a number isn't the same as defending it.

Why copying a nearby listing usually costs you

The listing next door looks like the best available reference, because it's the only number you can see. It's also built from costs that aren't yours.

Start with the flat itself. A larger space takes longer to clean than a smaller one, and a property with a balcony, an extra bathroom or a lot of soft furnishing takes longer again. Two listings in the same building can differ by a large share of a turnover's working time, and the fee quoted beside them doesn't show which one is which.

The laundry arrangement matters at least as much. A host running linen in-house pays in electricity, detergent and their own hours. A host sending it out pays per item and per trip. Both end up with a number, and the two numbers are usually different, so copying one transfers somebody else's laundry decision onto your property.

Then there's what sits outside the cleaner's work: restocking, staging, checking the space after cleaning, and the travel time your cleaner actually spends getting to you. And mixed in on top, some hosts quietly fold part of their fixed costs into the cleaning fee, which makes the number look bigger than the cleaning it pays for.

None of this means a nearby listing is useless. It's a sanity check and nothing more. The cost build is what tells you whether your own number is right.

Working out what one turnover really costs

The build is a list, not an estimate. The point isn't to be precise to the cent; it's to stop one part of the cost from being invisible.

Cleaning labour. The hours the space actually takes, including the parts hosts forget: stripping and remaking beds, the bathroom, floors, kitchen surfaces, and the final walk-through. Longer stays aren't always dirtier, but a back-to-back turnover has a fixed floor below which the job doesn't fit.

Laundry. Either the outsourced cost per item and the trips that go with it, or your own machine time, detergent and electricity. Note how many sets you run through. This line is usually bigger than people expect, and it responds directly to how many beds you have.

Restocking. What gets consumed between stays: paper goods, cleaning products, coffee, the small things guests notice first. Count it per turnover, next to the labour it accompanies.

Your own time. Staging, checking, dealing with the cleaner, and the message about the missing cushion. It has a value even if you never pay yourself for it, and leaving it out is how a fee ends up covering the cleaner but not the job.

Add the parts and you have the cost of one turnover. The fee is then a decision about how much of that you ask the guest to carry, which is a different question from what the neighbour charges — and one you can answer, because you know your numbers.

Two things to keep in mind when you set it. The fee is visible to guests before they book, so it affects what they choose as well as what you keep. It's also charged once per stay, which makes it heavier inside a short booking than across a long one.

Choosing a deposit you can justify and administer

A deposit is a risk decision, and it's worth treating it that way rather than setting it by feel.

Justify it from the risks you actually have. Damage to the flat and its contents, cleaning beyond what a turnover covers, smoking, a party, a late check-out that costs the next arrival, keys or access devices that don't come back. A deposit that maps to a named risk is easy to explain and easy to claim against; one that exists because it seemed prudent is hard to defend at the moment you need it.

Then check you can administer it. How is it collected on each channel you sell on, who holds it while the guest is in residence, and how is it returned? Some platforms handle the mechanics, some expect you to arrange it, and the rules differ enough that you should read them rather than assume. A deposit you can't collect cleanly ends up being waived, which is the same as not having one.

Decide the release path before you need it. What would have to be true for you to keep part of it, how would you evidence that, and how quickly would you return the rest? Writing those answers down once means the decision isn't made under pressure, by message, at the end of a stay.

There's a simpler alternative: some hosts cover the same risks through the damage protection a platform already offers and skip the deposit entirely. What doesn't work is half a deposit — one named in the listing but never collected.

Writing both into the listing before the first booking

Both numbers belong in the listing, stated plainly, before anyone books. A cleaning fee a guest discovers after payment is a complaint with a factual basis; the same fee stated in advance is simply part of your price.

Put the cleaning fee where a guest compares prices, and describe what it covers in a few words so it doesn't read as a surcharge. Include the deposit in the same place, with the one-line version of what it covers and when it comes back. Guests who know the release path ask far fewer questions about the deposit itself.

Then make sure the channels agree. Your calendar shows the source price and the source status for each connected channel, so a fee and a deposit can be checked against what each channel is actually presenting rather than assumed to have carried across. A number that landed on three channels and not the fourth produces a discrepancy a guest will find.

Keep the wording in one place, as you would any other listing field, and change it deliberately. Pricing here is worth being explicit about: LOCALSBNB's own pricing is published as two tiers, annual and monthly, charged per room, with both figures visible before anyone signs up. That's the same principle a listing fee should satisfy — a guest should be able to read the number and what it covers without asking.

Reviewing both numbers once a season is the habit that keeps them honest. Costs move: a cleaner raises their rate, laundry changes, you add a bed, a stay exposes something the fee doesn't cover. A number set two years ago is a number set against two-year-old costs.

Do the review the same way you built the fee: read the parts, not the total. If labour went up and the fee didn't, the gap is coming out of you. If a deposit never gets used and never gets claimed, it may be doing less work than the paperwork suggests.

And keep the two decisions separate. The cleaning fee is cost recovery; the deposit is risk. Raising one because the other feels wrong is how both end up mismatched to the thing they're for.

When you change either, change it everywhere on the same day, then check what the channels are showing. localsbnb.com keeps each listing's rates and availability on one calendar, with the source price and source status visible per connected channel. A fee updated in three places and missed in the fourth is then something you can see rather than discover.

FAQ

Should the cleaning fee cover exactly what one turnover costs?

It can, and it doesn't have to. The cost build tells you your floor; how much of it the guest carries is a pricing decision, and it's one worth making deliberately rather than by copying. What matters is that you know which of the two you're doing.

How large a deposit should I ask for?

Size it to the risks you'd actually claim against, and to what you can collect and release cleanly. A deposit that's awkward to administer gets waived in practice, so an amount you can manage consistently is worth more than a larger one you can't.

What if my platform holds the deposit itself?

Then the mechanics are handled for you, and your job is to state clearly what the deposit covers and when it's released. Read the platform's current terms rather than assuming the process, since how deposits are handled differs between platforms.

A cleaning fee is a cost you recover and a deposit is a risk you manage, and they're only confusing when they're set from the same bad starting point. Build both from your own numbers, write them into the listing, and check them each season. localsbnb.com puts your listing's rates on one calendar across your connected channels, so the numbers a guest is quoted are the numbers you set.

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This article is general guidance for hosts rather than tax or legal advice. Rules on fees, deposits and how charges must be displayed differ by country and by platform, and they change over time; check the current requirements of your local authority and the current terms of each platform you sell on.