Vrbo Fees for Owners: How Much Is Vrbo Charging You?

Vrbo is a popular vacation rental platform that allows homeowners to list their homes directly. It was one of the first companies to promote individual owners renting out their homes as vacation rentals.

Remember that owners can use Vrbo to rent out their entire vacation home, apartment, or condo. So if you’re only looking to rent out a separate room in your home, the Vrbo platform isn’t the place for you. However, you can try starting a business on Airbnb instead.

Today, Vrbo boasts over two million private homes in over 190 countries and attracts millions of vacation rental guests searching for the perfect stay. But is it the right listing site for your short-term rental property? How much does Vrbo charge for each listing?

In this article, we’ll discuss the fees that Vrbo charges every vacation property owner for using the platform. This info can help you decide whether this site is a smart choice for your STR business.

Owning a vacation rental is a great way to make money, but it requires regular effort to manage bookings, communicate with guests, coordinate cleaning and maintenance, and so on, which can be rather time-consuming. A smart solution is to automate your hosting routine using vacation rental software like Hospitable, so you can focus on providing a memorable guest experience.

How Much Does Vrbo Charge‌?

To list your property on Vrbo, you need to accept their fee structure. Currently, there are two Vrbo pricing models for hosts: pay-per-booking and subscription. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Pay-per-Booking

This flexible model is ideal for hosts new to the vacation rental industry, as it allows you to pay only for the bookings you receive. It also works best for owners who receive bookings from multiple channels. The Vrbo booking fee charged for pay-per-booking listings consists of a 3% payment processing fee and 5% commission fee.

This is how the overall Vrbo owner fees are made up:

• 5% Vrbo commission fee is calculated from the total amount of the reservation, including additional Vrbo fees (like pet fees or cleaning fees) and excluding taxes and refundable deposits paid by the guest.
• 3% Vrbo payment processing fee is charged on the total amount of Vrbo payments you receive from your travelers, including taxes and refundable damage deposits. Please note that the processing fee is not applicable when using property management software.

Annual Subscription

The subscription model costs a one-time, flat fee of $699 per year paid in advance. It covers all bookings made on the platform and all service fees that would otherwise be charged to your account when a guest makes a booking.

This Vrbo owner fee includes special features, such as online booking, listing your property on international sites, access to reservation management tools, and the ability to upload up to 50 HD photos.

As of 28 August 2025, the pay-per-subscription (PPS) model is no longer available as a pricing plan for new Vrbo hosts or listings. Only Vrbo legacy partners who have at least one property on the pay-per-subscription model can opt into automatic renewal of their subscription or convert a listing from the pay-per-booking (PPB) model to PPS.

Is Vrbo Cost Worth It?

Is it worth paying these fees to list your house on Vrbo? The answer is definitely yes! This platform provides you with a lot of visibility; however, earnings from short-term Vrbo rentals vary significantly. Your earnings will depend on the type, size, and location of your property, as well as your financial goals.

Note that while Vrbo works exceptionally well for a large number of vacation rental property owners, putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea. So we recommend that you list your property on as many sites as you can manage to reach more guests, including major OTAs such as Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Agoda.

Remember: the more people see your listing, the more bookings you’ll get and the more rental income you’ll earn. And if you opt for Hospitable, you’ll be able to manage all your listings on multiple booking channels within a single dashboard without worrying about juggling calendars, messaging, and cleaners across bookings.

If you are new to the automation of your STR business, download our free guide to learn how to save time while growing your revenue and improving your guests’ experience.

What Can You Do to Minimize the Impact of Vrbo Fees?

Vacation rentals can be a lucrative investment if managed well. So, if you really want to make more money, your focus shouldn’t be on picking the platform with the lowest fees for hosts, which can save you a few hundred dollars. Instead, your focus should be on optimizing your pricing strategy, encouraging direct repeat bookings, and offering paid upsells to your guests.

Use a dynamic pricing tool. It’s the best way to ensure the most competitive rates for your listing and maximize income from every stay. A dynamic pricing tool can adjust rental rates in real-time based on factors such as demand, seasonality, local events, and competitor pricing, helping you maximize your revenue throughout the year, even during low seasons.

Hospitable users can take advantage of our built-in Dynamic Pricing, included at no extra cost in Host, Professional, and Mogul subscription plans. If you enable this feature for your property, our built-in solution will automatically optimize your nightly rates to maximize revenue and occupancy and will push updated rates to all your connected channels.

Create a direct booking website and encourage your repeat guests to book directly, thereby avoiding OTA fees. It’s easier than you might think. For example, with Hospitable, you can create a Direct booking website in minutes using our professional website templates. We’ll also list your properties on Google Vacation Rentals, allowing travelers to discover your rentals when they use Google to search for a place to stay. This way, you’ll have a chance to get direct bookings without paying high third-party fees.

Offer add-on services and amenities. It’s a great way to please your guests, making their stay more enjoyable, while maximizing your revenue. You can offer your guests various additional services for an extra fee, such as early check-in, late checkout, luggage storage, mid-stay cleaning, grocery delivery, equipment rentals, and more.

Hospitable can help you automate upselling guest services without coming across as pushy. Create a catalog of your offerings and send your guest the link to their guest portal, where they can view all available options and make a purchase. Check out our help article to learn more about how this feature works.

Final Thought

If you own a property in a popular vacation destination, it may be beneficial to rent it on Vrbo. It’s a major vacation rental channel that attracts millions of visitors and bookings annually. You can list your STR property on Vrbo for free and pay a 5% commission fee and a 3% payment processing fee for each confirmed guest reservation.

Vrbo has been a trusted name in the vacation rental business for quite some time. Listing your vacation home on it will put you in front of a broad audience, increase your visibility worldwide, and drive traffic towards your property listing.

Many Vrbo hosts cross-list their properties on Booking.com to reach a wider audience of guests. Check out our Booking.com host guide for beginners to find answers to the most common questions about creating a listing on this platform.