Owning and managing a short-term rental property is a business endeavor, so performance should be closely and continuously tracked to make sure that you hit your targets and identify opportunities for improvement. But what are the most important Airbnb metrics that every host and manager should keep track of?
This article lists the top 27 Airbnb metrics and KPIs for savvy STR operators to monitor and work on improving over time. We explain the significance of each data point, where to find it, how to calculate it, and how to boost it. We conclude with the best Airbnb metrics platforms for monitoring your progress and optimizing these major KPIs in order to improve performance and profit in your Airbnb business.
To start tracking your Airbnb KPIs and comparing your performance to competitors with custom-built reports, sign up for SummerOS. It's your all-in-one dashboard for measuring performance in your portfolio over time.
What's the Airbnb North Star Metric?
While the single most important performance metric in the short-term rental business could be up for discussion, the industry has generally reached a consensus that your Airbnb North Star Metric starts with the number of booked nights.
This metric goes back to the very nature of the vacation rental industry that aims to provide accommodation to guests on a short-term basis, similar to hotels and other lodging enterprises. As such, it makes perfect sense to measure hospitality success as the number of bookings that you manage to generate over a specified period of time, usually a month or a year.
The importance of total booked nights over other Airbnb KPIs lies in the fact that it eventually measures the effectiveness of your overall marketing efforts and Airbnb pricing strategy. You number of booked nights can show:
- How good your listing on Airbnb and other rental websites is
- How well your distribution, marketing, and advertising plans work
- How well-fitted your daily rates are
- How quickly your team is able to handle turnovers
- How satisfied guests are with your property and services
At the same time, bookings directly impact other important Airbnb metrics, such as:
- Occupancy rate
- Revenue
- Recurring expenses
- Cash flow
- Return on investment (ROI)
However, focusing entirely on this metric is not enough to run a successful and profitable vacation rental business. Here's the other ones to track.
The best Airbnb metrics to track
In addition to always tracking and working towards getting more bookings on Airbnb, you need to constantly monitor a range of other Airbnb analytics for hosts and property managers.
Following are the most important Airbnb metrics to keep an eye on in short-term rental property management.
1. Occupancy rate
Your Airbnb occupancy rate is one of the key measures of success in the vacation rental industry as–together with the daily rate–it determines how much money you make from your rental property. Occupancy is defined as the number of days for which a property is booked over the total number of days in the time period, while adjusted occupancy refers to the number of booked nights over the number of nights for which the property is available for rent.
To find the Airbnb occupancy rate of a property, use the following formula:
Airbnb Occupancy Rate = Number of Booked Nights/Number of Available Nights x 100%
So, if a STR is occupied for 120 days per calendar year, it has an occupancy rate of 33%.
Let's look at an example to fully appreciate the importance of occupancy. Property A and Property B have the same average daily rate (discussed shortly) of $250/night, while Property A has an occupancy rate of 50% and Property B has an occupancy rate of 75%.
This means that Property A generates booking revenue of $45,625 per year, whereas Property B earns $68,437 per year. As a result of the better occupancy rate, Host B makes $22,812 more each year than Host A.
2. Average daily rate (ADR)
The average daily rate (ADR) refers to the average revenue per night that a property earns over a month or a year. The need for this performance metric stems from the fact that Airbnb rates need to be dynamically adjusted day over day to capture changes between supply and demand in the market.
ADR is calculated using the following formula:
Average Daily Rate = Total Revenue/Number of Booked Nights
For instance, a property that earned $50,000 over the course of the year after being rented for 220 nights has an ADR of $227.
We rank the average daily rate among the top Airbnb metrics because it's a major determinant of total revenue and profit. If Property A has an ADR of $150 and Property B has an ADR of $250, and both properties generate a 60% occupancy, Property A makes $32,850/year, while Property B earns $54,750/year.
Obviously, this can lead to a major difference in annual rental income, which makes it worth it for hosts and property managers to use Airbnb pricing tools, such as Wheelhouse and PriceLabs, to dynamically price their properties to maximize their average nightly rate.
