Hand over the whole thing.
Full Airbnb and short-term rental management in Auckland — pricing, listing, guest messaging, turnovers, linen, maintenance, reporting and the seasonal work that keeps a property earning. 15% + GST of accommodation revenue. After handover there is nothing left on your list. We take on a small number of properties, because we would rather run the best portfolio in Auckland than the biggest one.
The Cleaning Company provides full Airbnb and short-term rental management in Auckland, New Zealand for 15% + GST of accommodation revenue — the booking total after the cleaning fee. The guest-paid cleaning fee comes to us and covers the turnover, linen and guest amenities. The fee includes nightly pricing and calendar management, listing management, guest messaging, turnover cleaning performed in-house, linen and consumable supply, maintenance coordination, key and access management, monthly owner reporting and annual seasonal improvements. There is no setup fee, no monthly retainer, no minimum term, and nothing payable in a month with no bookings.
- Service
- Full short-stay / Airbnb property management
- Management fee
- 15% + GST of accommodation revenue
- Cleaning fee
- Guest-paid, comes to us, covers turnover, linen and amenities
- Setup fee
- None
- Monthly retainer
- None. No bookings, no fee
- Term
- Month to month, no minimum
- Cleaning
- Performed in-house, not subcontracted
- Area
- Central Auckland, city fringe and lower North Shore
Two lines, and no third
Short-stay management pricing is usually deliberately hard to compare. Ours is not, because we would rather you arrived already knowing the number.
What the guest pays
Every booking has two parts: the accommodation, and a cleaning fee. That is already how your listing works.
Where each part goes
The cleaning fee comes to us, and covers the turnover, the linen and the guest amenities — so you are not buying towels, toilet paper or coffee pods out of your own pocket ever again.
Of the accommodation revenue, we take 15% + GST. That single figure covers everything else: pricing, listing, messaging, maintenance, reporting, seasonal work. Nothing is billed on top.
Platform payouts go straight to your account as they do now. We invoice monthly with a statement showing every booking and how the fee was calculated.
| Accommodation revenue 20 nights at $250 | $5,000 |
| Cleaning fees 8 bookings, guest-paid | to us |
| Management fee 15% of $5,000, plus GST | $750 + GST |
| You receive | $4,250 |
| Your admin time | None |
Figures are illustrative. Your own rates, occupancy and cleaning fee will differ, and GST is recoverable if you are registered.
Everything the 15% covers
Not a starting point with add-ons underneath it. This is the list.
Revenue
- Nightly pricing set against what comparable properties actually achieve
- Calendar managed continuously, not set once
- Rates moved for demand, events, school holidays and season
- Minimum stays and gap nights managed to protect occupancy
Guests
- Listing written, photographed and kept current
- Every enquiry and message answered, start to finish
- Check-in, access and instructions handled
- Reviews managed, and issues resolved before they become one
The property
- Turnover cleaning to a photographed standard, in-house
- Linen supplied, swapped, commercially laundered and replaced
- Consumables held and restocked every changeover
- Keys, codes and building access held and managed
Oversight
- Maintenance spotted, arranged, met on site and verified
- Monthly statement: bookings, revenue, fees, occupancy
- Same-day photos of anything you need to know about
- Annual seasonal review of what is costing you bookings
Most managers at this rate do not clean your property
Full-service short-stay management in New Zealand is generally quoted somewhere between 15 and 20%. What that figure hides is how much of the work is actually performed by the company you are paying.
Almost every management business subcontracts the cleaning. They hold a relationship with a contractor, and the contractor is whoever is reliable and cheap in that suburb — which works until a changeover is missed, and then it becomes a conversation between two companies while your guest is standing at the door.
We started as the cleaners. The Cleaning Company has cleaned Auckland properties since 2012 and run short-stay turnovers since Airbnb arrived in the city. Every turnover on a managed property is done by our own team. At the same percentage, more of the work is genuinely ours — and the part most likely to cost you a review is the part we have been doing longest.
What handover actually looks like
We walk the property
An hour on site. We photograph the guest-ready standard, count linen and inventory, note the surfaces that need care, and find out what already goes wrong.
You get the numbers in writing
What we think the property should be earning, what we would change to get it there, and the fee. Nothing starts until you have all of it in writing.
We take the keys and the login
Access arranged, par stock built, listing reviewed and repriced, calendar taken over. This is the last thing that asks anything of you.
