April 13 Closed the Book on Split-Fee Airbnb
On April 13, Airbnb converted its remaining software-connected split-fee hosts to the 15.5% host-only model. That closes a transition that began with new PMS-connected accounts in August 2025, became mandatory for US and Canadian PMS-connected hosts on October 27, and stepped from 15% to 15.5% on December 1.
Eight months, four dates, one structural change. Now that it is over, it is worth writing down what actually happened rather than what everyone predicted.
What people expected
The loud prediction in the fall was that host-only pricing would suppress bookings, because hosts would raise displayed rates to cover the fee and guests would balk.
What we saw
On our portfolio, that is not what happened, and I want to be careful about how I say it: this is our experience across the homes we manage in Nashville, not a market study.
Displayed rates rose. Conversion did not fall in any way we could distinguish from normal seasonal variation. The most plausible reason is the obvious one — every listing on the platform changed at the same time, so the relative comparison a guest makes between two Nashville three-bedrooms barely moved.
The second-order effect was more interesting. With guest-side fees mostly gone, the price in search results is much closer to the price at checkout. Checkout-page abandonment — the guest who gets to the final screen, sees a total 25% higher than the number that attracted them, and leaves — got less common. That is a real improvement and it partly offsets the visible rate increase.
Where it genuinely hurt
Two places.
Owners whose rates never moved. If nobody repriced between October and the half-point step on December 1, that owner absorbed roughly twelve and a half percentage points of revenue and probably has not fully worked out why the year looks worse. This is the biggest cost of the whole transition and it fell entirely on listings nobody was actively managing.
Anyone whose management fee is calculated on gross booking revenue. Under split fee, gross and net were close. Under host-only, they are 15.5% apart, and a manager charging a percentage of gross is now charging on money the owner never sees. Nothing in the contract changed. The arithmetic did.
That second one deserves emphasis because it is quiet. If your agreement says "20% of gross rental revenue," your effective take-home dropped this year without anyone renegotiating anything.
What we did across the four dates
Repriced ahead of each change rather than after. Our pricing pass runs every Monday on every home, so each of these was a scheduled agenda item, not an emergency.
Our fee is calculated on nightly revenue — the owner payout after cleaning and after the platform service fee — at 18% for one or two homes, 17% at three or four, 16% at five or six. When Airbnb's cut went from 3% to 15.5%, our dollar fee fell alongside it. That is not generosity, it is what "percentage of net" means, and it is the reason the transition cost our owners a rate adjustment rather than a renegotiation. The tiers and the terms are on our pricing page.
Maintenance and supplies pass through at cost throughout, unchanged.
The one open question
The thing I still cannot answer is whether host-only pricing changes long-run guest price sensitivity. Guests now see a bigger number up front and a smaller number at checkout. Over a year or two, does the anchor shift?
I do not know, and I would be suspicious of anyone who claims to. What I do is keep the weekly pass running and let actual booking pace answer the question over time rather than reasoning my way to a conclusion.
The takeaway for owners
Two actions, both small.
Confirm your management fee base. Find a recent statement, locate the number the percentage is applied to, and confirm it is after the platform fee. Every line on ours, and the three to check on anyone's, is written out if you want something to compare against. This is worth more than any pricing tweak you will make this year.
Confirm somebody repriced your home in the last eight months. If nobody can tell you what changed and when, that is the finding.
Send me one statement and I will tell you your effective rate — what percentage of the money the guest paid actually ends up with your manager, all in. It is usually not the number in the marketing.