Airbnb management company or do it yourself: the real numbers

Managing your home on Airbnb yourself looks free: no fee, all the money is yours. In reality, you pay in hours. So the right question is not “how much does a management company cost?” but “how much does each hour it saves me cost?”. Here is the calculation, step by step, on a real case.

What a short-term rental demands

Every booking brings the same tasks: answering questions before the booking, checking the guest’s profile, sending arrival instructions, handing over keys or running self check-in, arranging cleaning and linen, checking the home after departure, replying to the review. On top of that come the background tasks: adjusting rates, keeping the listing up to date, handling the unexpected (a lost key at 11 pm, a broken boiler on a Sunday).

The calculation, on the Ixelles median

Take a concrete case: an entire home in Ixelles that matches the municipality’s median according to Inside Airbnb (September 2026), that is 108 nights booked and 16 800 € of revenue over twelve months.

The following assumptions are ours; replace them with your own:

• stays of 3 nights on average, so 36 arrivals a year;
• 1.5 hours per arrival, all told (messages, welcome, post-departure check, review): 54 hours;
• 2 hours a month for rates, the listing and the unexpected: 24 hours.

Total: 78 hours a year.

With Hexuvium, the fee is 5% of the revenue actually received, plus local VAT: 840 € excluding VAT, or about 1 016 € with Belgian VAT at 21%. Divided by 78 hours, that is about 13 € per hour saved.

The same calculation with a company charging 20% plus VAT, a common rate on the market: 3 360 € excluding VAT, or about 4 066 € with VAT, about 52 € per hour saved. Whether to use a management company therefore depends heavily on the rate.

What the calculation does not show

Not all hours are equal. A message at 7 am on a Sunday, a guest stuck at the door while you are in a meeting, a clean cancelled the day before an arrival: running a rental cannot be scheduled like office work. A management company absorbs those moments too.

Finally, there is what happens to the revenue itself: a rate adjusted every day, a listing in several languages, well-kept reviews. We do not promise a figure; we work to place your home above its municipality’s median, and our fee only grows when your revenue grows.

When self-managing makes sense

• You live a few minutes from the home and are available in the evenings and at weekends.
• The home is let for few nights a year, or to people you know.
• You enjoy hosting, and your time is worth less to you than the hourly cost worked out above.

When a management company pays off

• You live far away, travel often or have a job that does not let you reply within the hour.
• You let all year round and every empty night shows in your revenue.
• Your hour is worth more than the roughly 13 € worked out above.

What Hexuvium includes

For 5% of the revenue received, plus local VAT: a multilingual listing on Airbnb, Booking.com and other platforms, rates adjusted daily, guest communication, self check-in or welcome, cleaning and linen arranged, a monthly statement and payout on the 15th. Once only: the onboarding fee (350 € excluding VAT in Belgium) and the first clean (from 80 € excluding VAT). 12-month contract. Full details on our fees page; for Brussels, see our Airbnb management in Brussels page and the median revenue by municipality.