Long-stay discounts on Airbnb: the weekly and monthly rate formula I use across five properties

I used to set weekly and monthly discounts on Airbnb by copying what similar listings in my market were doing. If the three comparable Edinburgh flats were at 15% weekly and 25% monthly, I'd set 15% and 25% and move on. It felt like pricing strategy. It wasn't.

It was guessing, dressed up as market research.

In 2024, I built a simple formula based on actual costs per booking, and I now use it across all five properties to set discounts that make financial sense rather than discounts that feel competitive. The results: fewer long-stay bookings declined in my head as "not worth it," and a better sense of which month-long bookings I genuinely shouldn't be taking.

The cost-per-turnover baseline

Everything starts with knowing your actual cost per guest arrival. Not per night — per turnover. Mine break down roughly like this for the Edinburgh studio:

• Cleaning: £40 (2.5 hours at £16/hr)
• Consumables restock (toilet paper, washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets, coffee pods, shower gel): around £8 per turnover
• Linen laundry (I do it in-house): £3 in energy and time
• Welcome pack: £3.80 (see the previous post on bulk assembly)
• Key or lockbox management time: roughly £2 amortised

Total cost per turnover: approximately £57. That's the money I spend every time a guest arrives, regardless of how long they stay.

On a 2-night stay at £90/night (£180 revenue), my per-night cost including the £57 turnover cost, the 3% Airbnb host fee (£5.40), and utilities estimate (£6 for two nights): roughly £68 in costs against £180 revenue. Gross margin around 62%.

On a 7-night stay at the same £90/night (£630 revenue), same turnover cost spread over seven nights: cost structure improves considerably. The £57 turnover amortises to £8.14 per night instead of £28.50. Gross margin around 80%.

This is the core logic of why long-stay discounts make sense: you're giving up top-line rate, but your per-night profitability often improves because the fixed turnover cost is spread across more nights.

The weekly discount formula

I calculate my maximum viable weekly discount as the difference between my standard per-night margin and my long-stay per-night margin, minus a buffer for yield protection.

In plain terms for the Edinburgh studio: a 7-night stay at my standard nightly rate of £90 has a per-night cost of about £18 (turnover amortised, Airbnb fee, utilities). Margin per night: 80%. A 2-night stay at £90 has a per-night cost of about £36. Margin per night: 60%.

The efficiency gain from a 7-night booking: 20 percentage points of margin per night. I could theoretically discount by up to 20% and still be at the same margin as my typical short-stay booking. In practice I discount by 12–14% weekly — I want to keep some of that efficiency gain as actual income, not just pass it all to the guest.

My Edinburgh studio is currently set at 12% weekly. My Lake District cottage at 14% (longer stays are more valuable there because of higher turnover costs). Brighton flat at 10% (strong short-stay demand means I'm less hungry to incentivise longer stays).

The monthly discount formula — and where it gets more complicated

Monthly stays (28+ nights) are a different calculation. The cost efficiency is higher — one turnover spread across 28 nights is roughly £2 per night rather than £28. But monthly stays introduce two risks that short stays don't carry:

First, occupancy risk. A 28-night block at a discounted rate means you're off the market for a month. If that month includes high-demand nights — a bank holiday weekend, a local event — you're turning down potentially higher-revenue short-stay bookings. My Lake District cottage in August is worth £250+/night on peak weekends. A monthly booking at even a 20% discount would lock me in at a maximum of £200/night average, which sounds fine until you see a bank holiday weekend that would have gone for £320.

Second, the tenancy risk. In England and Wales, stays of 28 nights or more start to enter territory where guests may acquire some form of tenancy rights — not quite a full assured shorthold tenancy, but enough that ending the arrangement becomes more complex than a normal checkout. I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice; it's a genuine flag that my solicitor mentioned when I asked about it. If you're considering monthly bookings, it's worth understanding what your obligations are at that threshold in your jurisdiction.

My monthly discount formula: I calculate the cost saving from one turnover (£57) divided by 28 nights (roughly £2 per night saved), then add a modest efficiency premium of about 3–4% for reduced messaging and management overhead. That gives me a cost-justified discount of about 15–18%.

I then apply a seasonal cap: in high season (June–August in Edinburgh and the Lake District), I cap monthly discounts at 10%. In low season (November–February), I'll go to 20% because the alternative is often unbooked nights rather than higher-value short stays.

How to set this in Airbnb

In your Airbnb hosting dashboard, go to Calendar → Pricing → Discount. You can set a weekly discount (for stays of 7 nights or more) and a monthly discount (28+ nights) as percentage figures. The discounts apply automatically to qualifying bookings — guests see the discounted rate at checkout. You can also set your own custom length-of-stay pricing for specific periods, though this requires more hands-on management.

I keep my discounts live year-round but adjust the monthly discount seasonally — it takes about ninety seconds per property to change, and I do it when I update my minimum stay requirements each quarter.

The bookings I've turned down and the ones I wish I had

I've said no to two monthly bookings in the past year. Both were for the Lake District cottage in July, at my standard monthly discount of 10%. The guests wanted 20–25% off. I declined both. In one case, the cottage filled with short-stay bookings that more than covered the monthly booking revenue I'd have made. In the other case, it sat empty for eleven days in the middle of what should have been a strong month. You win some.

The monthly booking I wish I'd taken: an Edinburgh studio request in January at 18% off. I was holding out for short-stay bookings that trickled in at below my hoped-for occupancy anyway. The monthly booking would have guaranteed around £2,100 for a month where I ended up with £1,740. A £360 error in my own favour of optimism.

One thing most hosts underestimate

The mental overhead saving from long stays. A two-week guest generates roughly two messages from me — a welcome and a checkout reminder. A fortnight of 2–3 night bookings generates maybe twelve messages, seven checkout reminders, and a light panic every time someone asks about early check-in. That time cost isn't in most people's cost-per-booking calculations, but it's real. I value it at around £8 per short-stay booking in time that I could spend on something else.

Add that £8 to the financial case for longer stays, and the viable discount becomes another 3–4 percentage points higher than the pure numbers suggest. Long-stay guests aren't just operationally cheaper — they're quieter to manage. At five properties, that's not a small thing.