How much short-term rental management costs

If you’ve asked two or three managers for a quote, you’ll have noticed something: hardly anyone puts their percentage on their website. We don’t either, and below we explain why. But the fact that prices aren’t published doesn’t mean you can’t understand how they work: there are only a few models, and they’re easy to recognise.

The pricing models you’ll find on the market

A percentage of confirmed bookings. It’s the most common model, and it’s ours. The manager is paid a share of each booking: if the home earns nothing, you pay nothing. The interests are aligned: whoever manages the home only earns if you do.

A fixed rent for the owner. The manager rents the home from you, and you receive a fixed rent set in the contract: the risk of empty months stays with the manager. You get a predictable amount every month; in exchange you give up the peaks. It’s what we do with rent-to-rent, and it makes sense for people who want certainty more than the highest return.

A fixed monthly fee paid to the manager. You pay a fixed sum every month, however the home does. Weigh it carefully: the risk of empty months stays entirely with you, and the manager gets paid anyway.

A flat fee per service. Just the check-in, just the cleaning, just the paperwork. It costs less than full management, but the coordination is left to you, and coordination is the part that eats up time.

What the percentage should include

Two quotes with the same percentage can include very different things. This is the list to compare them against:

• professional photographs and setting up the home before it goes online;
• creating and optimising the listings on every platform;
• updating prices according to season, events and demand;
• handling enquiries and bookings, every day;
• welcome and check-in, with guests identified as the law requires;
• coordinating the cleaning and the change of linen between one stay and the next;
• routine maintenance and urgent repairs;
• the formalities: identification code and guest registration with the police;
• managing reviews and relations with the platforms;
• a monthly statement: bookings, expenses and the commission, line by line.

If an item is missing from the quote you’ve been given, ask who does it and what it costs on top.

What isn’t included, and who pays for it

• The final clean: the guest pays for it, through the cleaning fee included in the booking. The owner pays nothing up front.
• Bills: the owner’s, because they’re included in the nightly price.
• Initial set-up, if the home needs it: it’s a one-off cost, and before it’s done we send you a quote.
• The tourist tax: where the council applies the imposta di soggiorno, the guest pays it. It follows the city council’s rules, which set the rates and exemptions: how it’s handled for your home we agree with you.
• Income tax: yours, and it depends on your situation. For tax matters, your accountant is the reference; if you have a question, ask us. The official picture is on the website of the Italian Revenue Agency, the Agenzia delle Entrate (in Italian).
• Major maintenance: yours, and we don’t start it without your go-ahead.

The seven questions to ask before you sign

1. Is the percentage calculated on the total of the bookings or on the net after the platforms’ commissions?
2. Are there set-up costs, fixed monthly fees or exit fees?
3. What exactly does the percentage include, item by item?
4. Who pays for the cleaning, the linen, the consumables?
5. How often do I get the statement, and where are the payment terms written down?
6. Is the contract with or without representation (does the manager act in my name or in its own), how long does it last and how do I get out of it?
7. Who takes care of the identification code and guest registration, and how is the tourist tax handled?

The first five are about money, the last two about responsibility. They’re the ones that matter if something goes wrong.

What it costs in Milan, and why the city changes the sums

The percentage isn’t the same in every city, and not on a whim. In a city like Milan the calendar is packed, rates are high and turnover is fast: more arrivals, more cleaning, more work in the same month. In a city with a short season the work is concentrated in a few months. And the formalities differ: in Milan there’s a notification to the City for tourist lets and a regional code to apply for, and the tourist tax (in Italian) has its own rates and rules, set by the City.

That’s why we write the percentage down for you after we’ve seen the home and know which city it’s in. The pages for the cities we work in are here, and the one for Milan is here.

Why our percentage is in the estimate and not on the website

Because a percentage without the home it refers to is a meaningless number. It depends on the city, on how many services that home really needs and on what the home is like.

What we can tell you now, and what holds for every home we manage: a single percentage of confirmed bookings, no set-up costs, no monthly fee. If the home earns nothing, you pay nothing.

We write the percentage in the estimate, together with the expected return and the assumptions we used to calculate it. The estimate is free and doesn’t commit you to anything. If you first want to understand how much the home can earn, start with how much a flat earns as a short-term rental; if you want to see what we do every day, there’s the Maison Method and the short-term rental management page.