3. Revenue per available rental (RevPAR)
Revenue per available rental, or RevPAR, is yet another KPI that Airbnb managers have borrowed from the wider hospitality industry. RevPAR measures the balance between the nightly price of a short-term rental and the bookings that it is able to attract. In other words, this is the revenue that a property is effectively capable of generating under the current marketing and pricing strategies.
The RevPAR formula looks like this:
RevPAR = Average Daily Rate (ADR) x Airbnb Occupancy Rate
Let's go through a quick calculation. A property that has an ADR of $240 and is booked 60% of the time boasts a RevPAR of $144.
Your ultimate goal as an investor, property manager, or Airbnb revenue manager is to make as much money as possible, and to do that, you have to work on maximizing both the nightly rates and occupancy to optimize total revenue. The RevPAR measures exactly how well you have been able to do this. That's what makes it such an important Airbnb metric to track.
4. Total revenue
Next on our list of the top Airbnb metrics is total revenue. This number reflects the total amount of revenue you generate from a property or your entire portfolio of short-term rentals over a month or a year.
Total Revenue = Booking Revenue (daily rate x occupancy) + Cleaning Fees + Pet Fees + Extra Guest Fees + Any Other Additional Fees
Basically, this is the sum of all fees that you collect from guests for providing them with accommodation, meals, hospitality services, and/or Airbnb experiences. Let's say you had 210 booked nights over 60 reservations with an ADR of $200 and a cleaning fee of $50. You charged $2,000 in pet fees and $3,000 in extra guest fees. Your total revenue would come out to $50,000.
The revenue that your property or business generates is crucial because it shows how much money you make as a host or a property manager. Of course, this is just a single metric. You still need to subtract expenses to calculate cash flow and divide by your investment to obtain profit.
5. Revenue per property
Another vacation rental property metric that owners and managers of Airbnb portfolios need to take into consideration is revenue per property. This refers to the amount of money that a specific property is able to make per month or per year. In essence, this is the total revenue of a certain property rather than an entire portfolio.
The reason to track revenue per property is to be able to assess whether all your short-term rentals are performing as expected or some of them might be underperforming.
For example, if you have two comparable condos within the same complex, and one of them makes $50,000/year, while the other earns only $30,000/year, there obviously is something amiss with the second rental. This is a strong indicator that you need to put extra effort into furnishing this second property, marketing it, or generating more 5-star reviews to catch up with the first condo. Otherwise, you're simply leaving $20,000/year on the table.
Using Summer Forecast, you can pinpoint underperforming properties by comparing their revenue metrics with market benchmarks and gain actionable insights to help you optimize pricing, occupancy, and performance for each property in your portfolio.
Your Airbnb revenue forecast: Brighter days ahead
Learn more
6. Revenue per channel
Yet another short-term rental KPI related to total revenue is revenue per channel. Although Airbnb is by far the most popular booking channel, there are other short-term rental platforms, such as Vrbo and Booking.com.
Revenue per channel shows the amount of revenue that your listing or listings on a certain website are able to make. This is a useful metric for measuring and comparing the income you get from each booking platform and should be used in marketing and other business decisions.
For instance, if your Airbnb listing generates $20,000 and your Vrbo listing brings in only $1,000, you need to decide whether you should put more effort into optimizing the Vrbo listing or focus more on the Airbnb platform.
7. Operating expenses
Though all previously listed measures focus on how much money you make from Airbnb, it's important to also look at the money that you spend on your business. After all, profitability is a function of both income and operating costs.
The most popular Airbnb operating expenses include:
- Airbnb property manager charges
- Airbnb host fees
- Airbnb revenue manager fees
- Cleaning, housekeeping, and supply restocking expenses
- Utilities
- Airbnb insurance
- Preventive maintenance
- Fixes and repairs
- Property taxes
- Short-term rental taxes (transient occupancy tax, sales tax, etc.)
