Margin and markup answer different questions
Markup is the amount added on top of a cost. Margin is the amount left over as a share of the final charge. They are not interchangeable. With $100 of turnover costs and no transaction fees, a 20% markup produces a $120 charge. The $20 left over is 16.67% of that charge. To leave a 20% margin, the charge would need to be $125.
The cleaning fee calculator uses target margin. Its formula divides costs by the portion of the charge that remains after the percentage fee and target margin. The calculator does not assume that every host wants a margin; enter zero if the goal is simply to cover costs.
Account for deductions on the charge
Enter the combined percentage actually deducted from the cleaning charge, plus any fixed transaction charge allocated to the turnover. Check your statement or agreement for the fee base. A fee on nightly accommodation revenue is not automatically a fee on cleaning revenue.
Illustrative calculation: $100 of direct costs, a $2 fixed fee, a 5% percentage fee, and a 15% target margin require $102 ÷ 0.80 = $127.50. At that charge, the percentage fee is $6.375 before any processor-specific rounding. The model retains full precision internally and displays currency rounded to cents.
When the fee percentage plus the desired margin reaches 100%, there is no remaining share of the charge to cover costs. The tool flags this instead of displaying an infinite or invalid result. This is a limit of the entered pricing equation, not a temporary website error.
View the fee across the stay
A single turnover charge is spread across more nights during a longer stay. A hypothetical $120 cleaning charge adds $60 per night to a two-night reservation, but $20 per night to a six-night reservation. The property still has one ordinary turnover in each example. The calculator's per-night figure shows that distribution; it does not change the actual cleaning charge.
Stay length also changes the number of turnovers in a month. Use the monthly turnover input to see how direct cleaning costs scale. If comparing whole-property cash flow, move the same assumptions into the profit calculator, which estimates bookings from occupied nights divided by average stay.
Review the whole service, then the price
Do not remove a real cost merely to produce a lower-looking fee. First check scope, quoted labor, laundry, included supplies, and duplicated overhead. The cleaning quote checklist helps with that review. Guest expectations and the final booking price also matter, but this tool does not measure demand or predict whether a price will sell.
Use the result as a transparent cost model. Revisit it when the cleaning scope, actual time, or fee agreement changes, rather than assuming one charge will remain appropriate indefinitely.