You've got empty fields for weekly and monthly discounts, a suggested percentage from the platform, and no idea whether it will earn you money or quietly give it away. An Airbnb length of stay discount isn't good or bad on its own. It's a trade: you give up part of the nightly rate and get back the turnovers and empty nights a longer booking removes.
Start with one action today: write down what a single changeover really costs you after the cleaning fee the guest pays. That one number decides how deep any discount can go.
How does an Airbnb length of stay discount work?
You set a percentage off for stays of 7 or more nights (weekly) or 28 or more nights (monthly), and Airbnb applies it to the nightly price of any booking that qualifies, showing it next to your original price.
The details, from Airbnb's help article on weekly and monthly discounts:
- Weekly discounts apply to stays of 7 or more nights, monthly discounts to 28 or more.
- You can also pick Trip length discounts in the same settings. Airbnb's rule-sets article lists the extra time frames: 2 to 6 nights, 1 up to 3 weeks, and 4 up to 12 weeks.
- Discounts of 10% or more are displayed in search results. Smaller ones still show in the price breakdown on your listing.
- After the discount, your price must still be at least $10 per day.
- In some cases Airbnb adds its own Monthly Stay Savings to stays of 28 or more nights. Airbnb says it pays for these in full and doesn't deduct them from your payout.
Order matters if you stack discounts. In the rule-sets example, a trip that qualifies for both a 20% early-bird discount and a 30% monthly discount gets only the 30% monthly discount, and the cleaning fee and service fee are added after the discounted price.
Booking.com works differently. There, you create a separate Weekly or Monthly rate plan under Rates & Availability. According to Booking.com's weekly and monthly rate plans article, a weekly plan covers stays of seven nights or more, a monthly plan 28 or more, and each plan carries its own discount, cancellation policy, dates and units. The discount applies per night, and you can set it as low as 1%. For stays of 30 nights or more you also need to accept long stays in your property policies and set a maximum length of stay.
How deep can a weekly or monthly discount go before you lose money?
A discount breaks even when the money you give away equals what the longer stay saves you: fewer turnovers, fewer nights you'd fail to sell between shorter bookings, minus any extra running cost of a long stay.
Here's the formula, with every input something you can look up in your own records:
Break-even discount = (turnovers avoided × net turnover cost + unsold nights avoided × nightly rate − extra long-stay costs) ÷ (nights in the stay × nightly rate)
"Net turnover cost" is what a changeover costs you after the guest's cleaning fee: cleaner, laundry, restock and your own time. If your cleaning fee already covers the cleaner, your net cost may be small, and so is the room for a discount.
Consider a hypothetical one-bedroom at €100 a night, with a net turnover cost of €40. A guest asks for 7 nights. The alternative is selling the same week as two shorter stays, which means one extra changeover.
| Hypothetical input | Busy week | Slow week |
|---|---|---|
| Nights × rate | 7 × €100 = €700 | 7 × €100 = €700 |
| Turnovers avoided | 1 × €40 = €40 | 1 × €40 = €40 |
| Unsold nights avoided | 0 | 2 × €100 = €200 |
| Value the weekly stay saves | €40 | €240 |
| Break-even discount | €40 ÷ €700 = 5.7% | €240 ÷ €700 = 34.3% |
Check the busy week at a 10% discount. The weekly stay earns €630 and costs one turnover: €590. Two full-price stays earn €700 and cost two turnovers: €620. The discount loses you €30. In the slow week, the same 10% wins easily, because the realistic alternative leaves two nights empty and earns €500 minus €80, or €420.
Now a hypothetical month: 28 nights at €80 (€2,240). The alternative in your off-season is four shorter stays with 10 nights unsold, so the month avoids three turnovers (€120) and 10 empty nights (€800). Subtract €60 of extra utilities you'd absorb from a guest who's home all day. That gives €860 ÷ €2,240, a break-even of about 38.4%.
The same monthly discount in peak season, when you'd sell every night anyway, has only €120 minus €60 of room: about 2.7%.
This suggests one rule: the right depth depends on how many nights you'd realistically leave empty, not on the stay length alone. A percentage-based host fee nudges the break-even slightly up, because the fee shrinks with the discount but your cleaning bill doesn't.
For context, Booking.com's article says a discount of at least 15% weekly and 30% monthly "can be considered competitive" there. Run your own break-even before copying that. If it's lower than the guideline, a long-stay discount may not be worth offering for those dates.