You stop thinking about it
Guest-ready photos after every changeover, a statement each month, and a message when something genuinely needs your decision. Otherwise, nothing.
Six questions worth asking every manager you talk to
Including us. Short-stay management is sold on adjectives — seamless, hands-off, data-driven — and almost every company promises the same list. These are the questions that actually separate them, and our answers are underneath each one.
Who physically cleans my property, and do they work for you?
This is the one that matters most and the one most often answered vaguely. Cleaning is what your guest reviews, and it is the service most management companies buy in from whichever contractor is cheapest and available in that suburb.
Ours do. The Cleaning Company started as a cleaning business in 2012 and every turnover on a managed property is done by our own team. We did not add cleaning to a management company; we added management to a cleaning company.
How long have you been doing this, and how many properties do you run?
Ask for both numbers. A company that will not give you either is telling you something.
Since 2012, and short-stay turnovers since Airbnb arrived in Auckland. We run a deliberately small managed portfolio and we will tell you the number on the phone. We have also run the housekeeping for one boutique operator's portfolio continuously since 2018.
What is your fee, and what exactly is it charged on?
Percentages are not comparable until you know the base. The same headline number can be charged on gross booking value, on revenue after platform fees, before or after GST, with or without the cleaning fee included.
15% + GST of accommodation revenue — the booking total after the cleaning fee comes out. Full management in Auckland is commonly quoted between 15% and 20% plus GST, so ask each company to show you the same calculation on the same booking.
What will I actually take home, after cleaning and linen?
Income estimates in this industry almost always show gross revenue minus the management fee, and stop there — no cleaning, no linen, no consumables, no maintenance, no vacancy. That is not what lands in your account.
Ask for a figure with those costs netted out. We will build you one for your property, and we will use conservative occupancy rather than the best month you could theoretically have.
What happens if I want to leave?
Ask about the notice period, forward bookings, and who owns the listing and its reviews when you go.
Month to month, no minimum term. The listing, the account, the login and every review were always yours and stay yours. We hold nothing hostage — a business that needs a lock-in period is telling you how it expects the relationship to go.
Can I speak to an owner you manage for right now?
Not a testimonial on a website. A phone call with a real client.
Yes. Ask us at the walkthrough and we will arrange it.
We turn properties down
We run a deliberately small number of managed properties in central Auckland. That is partly capacity — same-day turnovers only work on tight routes — and partly something less comfortable to say out loud: our reputation is the average of the properties we run.
What we are looking for
Not a perfect property. We are not interested in taking on listings that are already excellent and collecting a percentage for leaving them alone — the interesting work is a good property that is underperforming.
What we need is an owner who wants it to be one of the better places to stay in Auckland, and who will back that: real linen rather than the cheapest set, maintenance fixed rather than deferred, and a realistic view of what the market will pay.
Give us that and we will do the rest, including telling you every year what is quietly costing you bookings.
When we say no
- The property sits outside our routes, so a same-day changeover would be a hope rather than a plan
- The numbers do not work — some apartments genuinely earn more on a long-term tenancy, and we will say so
- The owner wants the standard cut to save money on linen, consumables or maintenance
- Repairs are treated as optional. Guests review the broken thing, not the excuse
- We are full. We would rather hold the standard than take the revenue
The bar protects you more than it protects us. When you hand a property to a manager, you are joining a portfolio, and how that portfolio is run is what the manager becomes known for. A company that takes everything is a company with no standard to hold you to — or to be held to.
We have already been the engine behind other management companies
For more than a decade our teams have run the housekeeping for Auckland furnished-rental and short-stay operators — portfolios rather than single apartments, seven days a week, including the public holidays and the peak summer weeks when everything is full and nobody wants to work.
Two of those operators eventually built their own in-house cleaning teams, modelled on the systems they had spent years watching us run. We take that as the most honest review the work has ever had. Nobody copies a system that is not working.
It also explains why full management was the obvious next step rather than a stretch. We have been doing the operationally hardest half of it — the half with deadlines, keys, linen and no room for a bad day — on other companies' behalf for years. The only thing that changes now is that you deal with us directly, instead of with someone marking us up.
Eight years of proof on one portfolio
Since 2018 we have run the turnovers, linen and housekeeping for Urban Quarters, a boutique operator of furnished apartments in central Auckland — Beaumont Quarter, Wynyard Quarter, Lighter Quay and Sale St.
