Pay rates in a short-term rental business, with the on-costs

What to take away

Why per hour is the wrong unit

An hourly wage tells you what one hour of somebody's time costs. It does not tell you what it costs to get a property ready, which is the thing you actually buy.

The drive, parking, carrying, and laundry wait all sit outside the wage. So do the return trip for a forgotten supply and the morning when a departing guest is still in the property.

Price per turn and all of that becomes visible. Price per hour and it disappears into a number that looks competitive and is not.

The five terms

For one completed turn, define these.

Let W be the wage paid for the time actually spent in the property.

Let E be the employer's own cost of employment, which attaches to wages where the person is your employee and differs by jurisdiction.

Let R be travel and access time, paid and unproductive: the drive from the previous property, parking, and carrying supplies in.

Let S be supervision and coordination time attributable to this turn, real and usually unmeasured.

Let C be the cost of cover: what you pay to hold a second trained person available for the mornings when the first cannot come, spread across the turns that person makes possible.

Cost per turn is W plus E plus R plus S plus C.

Two of those five explain why operators are surprised. R scales with distance, not work, so a portfolio spread across a city costs more per turn than a dense one at the same wage.

C is paid whether or not it is used, which is why it gets set to zero and why that is a mistake.

What each term responds to

The R row is the most actionable and the least discussed. Distance between properties is decided when properties are acquired, which is a location decision rather than a labor one, and no scheduling change repairs it.

Pay rates and on-costs in numbers

Pay rates for this work are local. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes wage estimates by metro and occupation. In most U.S. metros in 2026, maids and housekeeping cleaners post a median near $16 to $18 an hour. The 10th percentile sits near $12 to $13, and the 90th near $23 to $25.

High-cost metros such as San Francisco, New York and Seattle commonly run $22 to $30 an hour. Lower-cost metros in the South and Midwest often run $13 to $16.

Per turn rates follow the size and condition of the property. A studio or one-bedroom typically runs $80 to $150. A two-bedroom runs $120 to $220. A three-bedroom or larger runs $180 to $350. A same-day or deep turn adds 25% to 50%.

Breezeway sells checklists and scheduling for turnover work. Turno is a marketplace where cleaners set their own per-turn rates. Airbnb and Vrbo let hosts charge a separate cleaning fee. Those tools change S and C, not W.

Total on-costs run roughly 12% to 30% on top of wages, before supplies and mileage.

These are typical ranges, not a quote. Your local BLS OES table and your own insurance quote set the real numbers.

Establishing W honestly

Do not invent the wage and do not copy one from another market.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes employment and wage estimates by area and occupation, which gives you what comparable cleaning and maintenance work pays where you operate.

That is a starting point rather than an answer: it tells you the range, and where you sit in the range is a decision about how much you want this role to stay.

The argument for sitting above the middle is not generosity. It is that replacing this person costs several weeks of a property that is not quite right, and guests review the difference. Turnover in the turnover role is the most expensive kind of turnover in this business.

E is a legal question, not a preference

Whether the person is your employee is decided by a legal test, not by what the agreement calls them. Getting it wrong reaches backwards into work already done, which is what makes it expensive rather than merely wrong.

The Department of Labor publishes compliance assistance material aimed at new and small businesses covering wage and hour obligations, and your state labor department's requirements sit on top of the federal position and differ. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission maintains material written for small employers covering the obligations that come with employing people at all.

Settle the classification before you model the cost, because E is either a real term or zero and there is nothing in between. Where these obligations sit alongside registration, tax and insurance is mapped in the licensing and compliance guide.

Pricing cover instead of pretending it is free

C is the term everybody omits and everybody eventually pays.

It is the busiest Saturday of the season, and the person who does the turns is unavailable at eight in the morning.

If you do them, your cover cost is your own time and your ceiling is your own availability. If guests wait, the cost is a set of reviews that outlast the season.

Holding a second trained person available occasionally has a real price: some guaranteed hours, a retainer, or accepting that you pay a company more per turn for overflow. Put a number on it and add it to the model. A cost you have decided to carry is manageable. A cost you have not noticed is not.

Reading the number once you have it

Cost per turn becomes useful the moment you put it next to two other figures.

Against the rate you charge, it tells you whether the turnover element of your pricing covers itself. Against your average length of stay, it tells you what short bookings actually cost. A turn is charged per stay and not per night.

Both of those feed the pricing derivation, where turnover cost enters divided by length of stay. The full working is in the hiring and training guide on the labor side, and the effect on the rate you set follows from it directly.

Recompute the number after any change in wage, in portfolio density, or in how people are engaged. Also recompute it after you add a property that sits on a different route, because that single addition can move R for every turn on that morning.

When labor cost is really a growth problem

Rising cost per turn usually means one of three things, and only one of them is about pay.

The properties have spread out, which raises R permanently. Supervision has grown because standards live in someone's head rather than in a document, which raises S. Or you are running without cover and paying for it in overtime and your own time, which is C arriving through the back door.

Growth makes all three worse before it makes them better, which is the honest version of the argument in the expansion and market guide. The staffing steps themselves are in how to hire reliable staff for a short-term rental business.

One thing not to do is buy demand ahead of capacity. Spending on growth while turns are already failing produces reviews you cannot outrun, and the sequencing argument is in the marketing and growth guide.

Common questions

What should I pay a cleaner?

The local range is published. In most U.S. markets in 2026 it runs $16 to $22 an hour, or $80 to $150 per turn for a one-bedroom. Where you sit in it is your decision. Anyone quoting a single number is describing a market that is not yours.

Should I pay per turn or per hour?

Pay in whatever form is lawful and clear for your arrangement, and cost it per turn regardless. Those are two different questions and confusing them is common.

Is a cleaning company cheaper?

Usually higher per turn and lower in E, S and C, because cover and supervision come with it. Compare on the total rather than on the headline.

How do I reduce travel time?

Cluster properties. That is the only real answer, and it is a decision made when you acquire rather than when you schedule.

Should I pay for travel between properties?

Whether you must is a legal question for your jurisdiction. Whether it belongs in your cost model is not a question at all: it does.

What on-costs apply?

Employer payroll taxes add 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare, plus 0.6% FUTA on the first $7,000 and state unemployment that often runs 0.3% to 6.0%. Workers comp for cleaning often runs $0.50 to $3.50 per $100 of payroll. Mileage is 70 cents a mile in 2025. Total on-costs typically run 12% to 30% on top of wages.