After looking at the last 12 months of booking rates for my three Airbnb listings, our average booking rate was around 2.5%.
Elsewhere online, I’ve seen hosts reporting numbers between 0.5% and about 3.0%. It appears as though 2% is a pretty respectable booking rate percentage for an Airbnb.
What’s interesting though, is that our booking rates varied from 0% all the way up to 6.7% depending on the time of year. I’ll be attempting to make some sense of the large variability in my numbers and then looking at ways I may be able to improve my booking rates in the future.
Defining “Booking Rate”
Before getting into the data for my three Airbnb listings, let’s define booking rate. Airbnb provides hosts with some stats for each of their listings. One of those is booking rate.
The booking rate number has a definition on it:
“The percentage of guests who book after viewing your listing”
Definition of booking rate from Airbnb
In my own words, your booking rate is the percentage of visitors that clicked in from search results to see your listing and ended up booking one or more nights.
My Last 12 Months
I recently wrote an article showcasing our view numbers for the last 12 months. These listings are the same three listings from that article.
Listing 1 is the first Airbnb we opened (in our basem*nt) and has the lowest nightly rate. It has the fewest amenities of our three listings and gets the fewest bookings. It averages between 35-45 percent of nights booked.
Listing 2 is the second Airbnb we opened and is a single family home near our downtown area. The nightly rate is about 15% higher than the rate at listing 1. It has lots of great amenities and gets the most bookings of our three listings. It averages between 65-75 percent of nights booked.
Listing three is our most recent Airbnb. We decided to buy a bigger, nicer place and make it a luxury listing. We charge a considerably higher nightly rate and this place has just about everything a guest could want. It averages between 50-60 percent of nights booked.
Here were my average Airbnb booking rate percentages for those three listings between November 2019 and October 2020:
Listing 1 ($)
Listing 2 ($$)
Listing ($$$)
October 2020
2.3%
3.0%
3.4%
September 2020
1.1%
3.3%
2.6%
August 2020
3.0%
6.0%
6.7%
July 2020
3.5%
4.9%
4.1%
June 2020
2.2%
3.1%
2.8%
May 2020
2.1%
1.9%
0.9%
April 2020
1.0%
1.7%
0.9%
March 2020
2.0%
1.5%
2.8%
February 2020
1.6%
2.5%
3.2%
January 2020
0.7%
1.5%
3.2%
December 2019
0.0%
2.2%
1.8%
November 2019
2.4%
1.7%
3.5%
Making Sense Of The Numbers
First let’s get some averages.
Listing 1 ($)
Listing 2 ($$)
Listing ($$$)
Avg. Booking Rate
1.83%
2.78%
2.99%
So our overall average booking rate across all three Airbnb listings over the last 12 months was 2.5%.
If you compare this booking rate with our average number of views, which is 360 views, then we’re getting approximately 9 bookings each month on average (360 x 0.025).
Listing 1 had a booking rate of only 1.83%, while Listing 3 had a booking rate of basically 3%. That’s a pretty huge gap.
This would be the difference between 7 and 11 bookings, which would probably be somewhere around 8 nights and $800 per month.
So what might be causing the difference in booking rate?
One correlation is price. Looking at my three listings, the lowest nightly rate also had the lowest booking rate. And the listing with the highest nightly rate had the highest booking rate.
Another is amenities. Listing 1 just has fewer amenities. Potential guests may be clicking in looking for say a washer and dryer and they won’t find it. This would naturally lower the booking rate.
Also listing 1 is it’s own space, but it’s also attached to the house I live in. This is probably less than ideal for guests, especially in the age of Covid.
Another possible correlation is number of bedrooms. Listing 1 has one bedroom, listing 2 has two bedrooms and listing 3 has three bedrooms.
Seasonality
All our listings book better in the summer and fall than they do in the winter and spring. The higher booking rates I’m seeing in July and August 2020 might be explained by this.
My two worst months were December 2019 and April 2020. I believe the low booking rates in December 2019 are due to winter being our slow season. But the decline in April 2020 is almost certainly due to the sudden crash of our market when our Covid lockdowns went into effect.
In fact, from about March 15, 2020 to April 15, 2020 our Airbnbs were empty because of the lockdowns.
Long story short, there will always be outside factors affecting your booking rate. Even with the perfect listing, you wouldn’t have gotten many bookings when your area first got Covid related mandates.
Timing of bookings
Another important distinction is that guests don’t necessarily book for the current month. So our 6.7% booking rate at listing 3 in August 2020 may have included some August bookings, but it almost certainly included some September and October bookings as well.
