In this article
A month-long guest can pay about $117 a night against $150 for a short stay. Do you know what that does to your payout?
The short answer: On Airbnb, a weekly discount applies from 7 nights and a monthly discount from 28 nights. Your weekend and season prices come first, then the discount comes off the nights, and the cleaning fee is added after. If you also set an early-bird or last-minute discount, Airbnb's own example applies only the larger one.
A longer stay means fewer turnovers and fewer empty nights, so a discount can make sense. The danger is setting one without seeing what it does to the price and to your payout. Here is the order the numbers are worked out in.
In what order is a stay's price built?
Airbnb explains the order in its help article on weekly and monthly discounts. In short:
- First, each night's price. Your nightly price, with any weekend adjustment on Friday and Saturday nights and any season change.
- Then the length-of-stay discount. 7 nights or more gets the weekly discount, and 28 nights or more the monthly one.
- Then fees. The cleaning fee and the booking site's fee are added after the discount, so the discount never reduces the cleaning fee.
Airbnb's own example: a $110 night with a 30% monthly discount and a 20% early-bird discount ends up at $77 a night. Only the larger discount is used. They do not add together.
What does a 7-night stay cost with a weekly discount?
Take a $150 nightly price, a 15% weekend adjustment, a 10% weekly discount and a $90 cleaning fee. A 7-night stay always includes one Friday and one Saturday:
- 5 weeknights at $150: $750.
- 2 weekend nights at $172.50: $345.
- The nights, before any discount: $1,095.
- Weekly discount, 10%: −$109.50, so the nights cost $985.50.
- Plus the cleaning fee: $985.50 + $90 = $1,075.50. That is $140.79 a night, before the cleaning fee.
- After a 15.5% booking site fee: you keep about $908.80.
How much does the stay length change what you keep?
The same example, starting on a Monday, with a 25% monthly discount:
- 3 nights: no discount. The guest pays $540 and you keep about $456.30.
- 7 nights: 10% off. The guest pays $1,075.50 and you keep about $908.80.
- 14 nights: 10% off. The guest pays $2,061 and you keep about $1,741.55.
- 28 nights: 25% off. The guest pays $3,375 and you keep about $2,851.88, which is $117.32 a night.
Look at the last line. A month-long guest pays about $117 a night, against $150 for a short stay. Whether that is a good deal depends on your costs and on how likely the gap is to be filled by shorter stays. A break-even calculation tells you whether your lowest nightly price still covers your costs.
How do you price high and low season?
A season change is just a percentage on the whole stay. With the same example, a +30% peak week comes to $1,371.15 for the guest and about $1,158.62 for you. A −20% low-season week comes to $878.40 and about $742.25. Change the season, and the discount follows it, because it is worked out on the nights after the season change.
Two habits help. Write down your lowest price per night that still pays your costs, and never let a discount push you under it. And look at one real booking in your Airbnb price preview after you change anything, because rules and screens change.
What about your own website?
On a booking site you follow its rules. On your own website you choose them: your own weekly and monthly prices, your own minimum stay, your own seasons, and a small discount for guests who book direct. A direct booking also keeps more of every stay, because a card payment costs about 2.9% plus 30 cents (Stripe) against about 15.5% on Airbnb. See how much of a direct booking discount you can afford.
Want a booking page where you set the rules? Your own booking website is ready in 7 working days or it is free, and you pay half to start and the other half only when you go live. Pay your first installment, or compare every plan on the pricing page.
Not sure what is possible for you? Ask us
On a call, we will:
- Look at your weekly, monthly and seasonal prices together and show where a discount is eating into your payout.
- Show how your own site could handle your price rules, so you are not tied to one booking site's rules.
We will tell you honestly what is realistic. We do not promise results, because nobody honest can.
Common questions
- How many nights count as a weekly or monthly stay on Airbnb?
- Airbnb treats 7 nights or more as a weekly stay and 28 nights or more as a monthly stay, so the weekly discount starts at 7 nights and the monthly discount at 28.
- Do weekly and monthly discounts stack with early-bird discounts?
- In Airbnb's own example, only the larger discount is applied. A 30% monthly discount and a 20% early-bird discount give 30% off, not 50%. Check your listing's price preview, because rules change.
- Is the cleaning fee discounted too?
- No. Discounts apply to the nightly price. The cleaning fee and the booking site's fee are added after.
- How do I price high and low season?
- Add a percentage change on top of your usual nightly price for each season, for example +30% for peak and −20% for low season, then let your weekly or monthly discount come off the result. Check that the lowest price still covers your costs.
Sources and helpful links
- Airbnb: weekly and monthly discounts — the order discounts and fees are applied in
- Airbnb: how host fees work — the single fee
- Stripe pricing — card fees on your own site
- Launch VRO pricing calculator — try your own numbers
