How to Run an Airbnb: a Guide for Hosts
Find out how to manage your property efficiently and set your business for long-term success.
Running an Airbnb rental is an excellent way to make extra income, but it isn’t as simple as setting up your property for guests, crafting a listing, and waiting for the bookings to roll in. Hosting on Airbnb isn’t true passive income—it’s a hospitality business that requires substantial time commitment, constant management, and attention to detail.
Yet, with the right strategy, systems, and support in place, you can minimize your workload, earn a consistent income from your Airbnb property, and eventually, turn it into a fully scalable business. In this article, we’ll talk about how to run an Airbnb with minimal effort and become a successful host.
This article focuses on running an existing business. If you are at the beginning of your hosting journey, you may be interested in our article about starting an Airbnb business.
How to Run an Airbnb Smoothly
Operating a vacation rental property involves juggling many responsibilities and day-to-day tasks, which can feel overwhelming. So if you want to build a thriving STR business while working less, using property management automation is key to success.
Short-term rental property management software like Hospitable can help you streamline operations and run your Airbnb on autopilot. With Hospitable, you’ll be able to manage your Airbnb more efficiently and have more time to focus on things that really matter—the guest experience and property growth.
Here is how to run an Airbnb stress-free, deliver an excellent service, and maximize your profitability.
Automate guest communication
Hosting isn’t just about accommodation. It’s about hospitality, and clear, prompt communication is key to making guests feel welcome and happy with their stay.
You need to maintain proactive communication with guests via messages from the moment they book, providing them with the necessary information for their stay, such as house rules, check-in and checkout instructions, and local tips. You also need to be reachable and answer any questions they might have quickly.
Guest messaging is the most time-consuming aspect of running an Airbnb, but you don’t have to type and send each message to your guests manually. Airbnb management software like Hospitable lets you automate guest messaging with AI and ensure seamless communication with your guests throughout their booking journey.
You can create message templates that cover key touchpoints in the guest journey, and apply short codes to personalize messages for each guest. Then set up messaging rules to automatically send your guests the right info at the right time.
Hospitable uses AI to detect guest questions on common topics and automatically sends quick replies using your pre-written templates. Hospitable’s Inbox AI tools take these automations further, allowing you to provide detailed personalized replies to unusual guest questions and stay responsive 24/7.
You can use Suggest with AI to quickly generate detailed responses to tricky questions based on the conversation with the guest so far, booking and property details, and any information that you added to the Knowledge Hub to educate the AI about your property and policies.
You can use Improve with AI to rewrite what you have written when messaging your guests manually. Our Inbox AI will fix grammar and awkward phrasing, improve clarity and tone, and make each message sound warm and professional.
You can turn on the Auto Reply feature and let the AI automatically reply to guest messages without your review based on your settings, property context, and past conversations, helping you respond to guests 24/7 without being online.
Hospitable is the only PMS that uses AI to automatically scan guest messages for mentions of issues like excessive noise, leaks, or broken locks, and brings them to your attention, helping you prevent bad reviews. When our system detects a potential issue in guest messages, it generates and displays Issue Alerts to highlight specific problems so you don’t miss the conversations that need real attention.
Implement dynamic pricing
You can’t rely on guesswork to develop an effective pricing strategy that will help you maximize revenue without sacrificing bookings, which is crucial to running a successful STR property. Setting the right nightly rates requires balancing your operating costs, profitability, and guest appeal.
Unlike long-term rentals with fixed monthly rates, short-term rental prices need to fluctuate in response to real-time factors, such as market demand, seasonality, and local competition. This approach, called dynamic pricing, is essential for your success. It allows you to maximize your earnings, get more bookings across high and low seasons, and stay competitive.
While Airbnb offers hosts a free Smart Pricing tool to help keep your property booked by suggesting nightly rates, Airbnb’s interests may not align with your revenue goals. Airbnb’s Smart Pricing prioritizes occupancy, so it may suggest lower rates to attract guests.
Most property management systems, including Hospitable, integrate with third-party dynamic pricing software that responds to market trends more effectively, giving you more control and helping you make informed decisions that better align with your financial goals. But the leading pricing tools are not free; you’ll have to pay either a monthly subscription fee or a percentage of your booking revenue.