This can make some of your booking rates a bit misleading.
For example, I had a 0% booking rate in December 2019 for listing 1. That doesn’t mean nobody was staying at that listing in December 2019. It just means that nobody booked a stay that month.
Is higher booking rate always better?
When I wrote about how many views we’re getting at our listings, I mentioned that more views isn’t always better.
In the case of booking rate, I think higher IS ALWAYS better. Ideally, every person who viewed your listing would book. But that just doesn’t happen.
Based on what I’ve read in the Airbnb community forums and on Reddit, it seems that the average booking rate is somewhere between 1% and 3%. My opinion is that 2% is a very healthy booking rate.
With some quick numbers, 200 views per month with a 2% booking rate will result in about 4 bookings per month.
If your average guests stays for 2 nights, then you’re basically booking every weekend, which is respectable.
I think if you can hit those numbers, then you can at least break even on an Airbnb investment property. Then you can start working on increasing your profitability from there.
How Can We Increase Booking Rate?
After sifting through these numbers, I’m starting to wonder how I can increase my booking rates, particularly at listing 1.
Your booking rate is going to primarily be dependent on things that are on your listing page. Your cover photo already did its job because the guest is already looking at your listing.
So I will be looking primarily at four things.
Amenities
Amenities are possibly the most important part of your booking rate (the possible exception is your supplementary photos).
They are incredibly important for views, too, because many guests will filter their searches by amenity. But many guests only filter by date, guest count and/or price.
If they land on your page without a search filter for amenities, then they will be wanting to see what your place has.
First off, make sure you’re getting credit for every amenity you already have, then look through the amenity list to see if you can easily add more.
According to Airbnb, the most requested amenities are WiFi, air conditioning, a kitchen and parking.
Supplementary photos
Airbnb is an incredibly visual platform, and in order to succeed you need lots of professional looking photos that picture a clean and well designed space.
Go through your photos and make sure they all leave a good impression. Then see if you’re missing anything.
More photos is better, but never post a photo that doesn’t look great.
Surfaces must be clean
No trash or dirty laundry visible
Everything is organized (pots, pans, dishes)
Beds are made with no wrinkles
When in doubt ask a friend to go through the photos with you and ask for honest feedback.
Listing description
I’m not sure how many people really read the listing descriptions, but I do know it’s more than 0%.
Take some time and make sure to highlight everything you can think of in your description. If you run out of ideas, then look through your photos. Talk about the surrounding area and anything that past guests have complimented you on.
Remember some guests won’t even be able to see your photos if they have visual impairments. You want them to know why they should choose your place, and your description is a great place to do that.
Reviews
Reviews are not the end all be all. Every Airbnb host starts with zero reviews and that doesn’t stop guests from booking with you.
Bad reviews will prevent some guests from booking with you, and good reviews will confirm a guests decision to book with you.
I think most guests use the photos to decide if they want to book, then they look at the reviews. If nothing looks off then they’ll go ahead and book.
But I do think some potential guests highly value listings with a large number of good reviews. There’s not a whole lot you can do except wow your guests with great service and thoughtful touches, and then let the passage of time increase your number of reviews.
Conclusion
Across our three Airbnb listings, our average booking rate percentage was 2.5%. Based on what I’ve seen of other hosts, 2% to 2.5% is a strong booking rate.
But there’s always room for improvement, and I’ll be revisiting my listings’ amenities lists, supplemental photos, descriptions and reviews to improve my bookings rates in the future.
The average Airbnb occupancy rate varies for different regions. Several variable factors also come into play to decide the average booking rate. Based on hosts' responses on the Airbnb community and other forums, anywhere between 2% and 2.5% is a good booking rate for your property.
For tour operators, the conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who make a booking. The average conversion rate for the travel industry is about 2-3%, with 4% considered to be very good.
The Airbnb Strict cancellation policy allows guests to receive a full refund if they cancel within 48 hours of booking and at least 14 days before a listing's check-in time. In the event of a cancellation within 48 hours, the guest is only entitled to 50% refund, regardless of how far out the check-in date is.
Guest fee. Most guest service fees are under 14.2% of the booking subtotal (nightly rate + cleaning fee + additional guest fee if applicable – excluding Airbnb fees and taxes). This fee varies based on a variety of factors and is shown during checkout before you book so that you know what to expect.
