Management fees, explained.

What published ranges actually say

None of the figures below is Off Grid's, and this page publishes no rate for Off Grid. Several operators and software vendors publish their own view of this market.

We read each figure on that publisher's own page. Each one is what a single company says about the market it sells into, so treat none of them as a benchmark.

The ranges are so wide that no going rate exists. Read together, Hostaway and Awning place the category somewhere between 10 and 40 percent, depending on the tier of service.

Renjoy's co-hosting band sits inside that. A spread that wide is three different products sharing one label.

Sources: Hostaway, Airbnb management fees: a complete breakdown · Awning, Airbnb management fees 2026

How the fee is structured

Most management is charged as a commission on what the property earns. Hostaway's guide to these fees describes three ways a manager can be paid.

The three models differ in who carries a slow month and who keeps a strong one. Read the structure of a proposal before its number.

• Under Hostaway's commission model, the fee is a percentage of revenue and rises and falls with income.
• Under Hostaway's fixed-rate model, the owner pays a flat fee for a set list of services.
• Under Hostaway's guaranteed-income model, the owner gets a fixed monthly amount and the manager keeps the rest.

Source: Hostaway, A breakdown of short-term rental management fees

Why one number covers three different jobs

Management covers three kinds of service. Each label can hide a different amount of work, so one percentage across all three compares nothing.

Co-hosting is defined by structure, not by scope. A co-host can do as much work as a full-service manager, or far less.

A quote means something only next to the list of what it buys. Any operator should hand that list over without being asked twice.

• Half-service covers pricing, the listing, the calendar and guest messages, and leaves cleaning, maintenance and the house to the owner.
• Full-service covers turnover, linen, maintenance, vendors and the guest who calls at eleven at night, with cleaning usually billed on top.
• Co-hosting keeps the listing and the platform account with the owner, and the operator is added to it.

Gross or net, and why it changes the number

The headline percentage hides one question, and that question decides what an owner pays. It is the base the percentage is taken on.

Gross booking revenue means everything the guest paid before any deduction. A fee can be taken on that, on revenue after the channel's commission, or on a net figure defined further down still.

The same percentage on each base gives very different amounts from the same stay. The gap is widest on channel bookings, because that is where the commission sits.

So a lower percentage on a wider base can cost more than a higher percentage on a narrower one. You cannot compare two proposals until both name their base.

Ask for the definition in writing. A proposal that does not name its base is only a headline. Three deductions usually matter most.

• Ask whether the channel's commission comes off before the percentage is applied.
• Ask whether the cleaning fee the guest pays is counted inside the base.
• Ask whether any platform fee comes off first.

The same month, two quotes

None of the figures in this example is Off Grid's rate, and none of them is a quote. The argument above is easier to see than to read, so here it is with made-up numbers.

Take a month where guests paid 20,000 dollars for their stays. The booking channel takes 3,000 dollars of that in commission before anything reaches the property. That leaves 17,000 dollars.

Operator A quotes 22 percent, taken on the gross. Operator B quotes 25 percent, taken after the channel's commission. Operator A looks three points cheaper and is not.

This does not mean gross is always worse. The percentage and its base form one number, and a quote missing either part cannot be compared to anything.

Two questions settle it: which base, and which deductions come off before the percentage is applied.

What sits outside the percentage

Awning publishes its own management pricing, and also the add-on costs an owner should expect around it. None of these costs shows in a headline percentage.

Awning prices the grounds separately. Awning puts a pool at 85 to 185 dollars a month and hot tub servicing at 50 to 100. Awning puts basic lawn care at 25 to 75.

Insurance written for short-term rentals sits outside the percentage too, and it is not the policy already on a second home. Awning's figures for cleaning, setup and leaving follow below.

• Awning puts cleaning at 50 to 350 dollars or more per turnover.
• Awning puts an onboarding or setup fee anywhere from nothing to 1,000 dollars.
• Awning puts an early termination fee at around 250 dollars, running to several thousand.

Who keeps the cleaning margin

Together, the costs above can exceed the gap between two competing rates. An owner who ignores a thousand-dollar onboarding fee and a termination clause is optimizing the smaller number.

Cleaning needs its own question, because it is the one place a margin can sit unexamined. The fee a guest pays for cleaning and the amount the cleaner is paid are two numbers.

Those two numbers are not always the same. Where they differ, the difference is revenue to somebody, so ask who keeps it. Either answer can be defended. An unclear answer is the problem.

What moves a quote up or down

Three things move a quote. Scope comes first by far, and it is why the published range is so wide. Every task moved from the owner's column to the operator's column moves the number.

Property complexity comes next. A house with a pool, a dock, a lawn, a generator and eight bedrooms is a different job from a three-bedroom condominium.

The difference shows up in service calls and contractors, not in nights booked. This is Off Grid's own published reasoning.

Management is quoted per property, because the work is not the same for a three bedroom beach house as for a waterfront estate.

Market seasonality comes third. A market with a long shoulder season needs active pricing across more of the year. A market that sells out for twelve peak weeks and then empties needs less.

More of the operator's value sits in the shoulder. That is also where owners most consistently overestimate their own results.

How to compare two quotes fairly

Six questions turn two proposals into something you can put side by side. Put all six to both of them, and compare the answers line by line.

The question about the monthly report reveals the most and gets asked the least. An operator who can show you a statement is an operator who produces them.

See a real statement before you sign. After the first month closes is too late to find out what it looks like.

• Which base is the percentage taken on, and which deductions come off before it is applied?
• What exactly is included, itemized rather than described?
• What is billed separately, and what are the expected amounts?
• Who keeps the difference between the cleaning fee the guest pays and the amount the cleaner is paid?
• What does it cost to leave, including the notice period and any termination fee?
• What does the monthly report look like, ideally shown as a real statement with the numbers changed?

What Off Grid charges

Management is quoted per property, because the work is not the same for a three bedroom beach house as for a waterfront estate. The quote comes out of the revenue audit.

The audit is where the scope gets defined, and scope sets the number. It is free and carries no obligation, even when the honest answer is that the house is better rented another way.

• We review the property against the homes it competes with.
• We look at its market and the calendar you want to run.
• We give you the number and what it covers, before anything is signed.