To help hosts implement dynamic pricing, Hospitable also offers a built-in Dynamic Pricing solution included in the Host, Professional, and Mogul plans at no extra cost, saving you money on third-party pricing tools. If you enable Hospitable's Dynamic Pricing for your property, our proprietary pricing engine will automatically adjust your nightly rates based on market demand, seasonality, and other factors to help maximize your revenue and maintain optimal occupancy.
Streamline cleanings
Vacation rental guests prioritize cleanliness and always comment on it in their reviews. Cleanliness is also one of the categories in Airbnb ratings, so it’s important to clean your place thoroughly during each turnover to ensure it’s ready for each guest.
Airbnb cleaning is far more extensive than regular cleaning of your own home since it involves more tasks, such as deep cleaning, disinfecting, sanitizing, restocking toiletries and kitchen essentials, changing bed linens, and replacing towels. It also requires more attention to detail to ensure that your rental is spotless and inviting.
Handling Airbnb cleaning yourself can be challenging, especially during peak seasons, so it always makes sense to outsource this task to professional cleaners trained to do the job quickly and thoroughly. You just need to provide them with a comprehensive Airbnb cleaning checklist to ensure high cleaning standards.
Keeping your cleaners informed about upcoming jobs is easier when you automate the process with short-term rental management software like Hospitable. You just need to set task rules, and our system will assign tasks to your cleaners automatically based on bookings. We’ll send reminders to your team members about new jobs via SMS, email, or an iCal feed.
You can take this automation one step further by using our Marketplace Cleanings feature. Hospitable will automatically create the after-checkout cleaning tasks for new reservations. We will source cleaners for you through our partner's network, and our system will assign the best available cleaner in your area.
Mitigate risks
While most Airbnb guests are a pleasure to host, there is always a risk of dealing with guests who can cause problems—they may ignore your house rules, disturb neighbors, invite additional visitors without your permission, or damage your property. Taking measures to prevent such situations is crucial to running a successful short-term rental business.
There are many ways to protect yourself from the financial risks of dealing with problematic guests, such as guest screening, charging a security deposit, and asking your guests to sign an Airbnb rental agreement that clearly outlines your policies and guidelines for guest behavior.
With the introduction of the AirCover for Hosts program, Airbnb no longer allows hosts to charge security deposits directly on the platform. Only API-connected hosts who manage their listings through property management software with an official Airbnb integration, like Hospitable, can collect security deposits off the platform.
Hospitable makes it easy to collect, manage, and release security deposits and ensure a smooth experience for your guests. You can add the Hospitable automatic deposit to any of your properties and enter the amount you’d like to collect. We’ll automatically collect the security deposit 2 days before check-in and release it to your guest after checkout if no issues occur during their stay.
With Hospitable, you can create templated rental agreements and automatically send them to your guests for signature. Our system will automatically generate a rental agreement for each new reservation, populating the template with guest and booking data. Your guests will see their agreements in their guest portals as a registration task they need to complete before check-in.
You can also screen your guests when signing the rental agreement. Then, your guests will be prompted to upload a photo of their government-issued ID and take a selfie.
After verification, your guests will be able to review the agreement and add their digital signature, confirming their agreement to the terms before their stay. We will capture the timestamp and other information, generate a unique document ID, and save the signed agreement as a PDF.
Use smart locks to ensure seamless self-check-ins
Smart locks make hosting easier and help you meet the expectations of tech-savvy travelers by offering a seamless self-check-in. It’s one of the most popular amenities on Airbnb, so adding it to your listing can help you attract more potential guests. Installing smart locks gives you full control over who can access your vacation rental property and ensures a convenient and secure self-check-in process.
It’s also important that smart locks integrate with PMS like Hospitable, making it easy for hosts to automate the self-check-in process. While most property management systems offer self-check-in as a paid add-on, with Hospitable, the smart device management feature is included in the Professional plan and above.
Hospitable connects with the leading smart lock brands via direct integration, including Schlage, August, Yale, Igloohome, Nuki, SmartThings, and TT Locks. If you connect the supported smart locks to your Hospitable account, our system will create unique door codes for each stay based on your guest’s phone number and share them in a messaging flow.
Optimize energy use with smart thermostats
Investing in smart thermostats can help you control the temperature in your Airbnb and ensure your guests' comfort while minimizing energy waste. With smart thermostats, you can set the ideal temperature in your Airbnb just before your guest’s arrival and minimize energy use when your rental property is vacant to save on utility bills.