- Rental income tax
- Legal, accounting, and other professional service fees
As part of your Airbnb accounting processes, track all money that goes into managing and maintaining your vacation rental and whether the amount is going up or down over time. Growing recurring costs might be a sign of inefficiencies, while declining expenses could indicate that you are starting to neglect the proper management of your rental, which might have a negative impact on bookings and revenue in the future.
8. Net operating income (NOI)
The next Airbnb metric that you should take into account is the net operating income, or NOI for short. This measures the difference between the money that you make from your rental business and the money that you spend on it. It is similar to cash flow and should always be positive to make sure that you make money rather than lose money from your STRs.
NOI is calculated using the following formula:
Net Operating Income = Total Revenue - Total Operating Expenses
So, let's say a property earns $65,000 in total revenue per year and needs $20,000 in various operating costs and expenses. In this case, the property has an NOI of $45,000. This number is used in various profitability calculations.
9. Profit margin
Our list continues with Airbnb metrics that focus on profitability as it is the ultimate goal of all hosts and property managers to generate as high a return on their investment as possible. One of the most straightforward profitability measures for short-term rental properties is the profit margin. This financial metric measures the earnings by an Airbnb business relative to revenue.
Profit margin is calculated using the following formula:
Profit Margin = Net Operating Income / Revenue x 100%
If we go back to the example above, a property makes total revenue of $65,000 and costs $20,000/year to manage.
Profit Margin = $45,000 / $65,000 x 100% = 69%
Generally speaking, a high profit margin signifies that you are able to manage your vacation rental in an efficient manner that maximizes income and minimizes cost. However, you should be aware of unreasonably high profit margins as this might signal that you don't spend enough money on maintaining, upgrading, and marketing your vacation rental, which might undermine revenue or lead to long-term problems with the home.
10. Capitalization rate (cap rate)
Capitalization rate (cap rate) is the most popular profitability metric in real estate investing, in general, and Airbnb investments are no different. This KPI measures the ratio between the net revenue generated by a rental property and its market value.
The cap rate formula is:
Cap Rate = Net Operating Income / Current Market Value x 100%
If you buy an investment property for $550,000 and it brings in $65,000/year in revenue and $20,000/year in costs:
Cap Rate = $45,000 / $550,000 x 100% = 8.2%
According to Airbnb statistics, a good cap rate is between 8% and 12% as this range strikes the right balance between strong ROI and reasonable investment risk. Airbnbs with a cap rate below 8% are generally not worth the investment, and those with a cap rate above 12% are often too risky.
When using the capitalization rate metric, keep in mind that it doesn't take into consideration the method of financing your property.
11. Cash on cash return (CoC return)
Another must-use ROI metric for vacation rental properties is the cash on cash return, or CoC return. Unlike the cap rate, this KPI takes into consideration your financing method, which makes it a more sophisticated and comprehensive profit metric but also one that is harder to calculate.
The cash on cash return formula looks like this:
Cash on Cash Return = Annual Pre-Tax Cash Flow / Total Cash Investment x 100%
Let's say you buy a rental property that costs $450,000 and put down 40%. In addition, you spend $50,000 on closing costs, renovations, Airbnb furnishing services, and everything else needed to launch your business. In the first year, your property generates a cash flow of $20,000 before tax.
Cash on Cash Return = $20,000 / (40% x $450,000 + $50,000) x 100% = 8.7%
The cash on cash return is arguably the most important ROI Airbnb metric as it measures your profit compared to the money you have invested.
12. Year-over-year growth (YoY growth)
The next Airbnb KPI that hosts and property managers should track is year-over-year growth. This refers to the increase in total revenue that your property has been able to earn over the course of the last calendar year compared to the year before.
YoY Growth = (Total Revenue Year 2 - Total Revenue Year 1) / Total Revenue Year 1 x 100%
If you made $45,000 in 2023 and $40,000 in 2022, then:
YoY Growth = ($45,000 - $40,000) / $40,000 x 100% = 12.5%
It should be your goal to grow with at least the rate of inflation each year to make sure that the money you make from your property increases along with the money you need to spend on managing and maintaining it. Ideally, your year-over-year growth exceeds inflation so that you generate higher profits each year.
