If you found us on Airbnb and then visited our website, you may have noticed the prices don’t match. It’s not a trick, and it’s not a sale. Booking sites changed how they charge, and most guests never saw it happen.
The short version
- Airbnb’s fee used to appear as its own line at checkout. Now it’s built into the nightly price.
- Vrbo raised what it charges hosts on October 29.
- When you book with us directly, there’s no booking-site fee in the price at all.
What changed at Airbnb
For years, an Airbnb booking had two parts: the host’s price, plus an Airbnb service fee added at checkout, usually 14% to 16%.
Over the past year, Airbnb moved that whole fee onto hosts. Hosts now pay about 15.5% on every booking, and the separate fee line at checkout is gone.
That sounds cheaper, but it isn’t. The fee didn’t disappear. It moved into the nightly price, where you can’t see it.
The fee applies to cleaning, too
Airbnb’s fee is charged on the nightly price plus any fees the host charges, and that includes the cleaning fee. That money pays the person who strips the beds, does the laundry and resets the cottage between guests. When a platform takes a share of it, that cost ends up back in your price.
What that means for our prices
Our Airbnb prices run about 18% higher than our direct prices. They have to, because they carry Airbnb’s 15.5% fee.
For example: a stay that costs $1,000 when you book with us directly costs $1,183 on Airbnb.
Airbnb isn’t the villain here. We’ve been Superhosts for many years, we still list there, and it’s how many of you first found us. Airbnb helps travelers discover small places like ours and gives them a reason to trust a stranger’s home.
Once you’ve found us, though, you don’t need to pay for that introduction again.
Vrbo is changing too
On October 29, Vrbo moved to a flat 12% commission on host bookings — roughly double what most hosts paid before. Unlike Airbnb, Vrbo still adds its own guest fee on top.
Every booking site takes a cut somewhere. On some, you can see it. On others, you can’t anymore.
How to check any rental, not just ours
- Find a place you like on Airbnb or Vrbo.
- Note the property’s name or the owner’s name.
- Search for it. Many independent owners have their own website.
- Compare the total price, including cleaning, fees and taxes, not just the nightly rate.
- Make sure a real person is behind it: a name, a phone number, a written cancellation policy and secure payment.
That last step matters. When you book direct, no booking site sits in the middle, so make sure someone real is on the other end. With us, that’s Sharon, the owner and host. She answers the phone, the texts and the emails.
Booking with us
Booking direct is simple: send us your dates, and we’ll confirm them and send everything in writing.
It takes a moment longer than Airbnb. In return, you deal with the owner instead of a message thread, you pay a price without a platform fee, and you have someone who can say yes to the small things.
GO-Cottage is in Lake Placid, New York: two 1920s cottages we bought run-down in the early 2000s and renovated and restored ourselves. Read that story here.
