The same percentage, two different bills
Suppose a guest books your place for a week. The total they pay is one thousand dollars, and one hundred and fifty of that is the cleaning fee. That cleaning fee is not income. It goes to the person who cleans the property.
A manager billing on gross bookings calculates their fee on the full thousand. A manager billing on payout calculates it on the eight hundred and fifty that is actually yours.
At eighteen percent, that is one hundred and eighty dollars against one hundred and fifty-three. Twenty-seven dollars on a single booking, from an identical quoted rate.
Why it compounds
Twenty-seven dollars is not a reason to change managers. The reason it matters is that it is not a one-off.
A property turning over four times a month at that cleaning fee generates roughly six hundred dollars of cleaning money per month that is not income. Billed at eighteen percent, that is about a hundred and eight dollars a month, or thirteen hundred a year, charged against money that passed straight through your account to a cleaner.
Over a full year of bookings, that difference alone can cover weeks of management.
How to check what you are actually being billed on
The wording to look for in an agreement is the definition of the fee base. Phrases like gross booking revenue, total booking value or gross rental income generally mean the full amount the guest paid. Phrases like host payout, net rental income or amounts received generally mean what reached you.
If the agreement does not define it, ask for it in writing before you sign. A manager who is billing on payout will have no difficulty confirming it. One who is not may take a while to answer.
The honest version of this argument
We should be straight about the size of this. Billing basis is not the largest number in your hosting economics. Your nightly rate and your occupancy matter far more, and a manager who bills on payout but prices your property badly will cost you more than one who bills on gross and prices it well.
What billing basis tells you is something else. It tells you whether the person quoting you a number is comfortable being checked. That turns out to correlate with quite a lot.
Our fee is calculated on your payout. You can run the arithmetic on your own numbers with the comparison on our pricing page.