Hotels charge for early check-in. They charge to hold your luggage. They charge to stock your fridge and receive your packages. Guests pay for all of it without blinking. As an Airbnb host, you are performing every one of those same services and charging for none of them, not because guests would say no, but because you have not asked. Below are four AirBnB upsells your guests already expect to pay for, what to charge, and how to deliver each one without a single confused guest message or ding to your review.

Quick Links

• Upsell #1: Early Check-In and Late Check-Out
• Upsell #2: Pool Heat
• Upsell #3: Amenity Setup and Surprise-and-Delight Coordination
• Upsell #4: Grocery Shopping and Fridge Fill
• The Bottom Line on Airbnb Upsells

Upsell #1: Early Check-In and Late Check-Out

This is the upsell hosts give away most often, and it is the one they feel the most conflicted about charging for. The home is already clean. It is already ready. What is the harm in just saying yes?

Here is what that yes actually costs. Lock codes need to change to accommodate the new arrival window. There are messages back and forth confirming the time, the access, the cleaner’s schedule. That is operational labor, and labor has a value.

Hotels charge for this. They are simply extending the reservation window earlier or later. When you charge for it, you are not introducing a new concept. You are matching an expectation guests already carry into every booking, from a listing that puts your house rules front and center to the moment they request an earlier arrival.

Some hosts worry that charging makes the interaction transactional. It is a financial transaction. The worst thing a guest can say is no thanks, they will arrive at the normal time. That is the entire downside. You have lost nothing, and you have saved yourself the operational lift.

Once a guest pays for early check-in, it stops being a favor. It becomes a service, which means your execution has to be clean: lock code set correctly, confirmation sent, no loose ends. One of our clients, Kim, posted in our community after landing a four-night booking with an early check-in fee stacked on top. She was excited enough to share it with the group. That is what happens when you just ask.

What to charge: a percentage of your property’s ADR, scaled to your market and property tier. If you are not sure where to start, float a number. The guest will tell you if it does not land.

Upsell #2: Pool Heat

If your property has a pool, you can charge to heat it, and most hosts are not charging for it at all. They are absorbing the propane cost themselves and calling it an amenity.

You may think you have never seen a pool heat fee on a hotel bill. You have. It is baked into the resort fee.

There are two ways to charge for it. You can bill based on actual propane usage, which sounds precise but creates constant back-and-forth and guest confusion. Or you can charge a flat daily fee, typically $60 to $125 per day depending on your market and property tier. We recommend the flat fee every time. It is cleaner to communicate and the guest knows exactly what they are paying before they book.

Here is the operational piece most hosts skip, and it is where reviews get hurt. Pool heat is a service, which means the guest attaches an expectation to it. Is the pool at temperature when they arrive?

Know your heater. How long does it take to bring the pool to 85 degrees from baseline? Build that lead time into your process. Eighty-five is standard resort pool temperature, and it is worth telling the guest exactly that number when they request the upsell, because “heated pool” makes most people picture a hot tub at 104 degrees. An 85-degree pool on a cool morning is going to feel different than what they imagined, and if you did not set that expectation, you will read about it in the review.

Guests will also notice the heater cycling on and off as it maintains temperature rather than running constantly. A short note in your check-in instructions explaining that saves you a dozen confused messages during the stay.

If you co-host, remember the property owner is going to see a utility bill spike in the months guests are heating the pool. A thirty-second heads-up message before that bill lands prevents a panicked phone call. This is the kind of detail a PMS like Hostfully is built to handle, with owner reporting and built-in upselling tools that flag charges like this before they ever hit a confused text thread.

Upsell #3: Amenity Setup and Surprise-and-Delight Coordination

This is where we see the most money left on the table, for one specific reason: the hosts who resist charging for it the most are the hosts who spend the most time on it.

The belief driving that resistance is one we hear almost every week: that this generosity is what earns the five-star review. It is not. Guests do not leave five stars because of rose petals on the bed. They leave five stars because the entire experience, from booking to checkout, was smooth. The rose petals are nice. They are not why you got the review.

Walk through what actually happens on one of these setups. A guest is celebrating an anniversary. They want rose petals, a charcuterie board, a bottle of wine, maybe flowers. You drive to three stores, source it all, arrive before check-in to arrange it, and you photograph it to confirm it is right. And you charge nothing for any of it, not the time, not the gas, not the coordination.

Hotels price this as a concierge fee, typically 20 to 25 percent on top of the cost of every amenity placed in the room. That fee covers the coordination, the sourcing, the time. Your time carries the same value.

One of our clients, Beth, was doing setups like this constantly and doing them for free. Once she started quoting a coordination fee, her first guest got a $35 markup on top of amenity cost and said yes without hesitating. The next guest, different property, got quoted $70. Yes again. Her reaction both times was the same: she could not believe they just said yes. That is not a coincidence. Guests who want this level of service expect to pay for it.

The quote is simple: cost of the amenities plus your coordination fee. Guests who want the service pay for it. Guests who do not can source their own rose petals. Either outcome is fine. What is not fine is you paying for someone else’s anniversary.

If surprise-and-delight setups are a regular part of your operation, keeping a running supply audit makes pricing these fast. You already know what is on hand, what needs restocking, and what a setup actually costs you before you quote a guest a single dollar.

Upsell #4: Grocery Shopping and Fridge Fill

This is the upsell hosts most consistently underprice, because they treat it as a small favor. It is not.

A guest wants to arrive with the basics in the fridge: coffee, creamer, breakfast items, water, snacks, maybe wine. Version one, they hand you a list and you shop. Version two, they place an Instacart order and want you to receive it and put everything away before check-in. Both versions look casual. Neither is.

If you are shopping, that is a store run, 30 to 60 minutes minimum, plus gas, plus the judgment calls you make when something on the list is out of stock. If they are using delivery, you are still coordinating the window, being at the property to receive it, unpacking it, and making sure perishables land in the fridge instead of sitting on the counter turning into a problem. Either way, that is an hour of your time and a trip to the property.

Here is how to price it. Know what your hour is worth first. That number is the foundation of every service fee in your business. If your hour is worth $75, a thirty-minute grocery run plus delivery time supports a $50 fee minimum on top of cost of goods. If the guest placed the order themselves and you are just receiving and unpacking, a flat $30 to $50 is fair. A guest asking for a stocked fridge is not shopping for a bargain. They want convenience, and they will not push back on a fair fee for it.

Deliver it well, fridge stocked, coffee exactly as requested, fruit fresh, and you have created the strongest arrival impression of any upsell on this list. They walk in, see what you did, and the review is already written.

The Bottom Line on Airbnb Upsells

Hosts have been trained to believe generosity drives reviews. There is truth buried in that. A well-run, thoughtful operation earns five stars. But uncompensated labor does not scale, and most guests asking for these services are not expecting them free. They are expecting to pay, the same way they would at a hotel. You are the one who decided it was free.

If not charging is a deliberate brand decision you have thought through, own it. But most of the time, that is not what is happening. Most of the time, a host is just not asking. And the worst outcome of asking is a guest who says no thanks and arrives at the normal check-in time.

Every upsell on this list is revenue sitting inside an operation you already run. You do not need new guests or a new property. You need to charge for what you are already doing, and know your numbers well enough to price it with confidence instead of a guess.

If you read this and realized you are giving away three or four of these, that is the exact conversation we have inside Strategic Host. We look at your business and help you build the upsell system that fits your properties, your market, and your goals. Join the waitlist to be the first to hear when doors open.

For a related deep dive on making money from your property without adding overnight stays, read Boost Your Rental Revenue Now.