13. Guest satisfaction score
Similar to any other business owner, as a host you have to measure customer satisfaction, and in the hospitality business this is done using the guest satisfaction score. The Airbnb website–and other booking channels–have a very straightforward manner of tracking this metric via guest reviews.
As guests write reviews of your listing, you get an average rating between one and five stars. Your aim is to get as many 5-star reviews as possible and no 1-star or 2-star reviews. The average rating of a listing plays a crucial role in its ranking in the Airbnb SEO algorithm and in the number of reservations that it gets. After all, guests want to make sure that they will get high-quality services when they book a property, and the best way to do that is to go for a property that other guests have been satisfied with.
14. Repeat guest rate
Getting repeat guests is an easy way to boost bookings, occupancy, and revenue without spending extra on marketing and advertising. That's why it is the dream of every host to bring back as many guests as possible and why the repeat guest rate is so important. In essence, it shows how many guests were satisfied enough with their experience you provided to come back again.
Repeat guest rate is calculated as follows:
Repeat Guest Rate = Number of Repeat Guests / Total Number of Guests x 100%
If in a year you welcome 120 guests, and 14 of them are repeat guests, the repeat guest rate is 11.7%.
15. Number of bookings
Our list of the most important Airbnb metrics continues with a KPI that is closely related to the so-called Airbnb North Star Metric but is still significantly different. This is the number of bookings. This refers to the number of different reservations that you get in a month or a year and is different from the booked nights as each booking might continue one, two, three, or more nights.
As a host or a property manager, you should work actively on getting more bookings on Airbnb. It demonstrates how good your marketing efforts are, how effective your pricing plan is, and how many positive reviews you are able to get. But it's also worth noting that a low number of bookings is not necessarily bad if the total number of booked nights is still high. This means that your guests tend to go for Airbnb long-term rentals, which are a great way to enhance revenue while spending less time on marketing, housekeeping, and turnover.
16. Average length of stay (ALOS)
This brings us to another major short-term rental KPI: namely, the average length of stay (ALOS). This measures the average duration of guest stays at your property in terms of nights.
ALOS is calculated using the following formula:
Average Length of Stay = Total Number of Booked Nights / Total Number of Bookings
So, if your property is occupied for 250 nights over 150 different reservations, the ALOS is 1.7 nights.
In general, it is better to have longer guest stays as this minimizes the level of effort you need to put into marketing your property and as it brings down guest turnover workload. You can try to promote longer stays by offering discounts on weekly and monthly stays, for instance. However, there is nothing wrong with short-term stays as long as other Airbnb metrics make sense and you are continuously driving profit.
17. Booking rate
Another important metric is the booking rate. There are a few possible ways to measure the booking rate, but the most popular one is:
Booking Rate = Number of Bookings / Number of Inquiries x 100%
Let's take a look at an example. If you receive 600 messages from guests asking about your property and get 100 reservations from them, your booking rate is 16.7%.
A low booking rate might be a sign that your communication is slow and inefficient or that the information in your listing is deceitful. If that's the case, it's worth investing in Airbnb management software that can help automate guest communication or spending time on reviewing and updating your listing information.
18. Listing views
Taking a step back, how many views your listing gets is one of the factors that determines how many bookings you will eventually generate. After all, you need guests to see your Airbnb listing before they are able to book it. This is a direct indication of the quality and effectiveness of your Airbnb SEO work and your marketing efforts outside the Airbnb platform (with links to the listing on Airbnb).
To increase the number of guest visits, you have to optimize your listing title, listing description, photos, and list of amenities, work on competitive, dynamic pricing, and obtain a lot of 5-star reviews. All these factors play a role in ranking high on Airbnb search results and making potential guests click on your listing.
19. Click-through rate (CTR)
After you get your listing to rank in guest searches on the Airbnb website, it's important for them to click on your listing to have a look at it and potentially book it. The click-through rate, or CTR, measures what percentage of the guests who view your property click on it to open the full listing page.
Click-Through Rate = Clicks on Listing / Listing Views x 100%
If 1,000 guests see your property when they search for an accommodation and 150 of them click on it, the CTR is 15%.
