Key takeaways:
Breaking into Airbnb cleaning jobs offers a reliable way to secure frequent, repeat work for your cleaning business.
- Understand the unique needs of Airbnb hosts. Airbnb cleaning emphasizes fast, detailed turnovers, including thorough cleaning, restocking, reporting issues, and preparing properties for each new guest.
- Build the right skills and foundation. Focus on attention to detail, reliability, speed, consistency, and professionalism to stand out and become a trusted partner for hosts.
- Set up your business for success. Gain relevant experience, secure proper licensing and insurance, define your service offerings, and establish clear, competitive pricing to attract hosts.
- Promote your services strategically. List your business on vacation rental cleaning platforms, join host communities online, network locally, create strong online profiles, and optimize your website to be easily found by potential clients.
- Leverage referrals and online marketing. Offer referral discounts, collect and showcase reviews, and use paid ads and in-person networking to expand your reach and win more clients.
Get more expert business tips and grow your cleaning company—sign up for the Jobber Newsletter. Subscribe here.
Want steady cleaning work year-round? Airbnb hosts need a fresh clean after every guest, which means more jobs, more often.
But landing Airbnb cleaning jobs isn’t just about knowing how to clean. You also need to understand what your clients need and how to find them.
In this guide, we’ll cover what an Airbnb cleaner does, how to become one, and how to market your Airbnb cleaning services so hosts can find your business.
Whether you’re just starting a cleaning business or looking to expand, you’ll get practical steps to help you get cleaning jobs for Airbnb properties—and keep them long-term.
What does an Airbnb cleaner do?
Airbnb cleaners clean a short-term rental property in between guest stays, often completed in a matter of hours. Unlike standard house cleaning, this work focuses on quick, quality turnarounds to make the property guest-ready after every clean.
The key responsibilities of an Airbnb cleaner include:
- Dusting, vacuuming, mopping, and sanitizing surfaces in all rooms
- Cleaning and sanitizing bathrooms to ensure they’re spotless
- Washing or replacing bedding, towels, and other linens so everything is fresh for the next guest
- Checking for damage or missing items and reporting any issues to the host
- Setting up for the next guest by placing welcome items and instructions
As an additional service, you could restock supplies like toilet paper, soap, coffee, and kitchen essentials so the host doesn’t have to.
The goal of an Airbnb cleaner is to thoroughly clean after one guest and make the property ready for the next guest.
What makes a good Airbnb cleaner?
Every good professional cleaner has the same important qualities in common:
- Attention to detail: Guests notice small things like hair in the bathroom, streaks on mirrors, or crumbs on the counter. A good cleaner checks every corner to make sure the rental looks spotless.
- Reliability and punctuality: Turnovers happen in just a few hours between guest bookings, so avoid rescheduling cleaning visits and always be on time.
- Speed: Short-term rentals are fast-paced, so you won’t have much time to complete all of your turnover tasks. You’ll need to work fast and complete your cleaning tasks efficiently.
- Consistency: Each clean should meet the same standard so every guest walks into the same quality experience.
- Communication skills: Tell the host when you’re on the way and when you’ve finished cleaning so they know the property is ready for check-in. You should also inform them if you notice maintenance issues or supplies that need to be restocked.
- Flexibility: Guest schedules can change, and emergencies happen. You’ll be a more valuable service provider if you can adapt to changing circumstances.
- Professionalism: Build trust with your hosts by respecting the property, being polite, and representing your business well.
When vacation rental cleaners combine these skills with strong cleaning techniques, they become an essential part of a host’s operation—and are more likely to get repeat jobs and referrals.
How to become an Airbnb cleaner
Becoming an Airbnb cleaner doesn’t require special certification, but it does take the right approach to setting up your business and connecting with hosts. Here are the main steps to get started:
1. Build your cleaning experience
If you’re just starting a cleaning business, begin by gaining experience in residential and vacation rental cleaning. That way, you’ll understand how to manage your time, schedule visits, and manage client expectations.
If you already run a successful cleaning business, it’s easy to adapt your services for short-term vacation rentals. You can skip to step 3 in this guide.
2. Set up your business basics
Make sure you have the essentials in place, like a cleaning company name and logo, a business license, and cleaning supplies.
Get cleaning business insurance before you start cleaning rental properties. Hosts want to know they’re working with professionals who are covered in case of accidents or property damage.
READ MORE: What licenses do I need to start a cleaning business?
3. Understand Airbnb cleaning standards
Short-term rentals require a higher level of detail than a regular house cleaning. Learn what’s expected, like fresh linens, stocked supplies, and no evidence of the previous Airbnb guests.
The best way to meet these standards is with a professional house cleaning checklist. You can even make your own job checklist in Jobber and share it with the Airbnb host after each visit.
4. Create a clear service list
There are many different types of cleaning services you can offer to Airbnb hosts, from regular cleaning and laundry services to deep cleaning, carpet cleaning, and window cleaning.
Decide what you’ll include in your cleaning package, and charge an extra cleaning fee for add-on services. Be clear about what’s included in each Airbnb cleaning service so hosts know what to expect.
5. Set your pricing
Next, you need to decide how much to charge for house cleaning. The pricing structure is up to you, whether it’s a flat rate, room rate, hourly rate, or square footage rate.
Factor in your time, cleaning products, labor costs, overhead costs, and any extras so your rates are fair but profitable. Double-check your rates against competitors to make sure you aren’t under-charging.
