Which Platform Earns You More? The Answer Is Net Income After Commission

2026-10-16 · Hostopus · 5 min read

A ₺10,000 booking from Airbnb and a ₺10,000 booking from Booking.com don't leave the same amount in your bank account. The platform's cut, cancellations and nightly price all vary from channel to channel. Many owners treat the platform that brings the most bookings as the most profitable one. For a fair comparison you need to look at what's left in each channel after commission.

How Much Do the Platforms Take?

Airbnb. According to Airbnb's service fee page (2026) there are two structures. Under the split fee, most hosts pay 3% and the guest separately pays a service fee of 14.1% to 16.5% of the subtotal. Under the single fee, the whole fee is deducted from the host's payout and most hosts pay 15.5%. Airbnb says hosts who use property management software are on the single fee, and that the split fee will be retired once all hosts have moved over. If you use a channel manager, plan around a deduction of roughly 15.5%.

Booking.com. According to Booking.com's partner help page, the commission rate depends on your country, property type and the agreement you signed. There's no single rate for everyone. You'll find yours in your agreement or in the extranet's Finance tab under reservation statements. If you've joined a programme such as Preferred Partner or Visibility Booster, the rate goes up.

Commission applies to the room rate and also to extra fees such as cleaning.
Cancellation and no-show fees you collect are commissionable too. On a non-refundable booking you pay commission even if the guest never arrives.
Local taxes such as city tax are not commissionable. In most countries VAT is.
The commission invoice arrives once a month and covers guests who checked out the previous month.

Comparing Manually, Step by Step

You can do this yourself with a spreadsheet. Here's how:

Pick a period. Use the last 12 months or a full season. A single month can mislead because of a few cancellations or one long stay.
Put the bookings in a sheet. From each platform's dashboard, take that period's bookings, amounts and deductions. On Booking.com these are in the extranet's Finance tab.
Get five numbers per channel: total revenue, total commission, nights, bookings and cancellations.
Work out net income: revenue minus commission. Then divide net income by nights. Net per night is the number to compare channels on.
Check the cancellation rate: cancelled bookings divided by cancelled plus completed bookings. A high rate means nights that open up at the last minute.
Check how far ahead guests book: for each booking, count the days between the booking date and check-in. Early bookings give you time to adjust your price. Last-minute bookings fill nights that would otherwise stay empty.

A simple example (the figures are illustrative, use your own rates): Airbnb, 10 nights at ₺3,000, total ₺30,000. With a 15.5% fee you keep ₺25,350, or ₺2,535 per night. Booking.com, 10 nights at ₺3,200, total ₺32,000. If your agreement says 15%, you keep ₺27,200, or ₺2,720 per night. Here Booking.com's higher nightly price covers its commission. Once cancellations and empty nights are counted, the result can change.

Why It Gets Hard

The reports don't match. Each platform uses different columns and dates. Booking.com bills commission on a separate invoice the month after checkout.
Stays cross month boundaries. A guest arriving on 28 March and leaving on 4 April should be split across two months. Manual sheets usually skip this.
Currencies get mixed. One platform may pay in euros, another in lira.
More homes, bigger sheet. Three homes on three platforms means nine statements every month.

With one home this takes a few hours. With several, it either never happens or happens once a year, and the channel decision ends up a guess.

Channel Analysis in Hostopus

Because Hostopus keeps your calendar and bookings in one place, this comparison is ready for you. We explain how a channel manager works in What Is a Channel Manager?.

On the Channel Analysis screen you choose a year, a month (or the whole year) and a property. Each channel is listed with its revenue, number of bookings and share of total revenue. The highest-earning channel sits at the top.

Tap a channel to see:

Commission Rate and Channel Commission: the total the platform took in that period.
Net After Commission: revenue minus commission, the money you actually keep.
Nights and Nightly Average: nights from that channel and revenue per night.
On a computer or wide screen, also average nights per booking, average revenue per booking, guests, revenue per guest and the number of bookings cancelled in that period.

You don't enter commission by hand. When Airbnb and Booking.com bookings arrive through the channel manager, the commission the platform reports is recorded as an expense. Booking.com's reported payment charge is added to the channel commission as well. If a channel doesn't send commission data, these rows stay blank (—). Direct bookings show zero commission. For stays that cross the period boundary, revenue and commission are split by the share of nights inside your selected period. Amounts are shown in the currency you choose.

Cards at the bottom show the period's largest booking, longest stay, the channel with the highest nightly average (Best ADR) and the channel bringing the most revenue. The screen doesn't show how far ahead bookings were made. For that, use the manual method above.

In Short

When you compare channels, look at net income per night after commission, and at the cancellation rate. If you'd rather not rebuild this sheet every month, you can try Hostopus free for 60 days.