15% is considered a good rate- 25% is the B2B industry average you should aim for, and a 30% conversion rate and above is excellent; If you already have some time in the market and are using an opt-out free trial, you will want to shoot for an average conversion rate between 50-75%.
A good conversion rate is higher than 10%, with a small percentage of businesses obtaining 11.45% on average, while this number varies based on industry and channel.
Conventional wisdom says that a good conversion rate is somewhere around 2% to 5%. If you're sitting at 2%, an improvement to 4% seems like a massive jump. You doubled your conversion rate! Well, congratulations, but you're still stuck in the average performance bucket.
Either your prices are too high for the kind of guests that your local area attracts, or they are too low for the guests in the area and they don't want to book your listing through fear of lower standards.
Airbnb takes into consideration a lot of factors. Hosts who don't let their calendar get a month or more out of date are 70% more likely to get booked. A lot of these factors take daily consideration: updating your calendar daily, updating prices regularly, answering messages lightning fast.
This means a property can't be let out on Airbnb for more than 90 days of occupied nights per year. Once your limit has been reached, Airbnb will automatically close bookings for your property until the end of the calendar year. The 90-day limit applies to both 90 consecutive days or 90 days spread throughout the year.
Senate Bill 584 by state Sen. Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, would impose a 15% tax on short-term rentals — the homes and rooms that owners rent out like hotels for 30 days or less at a time — starting in 2025.
According to the latest reports, the short-term rental industry will witness unprecedented growth in the coming years. This means that Airbnb rentals will also be profitable and prove to be a good investment for real estate investors.
From October 2021 to September 2022 Superhosts have collectively earned over $23 billion in income from hosting on Airbnb. In Q3 2022 the typical Superhost earned 64% more than a regular Host.
Well, some great small town locations for Airbnb investment that might be worth your while include Bend, Oregon; Ithaca, New York; Bay Arbor, Michigan; Grand Lake, Colorado; and Kenai, Alaska. However, as you'll find out below, it's often the big cities that have the highest rentals.
Is Owning an Airbnb Profitable? An Airbnb short-term rental that has a steady queue of occupants may be more profitable than leasing the same property to someone on a long-term basis. The reason is that Airbnb nightly rates are usually higher.
We automatically collect and pay occupancy taxes on behalf of hosts whenever a guest pays for a booking in specific jurisdictions. Hosts may need to manually collect occupancy taxes in other jurisdictions and in certain listed jurisdictions where Airbnb does not collect all applicable occupancy taxes.
The listed rate is the rate per night for that particular listing for the specified number of guests. Make sure to accurately specific the correct number of guests as the rate may change depending on occupancy. This includes all of the fees, including Airbnb fee, cleaning fee, etc.
Airbnb Smart Pricing is a built-in dynamic pricing tool that analyzes relevant data and factors for a property listing. Airbnb's Smart Pricing tool automatically updates a listing's price to match the demand of the market, but only within a minimum price to a maximum price range of your setting.
Mashvisor's RentoCalculator is considered the best Airbnb calculator in the market because it provides a complete analysis of the property that you are eyeing. If you're asking yourself, “How much can I make on Airbnb?” — then this tool will give you the right answer.
The Enemy Method in Airbnb investing refers to using the performance of your “enemies” to estimate the revenue, ADR, and occupancy of a short-term rental. “Enemies” are other vacation rentals that are similar to your investment property and are in the same market.
An average conversion rate for a website is between 2 percent and 5 percent. Website conversion rates higher than 5% are considered to be “good” or above the average. Moreover, top brands in many sectors enjoy much better results than 5 percent.
A good conversion rate is above 10%, with some businesses achieving an average of 11.45%. The average conversion rate is between two and five percent for all advertisers, from brand names to small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs).
But here's the thing: That's actually very good. In fact, a “good” website conversion rate falls between 2% and 5% across all industries. Industry-specific conversion rates vary quite a bit more.
What is a good conversion rate? While an average conversion rate is usually around 2% to 3.5%, a good conversion rate is higher. To determine a good conversion rate, we refer to websites that are in the top 10% of conversions, which have conversion rates of at least 11.45%.
This number is the average commission that an affiliate earns for each conversion to the seller's offer, which includes the earnings from all sales (initial sales, upsells, and rebills).
If you're an eCommerce player and your conversion rate is between 4% and 6%, it can be considered good. But if you're in finance, a conversion rate of 4% is rather underwhelming because the top performers are achieving five times more!
Your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that complete a desired goal (a conversion) out of the total number of visitors. A high conversion rate is indicative of successful marketing and web design: It means people want what you're offering, and they're easily able to get it!
