Free tool for short-term rental hosts
Find the nightly rate and the number of booked nights you need to cover your costs each month on Airbnb, Vrbo or direct bookings. Enter your mortgage or rent, fixed bills, cleaning and supplies per stay, platform fee, and nightly rate. You'll get your break-even rate at your target occupancy, your break-even nights and occupancy, your estimated monthly profit, and a profit grid by occupancy and rate. Free and private: everything runs in your browser.
Break-even nightly rate at 60% occupancy
$187.38
At 18 booked nights (about 6 stays), you need at least $187.38 a night to cover $2,250 of fixed costs, cleaning, supplies and the 15.5% platform fee.
| Booking revenue 18 nights × $175 | $3,150.00 |
|---|---|
| Platform fee 15.5% of revenue | −$488.25 |
| Cleaning and supplies 6 stays × $100 | −$600.00 |
| Fixed costs Mortgage or rent plus other fixed | −$2,250.00 |
| Estimated monthly profit | −$188.25 |
At $175 a night you break even after about 19.6 booked nights a month (round up to 20), or 65.5% of 30 available nights.
| Occupancy | $150 | $175 | $200 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40% | −$1,129 | −$876 | −$622 |
| 50% | −$849 | −$532 | −$215 |
| 60% | −$569 | −$188 | $192 |
| 70% | −$288 | $155 | $599 |
| 80% | −$8 | $499 | $1,006 |
Planning estimates only, not tax or financial advice. Not affiliated with Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com.
Run this math on your real bookings every month
The Short-Term Rental Host Business System is an Excel workbook with this break-even calculator built in, tied to your bookings, occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, cleaning schedule and expenses, for 1 to 10 listings. $34 one-time.
See the Short-Term Rental Host Business System50% off: $17 with code FLASH24 until Mon Oct 19, 2:30 PM CT
Built for Microsoft Excel. No subscription.
How it works
Your break-even is the month where booking revenue, after the platform takes its cut, pays every bill and nothing is left over. Some costs are fixed: the mortgage or rent is due whether you book 5 nights or 25. Others come with each stay: a turnover clean and a restock of coffee, toiletries and paper goods. Longer stays spread those per-stay costs over more nights, which is why minimum-stay rules move the numbers so much.
This calculator answers the two questions hosts ask most: what nightly rate do I need at the occupancy I expect, and how many nights do I need at the rate I charge.
A host pays $1,800 a month on the mortgage and $450 for utilities, internet, insurance, software and HOA: $2,250 of fixed costs. Each stay averages 3 nights and costs $85 to clean plus $15 in supplies, and Airbnb's single host-only fee takes 15.5%. At 60% of 30 nights, that's 18 booked nights and 6 stays, so cleaning and supplies cost $600. The break-even rate is ($2,250 + $600) ÷ (18 × 0.845) = $187.38 a night.
Charging $175 instead, each booked night keeps $147.88 after the fee, minus $33.33 of cleaning and supplies spread over the 3-night stay: $114.54. Covering $2,250 takes $2,250 ÷ $114.54 = 19.6 nights (65.5% occupancy). At 60% occupancy the month loses about $188.25. On the older 3% split fee, the same host would break even at $163.23 a night and earn about $205.50 at $175.
Want this math to run on your real bookings every month? The Short-Term Rental Host Business System has a Pricing & Break-Even Calculator tab with the same inputs, plus a profit grid, and ties it to your bookings, occupancy, ADR and RevPAR.
Take it with you
This calculator is a one-off. The Short-Term Rental Host Business System keeps the same math in Excel and connects it to your bookings.
For short-term rental hosts
A bookings tracker, an occupancy / ADR / RevPAR dashboard, a cleaning and turnover schedule, an expense and mileage tracker, a pricing and break-even calculator, and a 2027 goal planner, for 1 to 10 listings. $34 one-time, no subscription.
Get the Short-Term Rental Host Business System: $34Today only: $17 with code FLASH24
FAQ
Break-even is the point where a month's booking revenue, after the platform fee, exactly covers your costs: the mortgage or rent, fixed bills like utilities, internet, insurance, software and HOA, and the cleaning and supplies that come with every stay. Below it you lose money that month; above it every extra night is profit.
Pick an occupancy, say 60% of 30 nights (18 nights). Work out the stays (18 nights divided by your average stay length) and their cleaning and supplies cost. Add your fixed monthly costs, then divide by the booked nights times (1 minus your platform fee %). That's the lowest average nightly rate that covers everything at that occupancy.
Enter what your platform actually takes from your payout. Airbnb is moving hosts to a single host-only fee, and most hosts now pay about 15.5%. If you're still on the older split fee, enter 3%. Vrbo, Booking.com and direct bookings each work differently, and rates change, so check your own payout statements.
Two things cause it. If your nightly rate after the platform fee doesn't even cover the cleaning and supplies spread across each night of a stay, every booking loses money, so no number of nights helps. Or the nights you'd need are more than the nights available in the month. Raise the rate, lengthen the average stay, add a cleaning fee to cover turnover costs, or cut fixed costs.
No. It's a planning estimate for one typical month. It doesn't include income tax, occupancy or lodging taxes, cleaning fees charged to guests (include them in your average nightly rate if you want them counted), or seasonal swings in rate and occupancy. It's not tax or financial advice.
Planning estimates only, not tax or financial advice. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com.