Eight years is the part worth noticing. Anyone can do a good first clean. Holding a standard on the same portfolio for eight years, through peak summers and the border closures, is the only real evidence that consistency is a system rather than a promise. The linen counts, consumable pars, photo sign-off and maintenance reporting all came out of that, and they are what a managed property gets from day one.
What we will not do
We are not a real estate agency or a letting agent, and we do not advise on tax, on Auckland Council's rules for short-term accommodation, or on whether your body corporate permits short-stay letting. All three matter and all three deserve someone qualified. Sort those out, and we will handle everything else.
And as above: if we do not think we can run your property to the standard we would want, we will tell you that instead of signing you up.
Management questions
How much does Airbnb management cost in Auckland?
We charge 15% + GST of the accommodation revenue — that is the booking total after the cleaning fee is taken out. The cleaning fee itself, which the guest already pays as part of every booking, comes to us and covers the turnover, the linen and the guest amenities. So there are two lines and no third: the cleaning fee you were charging anyway, and 15% + GST of what is left.
No setup fee, no monthly retainer, no charge for maintenance coordination or reporting, and nothing at all in a month with no bookings.
What does the 15% actually cover?
Everything. Nightly pricing and calendar management, the listing itself and its photography, guest messaging from enquiry through to check-out, the turnover cleaning, linen supply and laundering, consumable restocking, maintenance spotted and arranged, keys and access, monthly reporting, and the seasonal work that keeps a listing competitive — refreshing tired furnishings, updating photos, adjusting the setup before peak season.
The short version: after handover there is nothing left on your list.
Why is your cleaning better than a manager who subcontracts it?
Because most management companies charging 15 to 20% do not clean. They coordinate a contractor, and the contractor is the cheapest reliable option in the area — which is fine until it is not, and then it is a conversation between two companies while your guest is already at the door.
We have been cleaning Auckland properties since 2012 and running short-stay turnovers since Airbnb arrived here. The cleaning is not a line item we buy in; it is the business. At the same percentage, more of the work is actually done by us.
Do I still get the booking revenue?
Yes. Payouts go to your account from Airbnb or the platform, exactly as they do now. We invoice you monthly for the management fee, with a statement showing every booking, the accommodation revenue, the cleaning fees and the fee calculation. We never sit between you and your money.
Is there a minimum term?
No. Management runs month to month. If it is not working, give us reasonable notice and stop — and you keep every account, login, listing and review, because they were always yours. We do not hold your listing hostage and we do not build the business on lock-in.
Who arranges the repair when something breaks?
We do, and it is included. We hold the trade contacts, arrange access, meet them on site and confirm the work is done. You approve anything above a dollar limit we agree at the start and never hear about the rest. Photos of anything significant reach you the same day.
What are seasonal improvements?
A short-stay listing degrades quietly. Towels go grey, a sofa sags, the photos stop matching the room, the setup that suited summer is wrong for winter. Once a year we walk the property with fresh eyes and tell you what is costing you bookings and what it would take to fix — then, if you want, we do it. It is the part most managers skip because it does not show up in this month's revenue.
Can I just have the cleaning instead?
Of course, and most clients start there. Turnover cleaning is quoted at a fixed price per changeover with no management fee and no commitment. Plenty of owners run it that way for years. But if you find yourself still doing the pricing, the messaging and the maintenance at eleven at night, the conversation is open.
Do you take on every property?
No. We run a small number of managed properties in central Auckland, and we turn work down — when a property sits outside our routes and a same-day changeover would be a hope rather than a plan, when the numbers genuinely favour a long-term tenancy, when an owner wants the standard cut to save money on linen or maintenance, or when we are simply full.
We are building a portfolio of the better short-stay properties in central Auckland rather than the largest one. A company that accepts everything has no standard to hold you to, or to be held to.
How do you set nightly pricing?
Actively, against what comparable Auckland properties are actually achieving rather than what they are asking. Rates move with demand, events, school holidays and the season, and the calendar is reviewed continuously rather than set once. Because our fee is a percentage, your revenue and ours move together — we have no reason to underprice for an easy life.
Find out what your property should be earning
Tell us the address and the number of bedrooms. We will come back with what we think it should be doing, what we would change, and what it costs to hand the whole thing over.