A low CTR could indicate that your listing title and featured photo are not attractive enough to spike guest interest. If you see your click-through rate dropping, spend some time studying the competition and analyzing how you could improve your title and photos. Needless to say, you need guests to open your listing in order to make a reservation.
20. Cancellation rate
The next Airbnb metric that's worth keeping track of is the cancellation rate. This measures what percentage of the bookings that you get end up being canceled by guests prior to their stay.
Cancellation Rate = Canceled Bookings / Total Number of Bookings x 100%
If guests make 200 reservations and cancel 20 of them, your cancellation rate is 10%.
Your cancellation rate is largely impacted by your listing's cancellation policy. While it's good to have a generous cancellation policy to attract more reservations, your policy should not be too loose as more guests will end up canceling at the last minute, leading to fewer bookings and less revenue.
It's important to keep in mind that the Airbnb website requires a cancellation rate of less than 1% to qualify for an Airbnb Superhost, which means that you can benefit from additional exposure on the platform.
21. Average response time
Returning to the significance of prompt and effective communication with guests, another major Airbnb KPI is your average response time. This is how long it takes you to respond to guest inquiries.
Ideally, you should aim to get back to questions within 1-2 hours to boost bookings, and it is an absolute must to respond within 24 hours. As being available 24/7 is unattainable, unless you operate an entire property management team, it's a good idea to look into options to automate communication with Airbnb host tools.
22. Response rate
Building on the topic of communication, one more metric to pay attention to is the response rate. This represents the share of guest inquiries to which you respond within the first 24 hours. Your goal should be to have a response rate of 100% as that's the best way to ensure that you get as many reservations and positive reviews as possible.
To highlight the importance of this metric, obtaining and maintaining the Airbnb Superhost status requires a response rate of 90%+.
23. Channel distribution
Yet another significant metric is channel distribution. As mentioned above, it's a smart move to list your property on multiple booking channels as long as you can optimize listings, sync calendars, and coordinate pricing. An Airbnb channel manager can help greatly in this regard.
While there isn't an exact way to measure channel distribution, this qualitative metric looks at how many platforms you use to market your property and how optimized your different listings are. It also considers what results you are able to drive from each booking channel.
24. Market share
Hosts and property managers should also care about the market share they are able to achieve. This Airbnb KPI measures what percentage of bookings they get compared to competitors.
Market Share = Your Number of Bookings / Total Number of Comp Bookings x 100%
Your market share depends largely on how big your market is and how saturated it is with listings. If your market is relatively small with a few dozen listings, you might be able to get a market share of 2-3%. But if your market is huge with thousands of similar properties, your market share would be significantly less than 1%. Generally speaking, this metric makes more sense for large property management companies with a number of properties in a market rather than hosts with one or two listings.
In any case, you should be always aiming to increase your market share as you outperform more and more competitors due to better marketing and smarter pricing.
25. Turnover time
A metric that measures directly how efficient your housekeeping efforts are is the turnover time. This is the time that you need to prepare your property for new guests after check-out. Typically, hosts need a day to clean and restock their rental, while professional managers require just a couple of hours.
Using the best Airbnb cleaning services that automates cleaning and housekeeping, such as Turno or Tidy, can help you bring down turnover time to generate more bookings without compromising cleanliness.
26. Seasonal occupancy variations
The final measure on our list of the must-have Airbnb metrics is seasonal occupancy variations. As you probably already know, the short-term rental industry is highly seasonal, and demand depends on the season of the year, the day of the week, major holidays, popular events, and other factors. Meanwhile, maintaining a high occupancy rate throughout the year is key to earning strong income.
Thus, you should keep track of variations in bookings over the year and put effort into minimizing such variations. One way to do that is to implement dynamic pricing where you lower rates during the slow season to get a few additional reservations. Another strategy is to boost your marketing efforts out of season, consider creative marketing methods to attract new types of guests, and to reconnect with repeat guests.
Does Airbnb have analytics?
