What You Actually Pay: Direct Booking vs. Airbnb & VRBO Fees

Airbnb

Airbnb's guest service fee currently runs around 14.2% of the booking subtotal, charged on top of the host's nightly rate and cleaning fee. Starting September 15, 2026, Airbnb is changing this: the separate guest fee goes away, and instead Airbnb takes 15.5% directly out of what the host receives. Either way, that fee is built into the price of the stay somewhere — it doesn't disappear, it just moves which line item it shows up on.

VRBO

VRBO doesn't publish a flat rate — its guest service fee runs on a sliding scale, typically 6% to 15% of the reservation subtotal (nightly rate plus any mandatory fees, not counting tax or a refundable deposit). Shorter, cheaper bookings tend to land at the higher end of that range; longer, pricier stays tend toward the lower end. The only way to see the exact number is to get partway through VRBO's checkout.

Booking direct with Sikes Vacations

There's no platform fee layered on top here, because there's no platform between you and the booking. What you pay is:

• The nightly rate, shown as-is — nothing added at checkout
• A fixed cleaning fee, set per property and shown before you book
• A 3% damage waiver on the stay subtotal, which replaces a refundable security deposit — see the cancellation & booking policies page for exactly what it covers
• Washington state and local lodging tax, which runs roughly 10-16% depending on the property's exact address — the same tax any licensed short-term rental has to collect, direct-booked or not

See it in dollars

Take a 4-night stay at $300/night with a $150 cleaning fee — a $1,350 subtotal before any platform fee, tax, or damage protection:

On this example, direct comes out roughly $155 cheaper than Airbnb and $99 cheaper than VRBO before tax — WA lodging tax then applies to all three on top of their respective totals, so it doesn't change which one wins, just the final number on each. VRBO's guest fee is a range, not a flat rate, so your exact number will differ; Airbnb's post-September-2026 model removes the guest-side line item shown above, but the cost doesn't vanish — it's absorbed into what the host receives instead, so the fee still influences pricing somewhere in that stay too.