“What should I charge?” is the question every host asks and almost nobody answers with a method. Most hosts pick a number that feels right, check it against two or three nearby listings, and never touch it again. That works — in the sense that bookings happen. It also quietly costs money in both directions: too high on slow weeknights, too low on the handful of nights when your market is packed.
Here is the method, in four steps. We'll run a real example alongside: a 2-bedroom house in Winnipeg, Manitoba, currently charging $200/night.
Step 1 — Know your floor (the price below which you lose)
Add up what a booked night actually costs you: mortgage or rent share, utilities, insurance, supplies, cleaning you don't pass through, platform fees (typically ~3% on the split-fee model, ~15% host-only), and a realistic hourly value on your own time. Divide by the nights you actually book per month — not 30.
- Example: our Winnipeg house carries about $1,900/month in allocated costs and books ~20 nights a month. That's a floor of roughly $95/night. Below that, a booking is a favour to the guest.
The floor is not your price. It's the line under the whole exercise — and it's the number that tells you whether a “fill the calendar” discount strategy is actually profitable.
Step 2 — Find your market baseline
Search your own area the way a guest would: same dates two weeks out, your bedroom count, your rough quality tier. Note the nightly totals (rate + cleaning fee ÷ nights — guests compare totals, not sticker rates) for the 5–8 listings that genuinely compete with yours. The middle of that pack is your baseline.
- Example: comparable 2-bed houses in Winnipeg cluster between $150 and $210 — baseline call: ~$175. Our host's $200 is near the top of the pack: a premium position that only pays if the listing shows premium (photos, reviews, amenities).
Step 3 — Move with demand, night by night
This is the step most hosts skip, and it's where the real money is. A single nightly rate treats a rainy Tuesday and a sold-out concert Saturday as the same product. They are not.
- Weekends: Friday/Saturday typically support 15–35% over your baseline in leisure markets.
- Events: concerts, sports, festivals, conventions — the nights when demand outruns supply. These support the biggest premiums, and they are the easiest nights to underprice badly.
- Holidays & season: long weekends and high season lift the whole curve; deep off-season drags it down (that's when you compete on price or minimum-stay flexibility).
- Example: when we ran this Winnipeg listing through the free pricing score, it found 59 events driving demand nearby and priced one Saturday — a Winnipeg Sea Bears game night — at $345 against the host's flat $200. That's $145 left on the table on a single night, and the score counted 24 higher-demand nights in the next 30 days worth ≈$1,725 combined.
Step 4 — Position your fees so your total wins
Guests shop the total. A $160 rate with an $80 cleaning fee loses a 2-night comparison to $185 with a $40 fee, even though it looks cheaper. Keep the cleaning fee near your true cost, and put your margin in the nightly rate — it's the number that scales with demand and the one search results sort by.
The cadence: 15 minutes, twice a month
- Recheck your comp set's totals (they move).
- Scan the next 6–8 weeks for events and holidays you haven't priced.
- Raise your weekend and event nights first; discounting comes last.
- Watch your booking window — filling up 3+ weeks out is usually a sign you're cheap, not popular.
Or let the engine do the scan: the free score reads your market's next 30 days in about 30 seconds, and the one-time $9 Snapshot Report turns it into a night-by-night plan. No subscription — this guide plus one report is a complete pricing system for a single-listing host.