The best part is that you can connect supported smart thermostats to Hospitable and automate temperature control at your STR property, saving time and money. Then, Hospitable will sync your smart thermostats with bookings. Our system will adjust the temperature automatically based on your guest’s reservation status and your custom timing, using presets.
Make more money with upsells
Upselling is the practice of offering vacation rental guests additional services or amenities that enhance their stay. When done thoughtfully, upselling will help increase your revenue per booking and improve the overall guest experience, leading to better reviews.
You can offer your guests many value-adds for an additional fee, such as early check-ins, late checkouts, luggage storage, welcome baskets for special occasions, extra firewood, pre-stocked groceries, bike rentals, or mid-stay cleaning services.
Upselling doesn’t have to be manual. If you opt for Hospitable, you’ll be able to take advantage of our Upsells feature and offer paid upsells to your guests automatically, without requiring any additional third-party tools. Just create a catalog of your offerings and send your guests the link to their guest portal—our system creates it automatically for each booking.
Hospitable partners with RentalGuardian, so you can offer your Airbnb guests the opportunity to purchase Trip Insurance as an automatically enabled upsell and earn a commission for each policy sold. Currently, Trip Insurance is turned on for all eligible US properties.
We also partner with Yhangry, a marketplace where people can book a chef to socialize at home. So our users can offer their guests private chef experiences and earn commission on every booking.
Take advantage of analytics tools to make smarter decisions
Successful Airbnb hosts have a proactive mindset. They don’t just rely on intuition but use reliable data to make decisions. So you need to define your key metrics and consistently monitor them to ensure your Airbnb business is running as intended.
The good news is that property management software provides tools that can help you monitor your Airbnb property performance and make informed decisions about your business strategy. For example, Hospitable offers analytics and reporting features that help you track critical metrics, monitor guest feedback, and gain actionable insights into how your business performs.
Hospitable makes it easy to track the metrics that matter to you and evaluate your STR property's performance through the Metrics Dashboard. It’s an advanced analytics system that brings your performance data together for easier exploration. With Metrics, you can
Explore the pre-built dashboard for quick insights;
Build your own dashboards;
Add relevant data widgets from our searchable library;
Apply filters and groupings to focus on a specific slice of your data;
Save configurations for recurring analysis;
Generate and download reports;
Share dashboards with stakeholders who don’t have a Hospitable account.
With Hospitable, you also get Copilot, your personal AI assistant. It can help you understand your performance across key areas, including guest experience, operations, reviews, and revenue, and make better hosting decisions. You can ask Copilot simple, conversational questions, and it will analyze your account data to provide you with instant, actionable insights.
You can use Copilot to check revenue, occupancy rates, and booking trends; review availability and pricing rules; highlight common praises and complaints from guest reviews; get cancellation numbers and trends; and much more.
Running an Airbnb: Tips for Building a Sustainable Income Stream
Set realistic expectations. Running any business requires effort, so set aside some time each week based on your lifestyle and other commitments. Even with Airbnb automation and outsourcing your cleaning, you’ll still need to monitor your performance and address unexpected issues that require your attention.
Start small. Don’t run to scale before you are ready. Define your goals and refine your approach before you move on to managing multiple STR properties. Build your systems gradually to keep them manageable as you scale your Airbnb business.
Encourage repeat bookings. Ensure clear communication to make your guests feel valued and create unforgettable experiences that prompt them to book again. As you grow your business, it’s essential to build a direct booking strategy to reduce your reliance on OTAs. Offer discounts to loyal customers to incentivize them to come back and book directly with you.
Invest in smart home tech: Smart smoke detectors, video doorbells, noise-monitoring devices, and smart thermostats improve security and convenience, letting you keep an eye on your vacation rentals from afar. With these smart devices, you can get extra control and oversight over your rental property without getting more involved in running an Airbnb than you want to.
Bottom Line
In this blog, we’ve provided you with tips on how to run an Airbnb efficiently. By incorporating these best practices, you can position your Airbnb rental for long-term success and grow your business in an increasingly competitive STR market. Hopefully, these strategies can help you manage your property like a pro, attract more guests, get better reviews, and drive more revenue.
