Case study · Revenue management
A$3,402 a year of cleaning and fee leakage found in a Perth house
- Client:
- Huon
- Portfolio:
- 4 rooms let
- Measured:
- July 17 to October 4, 2026 (11 weeks, 67 checkouts)
- Scope:
- Revenue management
Performance snapshot
Performance snapshot for the Perth house
- A$3,402
- a year found, no extra bookings needed (Four let rooms, Airbnb and Booking.com, 2026-07-17 to 2026-10-04)
- A$1,256
- of cleaning not covered by guest fees (All stays in the eleven-week window, 2026-07-17 to 2026-10-04)
- 26 of 44
- visits for one room at the full rate (All cleaner visits in the eleven-week window, 2026-07-17 to 2026-10-04)
- A$2,270
- a year protected by a 10% discount cap (Last-minute discount setting on the dynamic pricing tool, 2026-07-17 to 2026-10-04)
Huon lets four rooms in a Maylands, Perth house with one cleaner paid per visit. Over eleven weeks and 67 checkouts, guests paid A$1,844 in cleaning fees against A$3,100 of actual cleaning, and 26 of 44 cleaner visits were for a single room at the full rate. We costed every booking on what the cleaner actually charged for that trip, fixed the fee structure on both channels and added a length-of-stay layer on top of dynamic pricing. The plan identified A$3,402 a year that needs no extra bookings and protected a further A$2,270 a year by capping last-minute discounts at 10%.
Challenges in the Perth house
Cleaning priced per visit, rooms priced per night. The cleaner charged by the trip and 26 of 44 visits were for a single room at the full rate, a cost the nightly price never saw.
Guest fees covered half the clean. Guests paid A$1,844 in cleaning fees over the window against A$3,100 of actual cleaning, leaving A$1,256 uncovered.
Four rooms competing with each other. The rooms appeared in the same searches at similar prices. Room 5 had 38 nights booked ahead while Rooms 1 and 4 had 2 and 5.
No cleaning fee on Booking.com. None of the 20 Booking.com bookings carried a cleaning fee, and the channel adds a 10% tax line on top of the rate.
What we did for the Perth house
Every booking costed on what the cleaner actually charged for that trip rather than an average, with multi-room visits split evenly between the rooms cleaned that day.
One A$35 cleaning fee on every stay length, on both channels, including the Booking.com bookings that carried none.
A room-only cleaner rate, and letting empty rooms wait for the next visit instead of paying for a trip per room.
Single nights kept, with a hard floor of A$90 so one can never sell for less than the visit it creates. From September 1 they sold at about A$112 and left A$70 a night, beating week-long stays at A$57.
A length-of-stay layer on top of the dynamic pricing tool: single nights carry a 15% premium with a hard floor, weekly stays come down 8% and monthly stays 18%, so quieter calendars fill with fewer cleans. Floors so no stay length leaves less than A$35 a night after fees and cleaning, or A$45 for the ensuite room.
Each room on its own base: Room 5, full every night, up to A$88; Rooms 1, 2 and 4, sitting empty at higher prices, down to A$82, A$100 and A$74. Ten event date ranges priced up, including a February 13 concert that had been priced like an ordinary night.
How it unfolded
- Cost the clean
- Every booking in the eleven-week window costed per cleaner visit, not per night.
- Find the gap
- Uncovered cleaning, single-room visits and the missing Booking.com fee quantified.
- Test the obvious moves
- Blocking single nights and restricting checkout days modelled and rejected: the data said no to both.
- Reprice
- One cleaning fee on both channels, a room-only cleaner rate, per-room bases, length-of-stay layer, floors and events.
- Protect the default
- Last-minute discounts capped at 10% against the pricing tool's 30% default.
Results for the Perth house
A$3,402 a year that needs no extra bookings: A$1,218 from charging the cleaning fee on Booking.com and A$2,184 from cheaper cleaner visits. A further A$2,270 a year protected by capping last-minute discounts at 10%, against the pricing tool's 30% default. Single nights kept rather than blocked, with a floor that makes every one pay for the clean it causes. Cleaning modelled down from A$3,100 to A$2,620 over eleven weeks with no booking lost. The software to run it costs about A$1,100 a year, covered three times over by the two changes that need no extra bookings.
Identified per year, no extra bookings needed
Before: A$748 over 11 weeks uncounted
After: A$3,402
Cleaning not covered by guest fees (11 weeks)
Before: A$1,256
After: One A$35 fee on every stay, both channels
Cleaner visits for one room at the full rate
Before: 26 of 44
After: Room-only rate, empty rooms wait for the next visit
Protected per year by capping last-minute discounts
Before: 30% tool default
After: A$2,270
How we measured results for the Perth house
- Window: the eleven weeks from July 17 to October 4, 2026, the period in which every room appears in the export. 67 checkouts and 44 cleaner visits.
- Sources: the client's Lodgify export of 179 confirmed stays, his cleaner's hourly rates, his four live Airbnb listings checked on October 6, 2026 and AirDNA market data for Perth and Maylands private rooms.
- Cleaning costed per visit from the cleaner's own rates. Multi-room visits are split evenly between the rooms cleaned that day.
- Fees: Airbnb host-only at 15.5% plus 10% GST on the fee, Booking.com at 15%. Both are scenarios until reconciled against payout statements.
- Currency: Australian dollars throughout, before tax. Source: Lodging Gurus Revenue Management case study (Perth), pages 2 to 9.
- The annual figures are the eleven-week findings scaled to a year and ranked by how sure we are: the Booking.com fee is certain if bookings hold, the cleaner changes are certain once the cleaner agrees, the discount cap is a loss avoided, not a gain.
- Platform fee rates are scenarios until reconciled against payout statements.
- Four rooms in one house in one suburb. The shape of the leak (per-visit cleaning against per-night pricing) is common; the numbers are Huon's.
