Estimate short-term rental profit from nightly price, occupancy, costs, fees, loan payment, and a simple low/base/high test.
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Table of contents
How to use our Short-Term Rental Profit Calculator
- Enter Average nightly price, Available nights per month, and Expected occupancy for a typical month.
- Enter Fixed monthly costs and Loan payment, even if the Loan payment is 0.
- Open Advanced options if you want to adjust Platform fee, Management fee, Guest cost per booked night, Cash invested, or Price and occupancy test range.
- Click Calculate and read Expected monthly profit first, then compare Lower-case monthly profit and Higher-case monthly profit to see how sensitive the deal is.
- Sanity-check the output by comparing Expected booked nights per month with a real calendar and checking whether Break-even occupancy is realistic for the property.
Definitions
Average nightly price: The average price guests pay for one booked night before subtracting your costs.
Occupancy: The percent of available nights that are booked. For example, 60 percent of 30 available nights is 18 booked nights.
Expected booked nights per month: Available nights per month multiplied by Expected occupancy.
Monthly nightly revenue: Average nightly price multiplied by Expected booked nights per month, before expenses and loan payments.
Fixed monthly costs: Costs that happen even if there are no guests, such as insurance, utilities, taxes, internet, HOA dues, or software.
Guest cost per booked night: A cost that rises with each booked night, such as supplies, laundry, or extra utility use.
Break-even occupancy: The occupancy percent needed for Expected monthly profit to reach $0 with the entered price and costs.
Cash-on-cash return: Estimated yearly profit divided by Cash invested, shown as a percent per year.
Common mistakes and quick fixes
Mistake: Using a weekend rate as Average nightly price.
Fix: Use an average price across all booked nights you expect, including slower weekdays.
Mistake: Setting Available nights per month to 30 when local rules or personal use block many nights.
Fix: Enter only the nights the property can legally and practically be rented.
Mistake: Treating Expected occupancy as booked nights instead of a percent.
Fix: Enter the percent of available nights booked, such as 60 for 60 percent.
Mistake: Leaving Fixed monthly costs too low by skipping utilities, insurance, taxes, HOA dues, or software.
Fix: Add every monthly cost that still happens even with no guests.
Mistake: Entering Platform fee or Management fee as dollars instead of percent of nightly revenue.
Fix: Enter the percent only, such as 3 for a 3 percent Platform fee.
Mistake: Reading Monthly nightly revenue as profit.
Fix: Use Expected monthly profit because it subtracts costs, fees, and Loan payment.
Limitations & Key Assumptions / Boundary Conditions
- The calculator uses one typical month and multiplies Expected monthly profit by 12 for Estimated yearly profit. Seasonal markets may need separate monthly estimates.
- It does not estimate taxes, local lodging taxes, depreciation, income tax, permit costs, vacancy from repairs, or major replacement reserves unless you add them to Fixed monthly costs.
- Monthly nightly revenue excludes separate cleaning fees, pet fees, and other guest charges unless you include them in Average nightly price.
- Platform fee and Management fee are applied only to Monthly nightly revenue, not to taxes, deposits, or separate fees.
- Break-even occupancy can show above 100 percent. That means the property cannot break even within the entered Available nights per month.
- If each extra booked night loses money after percentage fees and Guest cost per booked night, Break-even occupancy is not available because more bookings do not move the property toward profit.
- Cash-on-cash return is N/A when Cash invested is 0 because dividing by zero is not valid.
Methodology
Monthly profit math
The calculator starts by turning Expected occupancy into booked nights. It keeps decimals in the math so a value like 18.6 booked nights is not rounded before revenue and cost calculations.
booked_nights = available_nights_per_month * expected_occupancy_percent / 100
monthly_nightly_revenue = average_nightly_rate * booked_nights
Then it adds fixed costs, the loan payment, per-night guest costs, and percentage fees based on nightly revenue.
monthly_costs_including_loan = fixed_monthly_costs + loan_payment + cost_per_booked_night * booked_nights + monthly_nightly_revenue * (platform_fee_percent + management_fee_percent) / 100
expected_monthly_profit = monthly_nightly_revenue - monthly_costs_including_loan
estimated_annual_profit = expected_monthly_profit * 12
Break-even and return
Break-even occupancy uses the profit added by one more booked night. If that per-night contribution is zero or negative, break-even occupancy is shown as N/A.
per_night_contribution = average_nightly_rate * (1 - (platform_fee_percent + management_fee_percent) / 100) - cost_per_booked_night
break_even_occupancy_percent = ((fixed_monthly_costs + loan_payment) / per_night_contribution) / available_nights_per_month * 100
cash_on_cash_return_percent = estimated_annual_profit / cash_invested * 100
Low and high test
The lower case reduces both Average nightly price and Expected occupancy by the Price and occupancy test range. The higher case raises both by that range, but tested occupancy is capped at 100 percent because more than all available nights cannot be booked.
lower_case_monthly_profit = profit(average_nightly_rate * (1 - sensitivity_percent / 100), expected_occupancy_percent * (1 - sensitivity_percent / 100))
higher_case_monthly_profit = profit(average_nightly_rate * (1 + sensitivity_percent / 100), min(100, expected_occupancy_percent * (1 + sensitivity_percent / 100)))
Mini example
With Average nightly price of $150, 30 Available nights per month, 60 percent Expected occupancy, $1,200 Fixed monthly costs, a $1,500 Loan payment, 3 percent Platform fee, 10 percent Management fee, and $25 Guest cost per booked night, booked nights are 18 and Monthly nightly revenue is $2,700. Monthly costs including loan payment are $3,501, so Expected monthly profit is $2,700 - $3,501 = -$801 per month.