What a Booking or Airbnb reservation really costs you
Search for how much Booking charges and every website gives you a different figure. Almost none of them cite a source. This article does the opposite: it says what is published, what is not, and how to find the number that actually affects you, which is yours.
The number nobody gives you
Search for "Booking commission" and you will find ranges of 15 to 25 per cent repeated from blog to blog. Hardly any of them come with a link to a source. That is neither a coincidence nor bad faith: that single number, for everyone and everywhere, simply is not published.
What does exist is an important difference between the two big platforms. One publishes its fees openly and the other puts them in each partner contract. It is worth knowing which of the two you are dealing with.
Airbnb does publish its own
Airbnb has a help page with its service fees and the percentages are there. Consulted on 27 July 2026, it says this.
- Split fee: the host pays around 3 per cent in most cases, and the guest pays a separate 14.1 to 16.5 per cent of the booking subtotal.
- Single fee, what Airbnb calls host-only: the host pays all of it and it runs from 14 to 16 per cent, with most hosts at 15.5. It is mandatory for certain hosts, for example those using property management software.
Notice the detail most people miss: in the split fee, 3 per cent sounds small, but the guest is paying another 14 or 16 on top of your price. That surcharge never appears on your invoice and it still makes your property more expensive to anyone comparing. You pay it in competitiveness, not in euros.
The Airbnb fees page carries no visible update date, so the honest thing is to date the consultation and not the document. If you are reading this months later, go and check it again.
Booking does not publish a percentage, it publishes a contract
Here is the part almost nobody tells you. Booking.com does not set a public percentage for every property. The one that applies to you is in the accommodation contract you signed when you joined, and you can look it up in your extranet, in the finance and invoices section.
That means two practical things. The first is that any article telling you "Booking charges 15" is guessing on your behalf. The second, and more useful, is that your percentage is something you can check today in ten minutes, and it may not match your neighbour.
If you also take part in visibility programmes or get paid through the platform, those conditions are in your agreement too. We do not assume them because they vary: look them up in your contract before you do any maths.
What almost never gets added up
The commission is not the only cost of an intermediated booking, even if it is the most visible one. There are three items worth checking on your own invoices, because not all of them apply to everyone.
- The taxes that come with the commission, which depend on your tax situation and on where you are registered.
- The cost of processing the payment when the platform collects on your behalf, which is usually separate from the commission.
- The cancellations and the discounts you accept to hold your position, which are rarely counted as a channel cost and are one.
We are not putting percentages on those three items here. They depend on each contract and each country, and publishing a generic figure would be exactly the mistake this article is trying to avoid.
Do the maths with your numbers
The calculation is simple and you do not need a spreadsheet. Take the nights you sold last year, your average nightly price and the real percentage in your contract. Multiply. That result is what you paid for someone else to bring you bookings.
Then ask yourself the question that matters, which is not how much you paid but how many of those bookings you would have got anyway. Guests who come back, guests who arrive on a recommendation and guests who found you by the name of the property after seeing you on a portal all belong in that group. The calculator on the home page lets you see that split with your own figures.
What changes if part of it comes through your website
Let us be clear: your own website does not replace the portals, and anyone selling you that is selling hot air. Portals are a shop window and they work. What your own website changes is the split. Every booking that comes in directly pays no commission, leaves you the guest contact and lets you set your own conditions without asking permission.
Our opinion, and it is an opinion: the sensible target is not one hundred per cent direct, it is to stop paying commission on the bookings that were already yours. That is where your own website pays for itself, and it usually happens sooner than people expect.
Build your website from your listing and see the numbers with yours
Frequently asked questions
- Where exactly do I see the percentage Booking charges me?
- In your extranet, in the finance and invoices section, and in the accommodation contract you signed when you joined. It is the same figure in both places and it is the only one that counts for your case.
- Does Airbnb charge me 3 per cent or 15?
- It depends on the fee structure you are on. With the split fee the host pays around 3 per cent and the guest separately pays 14.1 to 16.5. With the single fee you pay all of it and it runs from 14 to 16, with most hosts at 15.5. The figures come from the Airbnb service fees page consulted on 27 July 2026.
- Should I leave the portal if I have my own website?
- Our view is no, at least not to start with. The portal is still a shop window and it brings you people who do not know you. What your own website changes is where the second booking goes for someone who has already stayed with you.
- Can I set a lower price on my website than on the portal?
- That depends on the parity conditions in your contract, which are not the same for everyone. Check your agreement before you do it. What you can almost always offer without touching the price is a non-rate advantage, such as a late check-out or an extra included.
- How long does it take for a website to make up what I pay in commissions?
- We do not give a figure because it would depend on your volume and your percentage, and any general number would be made up. The calculation you can do today is this one: nights sold times average price times your real percentage. That is the expense you are trying to reduce.
Sources
- Airbnb, service fees for hosts. Consulted on 27 July 2026.
- Booking.com, each partner accommodation contract and commission data in the extranet, finance section. A document specific to each property, not published openly.