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Does anyone want an Airbnb alternative with lower or zero fees for hosts?

1 points by nomad-dude ↗ HN
Hi all,

I recently have been building an app that is offering no fees for hosts. My question is, would that be something that would make hosts switch over or does Airbnb have some other special sauce?

I don’t need to compete head on, I just want to be able to offer something more affordable.

Guests would pay half of the fees they do on Airbnb.

I think there is a valid group of people who would switch.

9 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 31.8 ms ] thread
harisikram84
Would love a solution with better insurance and support in case of issues
nomad-dude
Could you elaborate?

It would help me understand and implement this into my own app :)

themerone
It means that you become the financial guarantor for all bookings, both for losses by the guest and host, and not be stingy about issuing reimbursements.
sharemywin
I would think it's about whether you can bring bookings.
aj_icracked
As an airbnb host for a ADU, they only charge me 3% of bookings and I'm nearly always booked (probably 80%). Hypothetically let's just say it does $50k / year in bookings... paying airbnb $1500 for the customer base, support, booking engine, etc is super cheap. Airbnb is really only expensive as a guest IMO.
themerone
Hosts won't switch away from Airbnb to a platform with no customers. Some might duel list, but then all the bookings will end up happening on Airbnb anyway.

I would expect that to start generating real revenue, you would have to spend tens to hundreds of millions on customer acquisition.

ada1981
Myplace.co is a small competitor. No fees.

You need to provide bookings if you want people to switch.

mytailorisrich
The Airbnb platform provides a very useful and lucrative service to hosts. Therefore I have a question the business reasoning to offer it for free, certainly there is no affordability issue here.