How to Price STR Turnover Cleaning for Profit

The quick answer

Complete turnover cost should include crew-hours, QC/admin time, travel, laundry, cleaning supplies, guest restocking, other direct cost and payment fees. Profitability and same-day feasibility should then be checked separately.

Calculate crew labor correctly

Two cleaners working 2.5 hours onsite create five cleaner-hours. If the loaded labor cost is 24 per cleaner-hour, labor cost is 120. This distinction matters because “2.5 hours” describes the guest-window clock while “five hours” describes paid labor consumption.

Loaded labor cost should reflect the cost basis the operator uses for pricing — wage plus employer burden where relevant, or an economic owner-labor cost for a solo cleaner.

Add the costs that disappear into the turn

Laundry, detergent, towel or linen handling, restocking, consumables, quality-control time and travel are easy to treat as overhead even when they scale with each turnover. If they occur because the property turned, they belong in the job-cost view.

For laundry, use a complete per-turn allocation or calculate it separately with the STR Linen & Laundry Turnaround Cost Planner.

Profitability and schedule feasibility are different

A turnover can have a strong margin and still miss the next guest. Compare the checkout-to-check-in window with elapsed onsite work, inspection time and a deliberate operating buffer.

If the property provides a six-hour guest window and the plan consumes five hours and forty-five minutes, there is very little tolerance for access delay, extra mess or maintenance coordination. A margin calculation does not reveal that risk.

Worked example

A two-cleaner team spends 2.25 clock hours onsite at 24 per cleaner-hour. QC is twenty minutes at 24/hour. Laundry costs 28, supplies 12, guest restock 18, round-trip travel is eighteen miles at 0.67/mile, and other direct cost is 5. The charge is 185 with a 2.9% payment fee.

• Crew labor = 2 × 2.25 × 24 = 108
• QC = 20/60 × 24 = 8
• Travel = 18 × 0.67 = 12.06
• Laundry + supplies + restock + other = 63
• Payment fee ≈ 5.37

At a 185 charge, the example is losing money even before fixed overhead. That is exactly why a high-looking turnover fee can still underperform when the operator bears laundry, restock and multi-person labor.

Use a target charge carefully

A target charge derived from cost and desired margin is an economic floor under the entered assumptions. It is not proof that the market will accept that price. If the target is far above current customer pricing, review process time, service scope, laundry responsibility, route density and customer fit before simply increasing the fee.

Operational workflow for STR cleaning

1. Time real turnovers by property type.
2. Reconcile actual cleaner-hours rather than scheduled hours.
3. Allocate laundry and restocking consistently.
4. Review profit per turn and variance from estimate.
5. Check the next guest window before accepting same-day work.
6. Use the Crew Feasibility Board when several properties compete for the same teams.