When should you cut, keep or remove your weekly discount?
Keep a discount where your break-even is comfortably above it, cut it where dates sell at full price anyway, and remove it for peak periods where it only rewards guests who would have booked regardless.
Use your own booking history for the last comparable season:
| What you see | What it suggests | Our recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Long stays book months out at the discounted rate, peak weeks full | Guests would likely have paid more | Remove the weekly discount for peak dates, or cut it below your busy-week break-even |
| Discounted long stays fill weeks that used to have gaps | The discount is replacing empty nights | Keep it; recheck the break-even once a season |
| Shoulder weeks stay empty even with a discount | Price may not be the blocker | Check photos, amenities for longer stays and minimum-stay settings before going deeper |
| Monthly guests arrive, but utilities or wear keep rising | Extra long-stay costs are higher than you assumed | Raise the monthly rate, or add those costs to the formula |
A single year-round percentage is the most common way to overpay. On Airbnb, rule-sets let you apply a different length-of-stay discount by period if you use professional hosting tools; on Booking.com, a weekly or monthly rate plan has its own available dates. Your length of stay pricing works together with your minimum-stay settings, which decide which short stays are even possible between long ones.
What does a monthly stay cost you that a short stay doesn't?
A monthly guest adds running costs, legal exposure and a slower payout pattern. Put the first into your formula and check the other two before you accept stays of 28 nights or more.
- Running costs: heating, cooling, water and wear from someone living in the unit every day. Use your own utility bills from a comparable month, not a guess.
- Tenancy rules: Airbnb's article on hosting monthly stays warns that in most US states and localities, guests staying a month or longer may establish rights as a tenant, and gives California, Illinois and New York as places where tenancy may be created after 30 consecutive days. Rules differ in other countries too, so check yours.
- Payout timing: Airbnb's monthly stays article notes that monthly stay payments are collected and released in monthly installments, so the money doesn't arrive all at once.
When this advice does not apply
- Dynamic pricing tools: Airbnb says Smart Pricing overrides rule-sets, and third-party pricing tools may manage discounts for you. Check which setting actually controls the price guests see.
- Channel manager rate control: if a connectivity provider manages rates on Booking.com, set long-stay rate plans in that provider's system.
- Mid-term or furnished-rental markets: if long stays are your main business rather than a way to fill gaps, compare against local furnished rents, not against short stays.
What to do next
- Work out your net turnover cost per changeover, after the guest's cleaning fee.
- Pull last season's calendar and count the nights left unsold between short stays, per month.
- Run the break-even formula separately for peak and slow periods.
- Set or remove weekly and monthly discounts by period, not one year-round figure. Use the Airbnb fee calculator to check what you'd take home.
- Recheck after one season: did discounted long stays fill empty weeks, or just reprice weeks that were already full?
FAQ
What is Airbnb's weekly discount?
It's a percentage off the nightly price for stays of 7 nights or more. You set it in your calendar under price settings and discounts, and 10% or more shows in search results.
How does Airbnb's monthly discount work?
It applies to stays of 28 nights or more. Your discount comes out of your price; Airbnb's separate Monthly Stay Savings, where offered, are paid by Airbnb and not deducted from your payout.
How do you remove a weekly discount on Airbnb?
Airbnb lets you edit or delete discounts from the pricing settings in your calendar. If you only want it gone for certain dates, a rule-set can apply a different discount to just those periods.
Does Booking.com have length-of-stay discounts?
Yes, through weekly and monthly rate plans. Each is a separate rate plan with its own discount, cancellation policy and dates.
About BookBed: BookBed lets you set seasonal pricing rules per unit in its calendar and direct booking widget, so your direct rate can change by period instead of staying flat all year. These rules apply to BookBed, not to your Airbnb or Booking.com prices. See BookBed pricing
Sources
- Airbnb Help Center, "Weekly and monthly discounts for home stays" — Verified 2026-09-30
- Airbnb Help Center, "How rule-sets work" — Verified 2026-09-30
- Airbnb Help Center, "Things to consider before hosting monthly stays" — Verified 2026-09-30
- Airbnb Help Center, "Host monthly stays" — Verified 2026-09-30
- Booking.com for Partners, "Setting up weekly and monthly rate plans" — Verified 2026-09-30