We price our jobs based on the amount of work.
We price it by square footage, whether it’s a standard or a basic clean versus a deep cleaning or a move-out cleaning. Pricing is usually a quote at first, and those quotes can change.
6. Start looking for clients
You’re ready to start cleaning Airbnb properties. Promote your cleaning business by listing your services online, building a local network, and creating word of mouth.
Keep reading to get more tips for advertising your Airbnb cleaning services.
How to advertise your Airbnb cleaning services
Once your cleaning business is up and running, it’s time to find and win your first Airbnb client. Use the ideas below to reach potential clients and educate them about your services:
1. List your business on vacation rental cleaning platforms
Websites like Turno and Properly connect Airbnb hosts with cleaners who do short-term rental turnovers. This helps hosts find you quickly without having to do outreach yourself.
When you create a profile on these types of sites, you can showcase your services, availability, and reviews. These platforms often include scheduling tools and payment systems for easy organization.
2. Join online communities for Airbnb hosts
Local Facebook groups, city-specific subreddits, and short-term rental forums are popular spaces where hosts can request and share recommendations for cleaning service providers.
Joining these groups lets you connect directly with potential clients, answer questions, and introduce your services.
3. Network with local Airbnb hosts
Reaching out to Airbnb hosts in your city is one of the most direct ways to find jobs. Connect with them in person, provide references, and even offer a trial clean to help build trust.
Many hosts manage more than one property, so they need reliable cleaners on a regular basis. They may even want to rely on the same cleaner for all their properties, which means steady business for you.
4. Create online business profiles
Having a Google Business Profile, Yelp page, and listings in other online directories makes it easy for hosts to find you when they search for “Airbnb cleaning service near me.”
These profiles should include your business name, services, pricing, and contact details. Ask satisfied clients to leave good reviews, since hosts rely on feedback when choosing a cleaner.
It’s easy to ask for a review when you set up automatic review collection in Jobber. When you make an invoice in Jobber, choose whether you want to send the client a review request.
After paying their invoice, the client automatically gets a direct link to leave a review on your Google Business Profile. You can respond to it from your reviews dashboard in Jobber and keep an eye on your Google rating.
5. Connect with property management companies
Not every Airbnb host manages their own property. Some hire property management companies to handle bookings, guest communication, and cleanings.
Building relationships with these companies can be a game-changer, since one cleaning contract could lead to multiple recurring visits at once.
Reach out to local property managers, introduce your cleaning services, and explain how you can make their job easier by providing reliable, high-quality turnovers.
6. Offer referral discounts to existing clients
Word of mouth is one of the strongest marketing tools for any business, and that includes short-term rentals. You can create word of mouth with a customer referral program just for your Airbnb clients.
One of my go-to [marketing tactics] is word of mouth. Just getting out there and introducing yourself.
Here’s how it works: ask for referrals from your current Airbnb clients, and give them a service discount or bonus if they refer another host who hires you.
Jobber makes it easy to set up a referral program and promote it to existing clients. Send a professional email campaign in seconds and offer a credit toward the client’s next visit for every successful referral.
Referrals are automatically tracked using the client’s unique link. The next time they use your service, their referral credit is automatically applied to their invoice.
Jobber also has a dashboard so you can see how many referrals each client has generated, how many jobs you won through referrals, and how much revenue those jobs have earned.
7. Advertise in online classifieds
Websites like Craigslist and Nextdoor are widely used by Airbnb hosts—usually smaller ones who don’t use property management companies—to find recommendations for cleaning help.
Post a professional, detailed ad with your services, pricing, availability, and contact details so hosts can easily contact you. Refresh your posts regularly so they stay near the top of search results.
8. Run targeted social media and Google ads
Paid advertising can put your business in front of hosts who are actively looking for help. On Facebook and Instagram, you can target ads by location and job title (like property managers).
Google Ads can help you reach hosts who are searching for terms like “Airbnb cleaner” or “short-term rental cleaning service.” Even a small ad budget can make a difference if your cleaning ads are specific to potential clients in your area.
9. Attend short-term rental meetups
Networking in person can be just as powerful as online marketing. Look for Airbnb meetups, real estate investor groups, or short-term rental workshops in your city.
These events give you a chance to meet hosts face-to-face, introduce your services, and build trust. And bringing cleaning flyers or business cards helps them remember you after the event.
10. Optimize your cleaning website
Make sure your cleaning website includes the right keywords for SEO, like “Airbnb cleaning services” or “vacation rental cleaning,” along with your city or region. This attracts qualified visitors who are searching for your services online.
Here’s an example of what your website content could look like, taken from the Mint House Cleaning site:
Your website should also include clear service descriptions, pricing information, client testimonials, and contact information. This tells hosts what you offer and helps them reach out.
On the main page of my website, I have a link to fill out the online booking request form.
Sometimes people are looking for cleaning services late at night.
Don’t have a website yet? Get online fast with Jobber. Just provide details about your cleaning business and services, and we’ll create a simple, professional website for you.
Your website comes with a quote request form to turn visitors into leads. You can also connect your Google Business Profile to your website to show off reviews from satisfied clients.
Airbnb cleaning provides a steady stream of work, which keeps your schedule full and your team busy—and brings in money to keep your business running.
Focus on reliability, attention to detail, and professionalism, and you’ll have no trouble getting more cleaning clients and growing your cleaning business.