How do Cohosts Earn Money?
Cohosting business models range from once-off fee-for-service right through to earning a percentage of bookings.
The most common ways they earn money are:
- Monthly Retainer
- Percentage of Takings
Monthly Retainer
Cohosts on retainers tend to charge a fixed fee for a set range of work that is performed on a monthly basis.
With markets, prices and seasons constantly changing in the travel industry it pays to keep up to date to ensure your Stay remains relevant to the market at each point in time.
Retainers tend to be a combination of:
- Number of your Stays, properties, or listings you have, and
- Number of rooms
A small 1 room operator might pay, say, $50 a month for maintaining their single room listing whereas a 40 room apart-hotel might end up paying $200 to maintain a range of listings.
If housekeeping or meet & greets are involved there might be an additional fee based on the number of guests serviced each month.
Percentage of Takings
Some Cohosts will take on a greater share of the hosting responsibilities in return for a share of earnings.
Its not unusual for a full-service Cohost to charge up to around 45% of earnings in return for doing a lot of the work needed to host guests at your property.
Often, Cohosts like to start with smaller, retainer services to learn about the Stay before offering new deals like Percentage of Takings.