Room Turn Cost
The Housekeeping CardWhat a turn costs, and what that is a night once people stay longer.
The turn cost lives in one place and the length of stay lives in another, so nobody ever divides one by the other. The room with the cheapest turn is often the dearest to run, and no booking report will ever say so.
A turn costs the same whatever the length of the stay — the linens, the hour of housekeeping and what gets left out do not know how many nights were booked. So the figure per stay holds still and the figure per night does not, and both are here.
About this tool
Room Turn Cost: what it solves
What a turn includes is a standard this house set: how long it takes in each room, what goes on the bed, what is left out for a guest, how often the things that are not replaced every stay actually get replaced, and what is held back against a deep clean. The things restocked every few stays are spread across the stays they cover, because charging a bottle that lasts six turns to one of them overstates that stay and understates five, and leaving it out is how a turn cost ends up a third light. The finding is the second figure rather than the first. Cost per stay is fixed; cost per night falls as the stay lengthens, and it falls fast. On the sample the cheapest turn is the dearest per night, because it turns twice as often. That is also why a minimum-stay rule is a cost decision before it is a marketing one — a longer stay does not make a turn cheaper, it spreads the same turn over more nights, which is a different sentence and a far more useful one.
The cheapest turn can be the dearest per night
Cost per stay is fixed. You clean the room, you change the bed, you restock. That costs what it costs whether somebody stayed two nights or nine.
Cost per night is that same figure divided by however many nights they stayed — and it falls fast.
Which means the room with the lowest turn cost, if it turns twice as often, is the room costing you most per night. That is a genuinely counterintuitive result and it is arithmetic rather than a theory. It falls straight out of one division.
So a minimum stay is a cost decision before it is a marketing one
This is the sentence worth taking away.
A longer stay does not make a turn cheaper. It spreads the same turn over more nights.
That is a different claim from the one usually made about minimum stays, and it is far more useful, because it tells you exactly what a two-night minimum is worth to you: the difference between your turn cost over one night and over two. You can work that out, in money, before you change anything on your listing.
The things you do not replace every stay still have to be counted
A bottle of something that lasts six turns. A set of towels that gets replaced twice a year. The deep clean you hold money back for.
Charge the whole bottle to one turn and that stay looks expensive while the next five look cheap. Leave it out entirely — which is what most people do, because it is annoying — and the turn cost comes out about a third light.
Spread across the stays it actually covers, it is a small number that is correct. That is the whole of it: not clever, just done.
What a turn includes is a standard your house set
How long each room takes. What goes on the bed. What is left out for a guest. How often the in-between things get replaced. What you hold back for the deep clean.
None of that comes from anywhere but your house. A cottage that puts out fresh flowers and a three-room inn that does not are running different standards, and both are right for what they are.
This applies yours. It has no view on whether you should be putting out flowers.
What it replaces
The turn cost nobody has ever calculated — which is most of them — or the one worked out once, two years ago, before the linen supplier put its prices up.
You set your standard once. After that it is stay lengths.
Who it is for
B&Bs, inns, short-term rentals and holiday cottages — anywhere a room gets turned between guests and the cost of doing it is real, recurring, and absent from every statement you receive.
What it will not do
It suggests no nightly rate. What to charge is a different question and it is answered on a different sheet.
It sets no minimum stay. It tells you what one is worth in money. Whether the bookings you would lose are worth more than the turns you would save is your read on your own market.
It compares your standard to nobody’s. There is no figure here for what a turn ought to cost, because a turn is whatever your house has decided it is.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The arithmetic runs in your browser. Close the tab and it is gone.
Yours would be built the same way.
This one runs on made-up data. The version built for your business runs on yours, and you own it outright. Builds start at $2,500. That is a floor, not a quote. What yours costs is agreed before any work begins. The first conversation is free.