Setting your B&B room rate: how much do you charge per night?

What do you charge per night when you're starting a B&B? This guide shows how to work out a fair base rate from your costs, what an OTA commission does to that figure, why the cheapest price is rarely the smartest, and how to let the rate move with season and occupancy.

It's the question that keeps every new B&B owner awake for a night: what do I write on that price tag? Too high and your calendar stays empty. Too low and you work hard for a margin that isn't there. And unlike a shop item, there's no recommended price on the box — you set it yourself, every night anew.

The good news: a room rate isn't a guess. It can be worked out. In this article we'll build it from the ground up — from your costs, not from what the neighbours charge — and look at why the figure on your website is never the figure that lands in your account.

Start with your costs, not the competition

Most starters look first at what the B&B down the road charges and settle just below it. That's the fastest route to a rate that's too low, because you know nothing about their costs, their occupancy or their ambition. Start with your own floor instead.

Work out one room, one night:

Direct costs per stay: laundering the linen, breakfast supplies, water and energy used, cleaning products, welcome touches.
Your time: check-in, cleaning, communication, preparing breakfast. Put an hourly rate on it, even if you don't pay yourself separately — your time isn't free.
Fixed costs allocated per night: insurance, maintenance, depreciation of the furnishings, internet, heating the common areas. Divide your annual fixed costs by the number of nights you realistically expect to sell.

The total is your cost per night sold. Below that figure you lose money. It isn't a selling price, but a floor you must never drop under.

The occupancy trap

You divide those fixed costs by expected nights — and that's where the biggest beginner's mistake hides. Anyone who calculates as if their rooms are full 90% of the year spreads their fixed costs over far too many nights and arrives at a cost that's too low. In practice most small accommodations reach an occupancy well below that, with peaks in season and empty weeks outside it.

So calculate with a cautious occupancy. If you reach your cost at 50% and end up at 65%, that's bonus margin. Do it the other way around and you finance your empty nights out of your own pocket. If you don't have your own figures yet, occupancy, ADR and RevPAR explain which numbers to keep an eye on.

The figure on your website isn't your revenue

Now the pitfall starters trip over hardest. Put a room at €100 on Booking.com and you don't keep €100. At a commission of, say, 15% you're left with €85 — and VAT and your costs still come off that. Fill that same room through your own booking widget and the commission disappears, leaving you the full €100.

That difference is the core of your pricing. Two things follow from it:

Set your base rate so you keep a margin after commission. The OTA is a shop window you pay rent for, not charity.
Make direct bookings more attractive than the OTA — without breaking rate parity. Not with a lower room rate, but with something extra: a free late check-out, a bottle of wine, a discount code for a next stay. More on that in Encouraging direct bookings.

Why being the cheapest rarely pays

The temptation, as a newcomer, to be the cheapest is strong — it feels like the safe choice. But a price is also a signal. A €60 room in a street where everyone charges €95 doesn't read as "a bargain!" but as "what's wrong with it?". You also attract the most price-sensitive guests: they book once, compare again next time, and leave harsher reviews because their expectations rest on nothing.

Better than being the cheapest is to charge the right price and deliver the difference in what the guest gets: clean rooms, a warm welcome, a good breakfast, quick replies. That's also what lifts your reviews — and good reviews let you charge more over time, not less.

One price is no price

A single fixed room rate all year long leaves money on the table. On a peak July weekend you can charge more than on a wet Tuesday in November — and you should. You don't need to dive straight into complex dynamic pricing for that. Start simple:

Seasons: a high, mid and low-season rate.
Weekend versus weekday.
Simple rules: a surcharge for a single night, a discount from three or five nights. That's how you fill the gaps in your calendar and raise your average length of stay.

Once you're ready for it, you can go a step further with genuinely dynamic pricing that moves with demand.

Where BedFlow PMS makes the difference

Working out a price is one thing; getting it right everywhere is another. BedFlow PMS lets you set one base rate and vary it by season, weekend or length of stay, after which those same prices — including your minimum stay and surcharges — go out automatically to Booking.com, Airbnb and your own booking widget. That keeps your rate parity intact without retyping the same figure into three extranets.

Because direct bookings come in through your own widget with no OTA commission, your figures show you in black and white what each booking source nets you — and that's exactly the information you need to fine-tune your price.

In short

Build your price from your costs, not from the neighbours.
Calculate fixed costs with a cautious occupancy, or you'll set yourself too low.
The figure on your website isn't your revenue: take the OTA commission off it.
Being the cheapest attracts the hardest guests and the harshest reviews.
One price is no price: let it move with season, weekend and length of stay.

Ready to set your prices right once? Check the pricing, read the documentation or try BedFlow PMS free for 30 days — no credit card required.