In this blog article, we’ll discuss the potential costs of hiring the wrong Airbnb cleaning service. From guest complaints and negative reviews to unexpected expenses and lost revenue, even minor mistakes can lead to significant financial and reputational damage. When deciding whether to hire a company or an individual housekeeper for your Airbnb, there are several factors to consider. First, think about the level of service you need: should you hire a professional vacation cleaning company or an individual housekeeper/small team?

Lets look at individual housekeepers and small teams first.

Destin, FL

Individual Housekeepers/Small Team Price and Quality

Question: How much will our vacation rental cleaning service cost for our Airbnb, and if it is a expensive pool does that guarantee quality and no recleans?

Answer: Just because a cleaning service is expensive does not guarantee anything, for that matter most of your more expensive services are generally vacation rental cleaning companies that are too busy to take on additional work, so they increase the price to deter new clients, only to not be able to keep your property on their program during the busy season.

Beware of companies that advertise and show a beautiful, clean Airbnb property with a ridiculously low price. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. These companies will do the same with different ads or facebook posts, only to do a bait and switch when they show up.

There are many good vacation rental cleaning services in Destin FL, Turno.com is a platform to find them, but beware of the quality of the vacation rental cleaning service providers. The Turno platform forces cleaning services to compete on pricing, which often leads to low pricing for the Airbnb customer, but usually means the service provider will drop you as a client once they find a higher paying customer to fill your spot. The service providers on Turno are often not large enough to take on a ton of properties, so they are forced to keep the highest paying, most profitable Airbnb cleans since they don’t have a large enough team to support both.

How many times have you seen a vacation rental owner “never able to find a good cleaner”, but they’ve cycled through a new 1 to 2 companies per year? An individual housekeeper or small team will often take on low paying clients to fill their schedule but once they find a higher paying property, they will stop sending their best cleaners to a low priced property, and cleaning ratings start to take a nosedive on the Airbnb platform, if they don’t drop the property completely. This puts the low priced property in an endless cycle of — hire new housekeepr that does great for a while, then the ratings start to plunge because they’ve found better paying property and deprioritized the low paying property, the Airbnb property owner fires that housekeeper and hires a new one using the same process before, leading to the same results over and over, continuous dips and spikes to their cleaning ratings.

Question: How do housekeepers handle call-outs or if they are sick?

Answer: Most housekeepers or small teams have 1 or 2 individuals they can call on if they need time off, but the risk of a late guest departure clean, poor quality cleaning, and it not being cleaned that day, is higher. I’d recommend having a backup team in line in case of a call-out.

Question: How much can you lose on a housekeeper/small team hire?

Answer: Up to your an entire Airbnb listing if you make a bad choice. It is not a good idea to hire housekeepers or small teams just to save a dollar. I recommend finding a housekeeper or small team that has contingencies in place if they add on properties to their program where they can still prioritize your properties cleanliness.

Vacation Rental Cleaning Companies

Now, let’s take a look at professional vacation rental cleaning companies. Initial costs and steps may be required to get started with cleaning companies if they have steps in place to provide consistent high cleaning results. I, personally, would not hire an Aribnb cleaning company that did not have some sort of requirements (iCal integrations, laundry program, onboarding steps, etc.) before bringing on new properties. I would be concerned they are doing too many things too many different ways and do not have a repeatable process in place to provide high quality, consistent results. A professional cleaning company should have “cracked the code” to vacation rental cleaning and should have fairly rigid structure in place.

Cost

Vacation rental cleaning companies will likely be priced towards the middle to higher end of market rates for guest departure cleans in your area. This is due to the fact they often have more expenses like an office building, customer support team, quality inspection team, software to auto-schedule cleans, a larger team to cover callouts, and the ability to handle recleans quickly and efficiently.

A professional cleaning company may also charge for use of their towels, linens, and amenities so it is important to discuss if you or the cleaning company will provide this for each turnover. To decide whether you should launder your linens and towels on site or off site, you can click here to read more.

Quality

A professional vacation rental cleaning company should have clear deliverables on the service they provide. For example at The Dream Clean Team, our goal is a 4.8 cleaning rating for every property on our program. If you are planning to hire a cleaning company, it is important to clarify the cleaning quality they expect to produce, and how they track it.

A cleaning company should have a repeatable process, like the 7 step process to a perfect departure clean at The Dream Clean Team, they can clearly articulate to you. Having a process specifically around turning a property is crucial to maintaining a high standard of cleaning for extended periods of time.

If a cleaning company is not tracking quality, they may have a major gap in their team and not know it. This could lead to major negative feedback to your listing and reported cleaning ratings.

A vacation rental cleaning company should also have clear policies in place around recleans, late check-outs/early check-ins, late finishes, after hour support, etc. If a cleaning service cannot clearly outline policies around these topics, beware they may not have as many processes in place to consistently provide a high quality cleaning service for each guest departure clean.

Support

A professional vacation rental cleaning company should be able to give you hourse they are available to support your property and if they extend those hours during summer months or Saturday turnarounds. Make sure to get clarity on this topic before signing up with a service.

Call-outs: a professional company should have enough staff to handle any call-outs so that it is not a concern for you if one of their cleaning pros call out. You also should not see a dip in quality performance as a result of a call-out.

With a professional cleaning company, you may be assigned an account manager and not able to speak directly to the owner any time you have a challenge. This is important to consider when gauging whether to use an individual or company.

Conclusion

In conclusion, poor cleaning quality will cause significant downside to your Airbnb listing. Less bookings, less revenue, and less occupancy rate. Individual housekeepers or small teams may offer lower prices, the ability to speak directly to the owner, they often come with significant risks such as inconsistent quality, higher chances of call-outs, and potential loss of your Airbnb listing. On the other hand, professional vacation rental cleaning companies, though more expensive, provide structured processes, reliable quality, and better support, ensuring a higher level of service and peace of mind, but less accessbility to the owner, and a higher potential for blind spots in their quality.

Therefore, it is crucial to weigh the pros and cons carefully when choosing a cleaning service for your vacation rental property.

Logan Campbell

Owner, The Dream Clean Team

www.thedreamcleanteam.net

support@thedreamcleanteam.net|850-378-4343