Vacation Rental Cost Calculator

Calculate the true nightly cost of a vacation rental including all fees.

About Vacation Rental Cost Calculator

The fixed cleaning fee is spread across the stay, so it raises the effective nightly rate sharply for short bookings. Service fees and taxes then compound on top of it. A ninety-pound cleaning fee adds forty-five pounds a night to a two-night stay but only nine to a ten-night one, which is why short rentals compare so badly with hotels.

Formula

Vacation Rental Cost

Total = (nightly rate × nights + cleaning fee) × (1 + service fee) × (1 + tax)

cleaning fee: A fixed charge regardless of stay length, so it hurts short stays most
true nightly rate: Total cost divided by nights

Worked example

With the default values below, Vacation Rental Cost Calculator returns True Nightly Rate of $215.46. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Advertised nightly rateminimum 0: 160
Nightsaccepts 1–365: 6
Cleaning feeminimum 0: 90
Service feeaccepts 0–100 %: 14 %
Occupancy taxaccepts 0–100 %: 8 %
Guestsminimum 1: 4

Results

True Nightly Rate: $215.46
Total Cost: $1,292.76
Cost per Guest per Night: $53.87
Total Fees and Taxes: $332.76
Markup Over the Advertised Rate: 34.66%

Step by step

1Values used
2Vacation Rental Cost
3True Nightly Rate= 215.46
4Total Cost= 1,292.76
5Cost per Guest per Night= 53.87
6Total Fees and Taxes= 332.76
7Markup Over the Advertised Rate= 34.66

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 6 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Vacation Rental Cost calculated?

Total = (nightly rate × nights + cleaning fee) × (1 + service fee) × (1 + tax) The fixed cleaning fee is spread across the stay, so it raises the effective nightly rate sharply for short bookings. Service fees and taxes then compound on top of it.

Why does Vacation Rental Cost matter?

A ninety-pound cleaning fee adds forty-five pounds a night to a two-night stay but only nine to a ten-night one, which is why short rentals compare so badly with hotels.

What values do I need to enter?

This calculator takes 6 inputs: Advertised nightly rate, Nights, Cleaning fee, Service fee, Occupancy tax, Guests. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.