Managing an Airbnb requires a lot of metrics and KPIs, but the good news is that the listing platform provides access to some of these metrics. This means that hosts can assess and compare the performance of their listings based on certain criteria by simply visiting the Insights section in their Airbnb host account.
Airbnb provides the following data points and analytics:
- Nights blocked
- Nights booked
- Nights unbooked
- Check-ins
- Occupancy rate
- Average nightly rate
- Monthly and annual earnings
- Earnings by listing
- Earnings by payout method
- Host service fee
- Taxes withheld
- Total net pay
- Average length of stay
- Response time
- Response rate
- Cancellation rate
The main benefit of getting Airbnb metrics directly from their website is that they are 100% accurate as they come right from the source. However, there are some limitations that hosts and property managers need to be aware of. First and foremost, some of the data provided by Airbnb is in a raw form and you need to make some calculations to obtain trackable KPIs. In addition, some important metrics, such as those measuring NOI and ROI, are not available as Airbnb does not have a way of tracking operating expenses. Furthermore, the analytics offered by the website reflect the performance of listings on this platform only and do not account for the performance of listings on other platforms.
Thus, it's important to find a more efficient way to track overall performance analytics. This can be done with the help of professional host tools.
The best Airbnb metrics platforms
Where the Airbnb platform falls short in providing necessary metrics and data analytics to hosts, third-party hosting tools can fill in the gap. The best vacation rental management software platforms offer analytics and reporting functions that allow hosts and managers to keep track of the performance of their individual properties and entire portfolios in an easy and convenient manner.
These are the top Airbnb metrics platforms for hosts and property managers.
1. SummerOS
SummerOS is your all-in-one short-term rental management platform, designed by property managers for property managers. Within the platform, you'll get a quick summary on each property as well as specific details on the most important Airbnb statistics including but not limited to gross revenue, net revenue, RevPAR, average daily rate, occupancy rate, and more.
Most importantly, you can build your own custom reports for your team to keep track of the measures that matter the most to your business over time. SummerOS operates as your centralized data source for advanced, yet intuitive Airbnb analytics and insights that empower you with the historical, real-time, and future data that you need to make smarter management decisions. Whether you're managing a few properties or an extensive portfolio, you can track property and portfolio performance as well as generate reports and dashboards to present KPIs to property owners.
Take your Airbnb metrics to the next level with Forecast in SummerOS, your ultimate tool for short-term rental performance analysis. With institutional-quality data, Forecast enables you to compare your listings against market averages and similar properties, providing key insights into revenue, occupancy, and pricing. By leveraging these metrics, you can identify underperforming properties, uncover growth opportunities, and make data-driven decisions to maximize your portfolio's success.
2. Guesty
The Guesty property management software offers Guesty Analytics for access to Airbnb metrics and KPIs. This tool embedded in the PMS platform aims to help increase revenue potential and improve operational productivity. This is done via competitive benchmarking, detailed reservation rundown, revenue mapping, review insights, and communication analysis.
3. Hostaway
As one of the top property management systems (PMS) for vacation rentals, Hostaway has a dedicated Analytics & Reporting tool. The platform helps hosts build Airbnb KPI reports to track and understand occupancy, revenue, profit margin, and expenses. Moreover, property managers can aggregate financial performance reports to share with owners.
4. Hospitable
Hospitable, another popular Airbnb management software, has a Metrics Dashboard that hosts can use to monitor the performance of their vacation rentals. You can use the available filters to customize reports based on your own criteria and also export them for additional offline analysis.
Start tracking your Airbnb metrics today
Managing a short-term rental property is a business endeavor and should be treated as such. This means that whether you're a DIY host or a professional manager, you have to build the necessary systems to continuously and accurately track Airbnb metrics to make sure that your business remains on the growth trajectory. While there are over 20 important Airbnb KPIs, monitoring them should not be mission impossible as long as you have access to the right tools.
SummerOS helps you build customized performance reports to track the key analytics for your portfolio. Centralize your short-term rental data and analytics into one powerful platform to manage smarter, grow faster, and stay ahead of the competition.
