Are you trying to build financial freedom with Airbnb… but you feel stuck second-guessing your pricing, wondering if you’re missing bookings, or worse—leaving hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on the table every month?
Or maybe you already own an Airbnb, and there’s that constant mental tab open in the back of your mind—“When was the last time I checked my calendar? Did I forget something?”
We’ve worked with hosts like the Kirwans—busy professionals who launched their Airbnb, made over $100,000 in their first year, and still realized they weren’t fully optimized or maximizing their revenue.
Read on to learn how to stop guessing with your Airbnb pricing, how to capture missed revenue opportunities, and how to turn your property into a more consistent, higher cash-flowing asset—without it taking over your life.
We’re breaking down exactly what “not set it and forget it” actually looks like, the key pricing and occupancy levers that drive profit, and how small adjustments made by an Airbnb revenue managager —like fixing orphan nights or dialing in your base price—can add hundreds or even thousands per month!
Client Back Story
The backstory for the Kerwin's are they were good friends of a real estate agent and friend that we were friends with. The Kirwans are both architects, and they were interested in purchasing a property near Lake Superior to be nearby for the pending arrival of their first grandchild. Their initial concern was would they be able to afford it? And they came around the idea of perhaps they could Airbnb it to cover the costs.
Once we became acquainted, we ran numbers, used Air DNA, and we looked at the quality of their property and realized that it should do more than break even, and could most likely turn them a handsome profit. They made $100,000 their first year.
That's awesome. So they were your previous clients and then you got them off on their merry way and they were doing really well. Why did they reach out to you again about revenue management? What is their pain point?
They had become aware that we were providing expert Airbnb revenue management services and were intrigued to learn more about that. We scheduled a call, and I explained the major components of revenue management service: which include first conducting a listing optimization to make sure that all settings are correct in Airbnb. And the second being the actual taking over the day-to-day management of their pricing. It's often heard that even using a third party dynamic software - like Price Labs, that you can't just set it and forget it. Nobody ever really tells you what that means. What does not set it and forget it look like in real life?
What specifically should someone who is not trying to "set it and forget it" with their Airbnb revenue do?
First, is really making sure that your base price stays accurate, and we do that by monitoring the 30-day occupancy of the Airbnb. And if that occupancy falls well below 50%, then it's time to make a change to the base price... and if it falls well above 50% occupancy in the next 30 days - that's an indication that there's an opportunity to raise prices.
I had also monitored for them where they were falling in search placement they were very often pinned at the top of page one, which is a good place to be,. But, if you're up on position one and page one of Airbnb search, it provides an opportunity to raise prices. The next thing out of base price is looking at what we call near term-occupancy to make sure that we sell the produce off the back of the truck, meaning we don't let a night go unbooked. We need to examine where that particular booking window is showing physically on Airbnb search results and fine tune and make surgical adjustments to the prices for those booking opportunities to make sure that, that they get booked. That becomes time intensive.
Alleviating Client Pain Points
When I explained that second part, Bill had an aha moment where he realized, "Wow, just yesterday, I was thinking, I haven't been in there in a couple of weeks. And what's happening with my calendar? What open dates have I left behind?"
ThI think the big pain point for them was having to worry about their Airbnb's revenue juggling their careers as architects. They both run their own businesses, and just that creeping feeling in the back of your head of, "am I looking at this enough? Am I on top of it enough? Did I forget about it for a month or two?" I think the big pain relief for them will be me alleviating that that background stress in their minds and lives.
The Financial Benefits of Airbnb Revenue Management
What will having you as an Airbnb revenue manager do to their current cash flow for their property?
So the first thing we did was start their weekends together. There was a couple of incidents per month where someone had booked a Saturday - Sunday night instead of a Friday - Saturday night, thereby orphaning that Friday night, making it far less valuable. And so instead of $400 weekend night, that ophan night becomes a $200 weekend night that ended up leaving a couple hundred dollars per month on the table in their case. The next thing that we did was raise their base price about $20 per night. Over a month's time, that's an easy $600 of money that was left on the table. There were also vacancies in their calendar. So missing just three or four nights per week, midweek nights. Now, we're able to book those for them with the right guests at the right price and if there's four of those at $200 a night, that's another $800 per month that was being left behind.
The Emotional Benefits of Airbnb Revenue Management
What are the emotional benefits of Airbnb revenue management?
The emotional benefits are simply not having that background worry, and knowing that your account is being physically touched, and pricing is being adjusted by a human expert three times a week, so you're getting maximum cash flow, maximum occupancy, but can also focus on your nine to five, your family and all the things that you enjoy doing in life. And that's why we personally got into the Airbnb business for financial freedom in the first place.
What is your process for onboarding a new revenue management client?
The process for onboarding a new revenue management client is to first perform a listing optimization. I log into their Airbnb listing with them, and examine the most relevant settings - things like cleaning fees, pet fees, and extra guest fees, cancellation policies, instant booking, good track record, all these key factors that were set up as the Airbnb launched can be set up incorrectly or change over time. Sometimes the Airbnb interface updates and a change gets logged that wasn't really intended. I review the photos as well. Looking at the listing with fresh eyes to make sure it is 100% set up for success.
The second step is for me to log into Price Labs and do some things like tying weekends together, examining base price, scouring Rank Breeze to see where the Airbnb shows historically in search results. I then begin to make adjustments in the Price Lab setup, and then review the property three times a week to find near-term vacancies that may need to be adjusted on a page.
Third part of the onboarding process is ongoing coaching. There's a lot of changes happening in our industry. Things like cost segregation opportunities for Airbnb tax benefits, things like utilizing AI interfaces, and helping clients become even better hosts so that they can provide better five star experiences for their guests that feed into the Airbnb algorthim - boosting rank, views, and in turn pricing.. The final benefit is free membership access to the Host Coach private community, where they can ask questions and receive answers from people coached by us... so they know they're getting tangible, educated feedback and not a bunch of random BS and made up thought processes from people on Facebook groups who have never owned an Airbnb, or are horrible hosts.
The Cost of Airbnb Revenue Managment
That's a tremendous depth of value. How much does all of this cost?
We have a $300 per month subscription model. No upfront fees - cancel at any time. We're here to add value, and as long as we're adding value for you, we're doing our job. Basically, if we get one extra night on your calendar booked a month, that cost is covered.
For people reading this who feel like they're similar to the Kirwans - they're smart working professionals with a desire to buy a second home, why is Airbnb investing so catalytic in creating financial freedom?
If the right property is purchased in the right market, this is still a huge opportunity. A lot of people think that the Airbnb market's saturated, but it's not for professional hosts. Starting with things like achieving your guest favorite badge, to being pet friendly, to using revenue management to increase occupancy, adding things like EV chargers, those few things will put a new listing in the top 1% of any market.
When things are easy, they're easy. When they're hard, they're hard. So if you set things up right, this is a very easy business to be in. The cash flow is very strong and the time commitment is low, and I think that's a formula for financial freedom.
On the flip side, why would someone who feels like they're doing pretty well with their pricing strategy and occupancy want to talk with you about Airbnb revenue management?
Really, a few reasons. One, they want to get back to their day job, family, and friends right? They're spending too much time or mental cycles thinking about it. Two, they might want to grow their portfolio. If you can take something off your plate that allows you to spend some time researching and making your next acquisition, you can scale so much faster.
What is your pro tip for anyone who's curious about Airbnb Revenue management?
Book a free Airbnb coaching call with us and let's talk about your market and your goals. It's amazing what is possible when you collaborate with an expert!