Research also concludes that around 10% is a good sales conversion rate with the average conversion rate across industries being 2.5%. But how you calculate your sales conversion rate also plays an essential role here.
Generally, a 12% conversion rate is pretty good for lead generation landing pages. And by "pretty good," we mean you'll be better than about 90% of your competitors. That's according to our analysis of 64,000+ landing pages across 10 popular customer industries.
Even in the US, where the proportion is lower, last minute bookings account for 30% of all bookings – still very significant. This vacation rental data illustrates why last minute pricing and operations are critical to maximized vacation rental revenue for property managers.
Neither last minute nor way out, booking about a month in advance is likely to get you the best deal. Sam Kemmis is a travel rewards expert at NerdWallet specializing in airline and hotel loyalty programs.
If you can accommodate the larger group, send your guest a trip change that includes the additional cost per night for the extra guests. If you're unable to accommodate the larger number of guests, let your guest know that your place isn't the right fit for their group, and ask them to cancel their reservation.
However, this has partially contributed to a housing shortage that has impacted the globe, driving up rent prices in almost all major cities. This correlation between the increase of homes that have become dedicated to serving as Airbnbs and the rise in rental rates has been dubbed “The Airbnb Effect”.
But as some Airbnb hosts experience declining occupancy rates—and as the country's economic outlook is uncertain—Airbnb is by and large having a banner year. “Demand is still rising every month, and so are Airbnb's bookings and revenue,” says Lane.
While bookings may feel slower, nightly rates and overall revenue are still growing YOY. For 2023, AirDNA forecasts that average daily rates (ADRs) will grow 1.7%. This is slower than the previous couple years, though, so you'll need to manage your listing more proactively to make sure you get your piece of the pie.
The algorithm sorts through the millions of listings on Airbnb to find the right listings for each search. Guests enter search criteria and the algorithm returns listings that reflect those criteria. We provide a variety of filters to help guests refine search results.
To do so, simply contact a host to ask for a discount or propose a lower price. Then the host has an opportunity to provide a special offer that's only available to your account. If the new price works, you can accept the reduced rate to book the stay at a cheaper rate.
Airbnb holds hosts to a strict 5-star-or-bust expectation. They take any review that is less than 5-stars to indicate that there are major problems with a property or host. In fact, if a host's account average drops below a 4.8-star rating, then they lose their Superhost status.
As a Superhost, you may enjoy a variety of benefits directly related to your elite status. Remember, less than 20-percent of all Airbnb hosts earn Superhost status. The top benefits of having Superhost status include: Attract more guests with the Superhost badge.
Airbnb rentals are generally cheaper when booked four weeks in advance. For this analysis, we only included properties with availability across all time frames. This means the same properties were lowering their prices about a month out compared to last-minute bookings or those made well in advance.
We track all Host's prices over time. By looking at the median price over the previous 30 days, we work out each Host's average price. If a Host drops their price by 10% or more below the median for a particular date, we highlight the saving by crossing out the original price.
Rates and availability on Airbnb are synced through your software provider. There are a few cases where changes made directly on Airbnb might override the rates or availability sent via your software. For example, the most common causes for price differences are promotions and discounts.
This is an important factor for guests evaluating whether to book your space and for earning Superhost status. Superhosts must have an average overall rating of at least 4.8 stars over at least 10 trips or three reservations that total at least 100 nights.
If a review is less than 5-stars, it is seen as a sign that there are major problems with the property or host. According to some observations, the average Airbnb host quality score is 4.7. If an account's rating falls below 4.6 stars, this is a serious sign to a host. You might loose your Super-host status.
Airbnb says it provides guests with definitions of the overall star rating and individual category star ratings. For the overall rating, a five-star stay is defined as great, a four star stay is good, and three stars is OK. Still, many hosts say the rating system isn't clear enough to guests or to hosts.
Although Superhosts have a lower average daily rate (ADR) of around 11% compared to regular hosts, they enjoy an 81% higher occupancy rate compared to normal hosts. Superhosts also earn 60% more daily revenue than regular hosts.
Superhosts have a 4.8 or higher average overall rating based on reviews from their Airbnb guests in the past year. Guests know they can expect outstanding hospitality from these hosts.
Hobby: Flower arranging, Yo-yoing, Tai chi, Rowing, Macrame, Urban exploration, Knife making
Introduction: My name is Madonna Wisozk, I am a attractive, healthy, thoughtful, faithful, open, vivacious, zany person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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