Airbnb Profit Calculator Spreadsheet: The Formula, a Worked Example and Break-Even Occupancy

What is the formula for calculating Airbnb profit?

Airbnb profit is gross booking revenue minus the platform fee, minus costs that happen every stay, minus costs you pay every month whether anyone books or not. Written out as spreadsheet rows, it is five lines.

1. Booked nights = 365 x occupancy %.
2. Stays = booked nights / average stay length.
3. Gross revenue = booked nights x nightly rate + stays x cleaning fee.
4. Variable costs = gross x platform fee % + stays x (cleaning cost + supplies) + gross x management %.
5. Net profit = gross - platform fee - variable costs - fixed costs x 12.

The split between per-stay and fixed costs is the whole game. Per-stay costs grow with bookings. Fixed costs (mortgage or rent, insurance, utilities, internet, software) arrive even in an empty month. Most free Airbnb calculators online estimate revenue from comparable listings; they rarely show this cost split line by line, which is why a spreadsheet you can audit is worth having. I build the math; I am not a host, and nothing here is financial or tax advice.

Try the Airbnb profit calculator (free, no signup)

Enter your own nightly rate, occupancy, stay length and costs. The calculator below runs the same formula as the worked example and the Airbnb profit calculator spreadsheet, so you can check one against the other.

Start with a conservative occupancy, not the best month you have seen. Then push it up and down 10 points to see how thin the margin is.

Worked example: how much profit does one Airbnb make?

With the assumptions below, the listing books 226.3 nights across 75.43 stays, grosses $44,505.67 and nets $6,827.16 a year, or $568.93 a month. Every input is an assumption for illustration; replace each one with your market's numbers.

Here is where the $2,400.00 a month of fixed costs came from. Again, these are placeholder amounts, not market data.

One detail the table exposes: the guest pays a $95.00 cleaning fee, but after the 3% fee the host keeps $92.15, while the clean costs $85.00 plus $15.00 of supplies. Each stay loses $7.85 on turnover. That is not fatal, but it means short stays are worth less than they look.

How to calculate break-even occupancy for an Airbnb

Break-even occupancy = annual fixed costs / (net earned per booked night x 365). In the example that is $28,800.00 / ($157.43 x 365) = 50.12%. Below that occupancy the listing loses money every year.

Net earned per booked night is the nightly rate after the platform fee, plus the cleaning-fee surplus (or minus the loss) spread across the nights in a stay:

• Nightly rate after 3% fee: $165 x 0.97 = $160.05.
• Cleaning per stay: $95 x 0.97 - $85 - $15 = -$7.85, spread over 3 nights = -$2.62 a night.
• Net per booked night: $160.05 - $2.62 = $157.43.
• Nights needed: $28,800 / $157.43 = 182.93 nights, which is 50.12% of 365.

This one number answers "how to calculate if an Airbnb will be profitable" faster than any revenue estimate: if the occupancy you can realistically hold sits only a few points above break-even, one slow season wipes out the year.

Each 5 points of occupancy moves profit by roughly $2,873 a year here. That slope, not the headline revenue, is what you are buying.

How the Airbnb service fee changes your profit

Airbnb's own help centre describes two fee structures. Under the split fee, "most hosts pay a 3% service fee" and the guest pays a separate fee. Under the single fee, the whole fee comes out of the host payout and "most hosts pay 15.5%" (Airbnb Help Centre: Airbnb service fees). The same page says the single fee is mandatory for most hosts, including hosts who use property management software, so check the fee line on your Earnings page before you pick a number.

Holding the price at $165.00, the switch from 3% to 15.5% raises fees from $1,335.17 to $6,898.38 and cuts net profit to $1,263.96. Break-even occupancy climbs to 59.39%. Under the single fee the guest no longer pays a separate service fee, so the listed price can usually move up without the guest's total changing much; model both prices in your sheet rather than assuming either.

How to build an Airbnb profit spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets

Put inputs in one column, results in another, and never type a number into a result cell. The layout below matches the formulas further down.

Add a second tab with one row per month so you can enter real bookings as they land and compare them against the plan. The companion guide on an Airbnb expense spreadsheet covers that tracking layout and the cost categories in detail.

Spreadsheet vs AirDNA-style calculators: which should you use?

Use a data tool to estimate the nightly rate and occupancy; use a spreadsheet to turn those estimates into profit with your own costs. They answer different questions.

The Airbnb & short-term rental profit calculator is a $14.99 one-time Excel and Google Sheets file that takes nightly rate, occupancy and nights, all recurring costs (cleaning, fees, utilities, restocking) and returns net profit, margin and break-even occupancy. It is also in the $49 Complete Toolkit with six other templates. If you are weighing the same house as a normal rental, the Airbnb vs long-term rental calculator guide runs both sets of numbers side by side.

Common mistakes in Airbnb income calculations

The biggest mistake is multiplying nightly rate by 365 and a hopeful occupancy, then stopping. Gross revenue is not income.

• Using peak-month occupancy for the whole year. Build a 12-month tab; a summer month and a January month are different businesses.
• Treating the cleaning fee as profit. In the example it loses $7.85 a stay after fees and supplies.
• Forgetting the platform fee applies to the cleaning fee too. Airbnb's fee page says host fees are a percentage of the nightly price and any fees the host charges.
• No reserves. Furniture, linens and repairs wear out faster with a new guest every few nights. Put a monthly reserve in fixed costs.
• Ignoring startup cost. Furnishing is cash out before night one. Divide it by annual net profit to get payback years; at $6,827.16 a year, every $10,000 of furnishing takes about 1.46 years to earn back.

For purchase-price returns, pair this with the cash-on-cash return calculator guide.

Step-by-step: Airbnb Profit Calculator Spreadsheet: The Formula, a Worked Example and Break-Even Occupancy

1. Set revenue inputs. Enter nightly rate, expected occupancy % and average stay length. Label each one as an assumption and use a conservative occupancy.
2. Compute nights, stays and gross. Booked nights = 365 x occupancy. Stays = nights / average stay. Gross = nights x rate + stays x cleaning fee.
3. Subtract variable costs. Take the platform fee % off gross, then subtract cleaning cost and supplies for every stay, plus any management %.
4. Subtract fixed costs. List every monthly fixed cost (mortgage or rent, tax, insurance, utilities, internet, software, reserves) and subtract 12 months of it.
5. Find break-even occupancy. Divide annual fixed costs by net earned per booked night x 365. Compare it to the occupancy you can realistically hold.
6. Stress-test. Rerun at occupancy 10 points lower and at the higher single-fee rate. If either turns the year negative, the deal is fragile.

Related guides