If you own a short-stay property in Melbourne, you have probably asked yourself some version of this question at 11pm, after answering a guest message about parking for the third time that week. Do you keep running it yourself, or do you hand it to a manager and take the percentage hit?
There is no single right answer. It depends on how much your time is worth to you, how many properties you have, how close you live to the listing, and how comfortable you are with the parts of the job that are not fun: the late check-ins, the broken hot water on a public holiday, the dynamic pricing, and now the Victorian short-stay levy. This guide walks through both options honestly, with real Melbourne numbers, so you can make the call that actually fits your situation.
The short answer
Self-managing makes sense when you have one property, you live nearby, you have time on your hands, and you enjoy the hosting side of it. You keep more of every dollar and you stay close to your guests.
Hiring a manager makes sense when your time is scarce or expensive, when you do not live near the property, when you have more than one listing, or when you simply do not want short-term rentals to become a second job. A good manager should lift your nightly rate and occupancy enough that their fee mostly pays for itself, and they take the operational load off your plate entirely.
Most owners land somewhere on a spectrum between those two. The rest of this article is about working out where you sit.
What self-managing a Melbourne Airbnb actually involves
People underestimate the hosting workload until they are in it. Here is the honest list of what falls to you when you self-manage.
Guest communication runs almost around the clock. Enquiries, booking questions, check-in instructions, mid-stay issues, and the occasional 2am “the door code is not working” message. Slow replies cost you bookings, because Airbnb and Booking.com both reward fast responders with better visibility.
Pricing is a job in itself. Melbourne is one of the most event-driven short-stay markets in the country. Rates that work in a quiet week in August are leaving serious money on the table during the Australian Open in January, the Formula 1 Grand Prix in March, the AFL finals through September and October, and the Melbourne Cup carnival in November. Setting one flat rate and forgetting it is the single most common way self-managing hosts underperform.
Then there is the operational side. Coordinating cleaners between checkouts and check-ins, restocking consumables, managing keys or smart locks, handling maintenance, and being the person a tradesperson can actually reach when the dishwasher floods.
And since 1 January 2025, there is the short-stay levy to stay across. For bookings made through Airbnb, Stayz and Booking.com, the platforms collect and remit the 7.5 percent levy automatically, so you do not have to do anything. But if you take any direct bookings, you are responsible for registering with the State Revenue Office and lodging returns yourself. That is a real compliance task that did not exist a couple of years ago.
None of this is impossible. Plenty of owners do it well. But it is a genuine ongoing commitment, not a set-and-forget arrangement.
What an Airbnb manager does
A full-service manager takes the whole operation off you. The scope usually covers listing creation and optimisation, professional photography, dynamic pricing, multi-platform distribution across Airbnb, Booking.com and Stayz, guest communication, check-in coordination, cleaning and linen, maintenance, restocking, and owner reporting. The good ones also handle the compliance side, including the levy on any direct bookings and keeping you across changing rules.
The point of a manager is not just convenience. It is performance. A professionally run listing tends to out-earn a self-managed one because the pricing is sharper, the response times are faster, the photos are better, and the steady stream of five-star reviews pushes the listing higher in search results. Whether that uplift is worth the fee is the question every owner needs to answer with their own numbers, which brings us to money.
The money: a realistic Melbourne comparison
Let us use a representative example. A well-located two-bedroom apartment in central Melbourne can earn somewhere around $300 a night at roughly 70 percent occupancy in a normal year. That works out to gross revenue in the region of $75,000 to $79,000 before costs.
If you self-manage that property, you keep the management fee you would otherwise pay, but you also absorb every hour of the work and you carry the risk of underpricing through peak events. If you set rates manually and reply to guests when you get a chance, occupancy and nightly rate both tend to slip, and the gap between what you earn and what a sharp operator would earn on the same property can be wider than the management fee itself.
If you hire a manager, you pay a percentage of revenue. Across Melbourne and Sydney, full-service short-stay management fees generally sit somewhere between 15 and 25 percent of booking revenue, with some operators charging more for premium or guaranteed-income models. The headline percentage is not the whole story, though. What matters is what is included and what is billed as an extra. Some companies charge setup fees, photography fees, onboarding fees, and markups on cleaning or maintenance that do not show up in the advertised rate. Always compare the all-in cost, not the front-page number.
Here is the test that actually matters. A manager is worth it if they increase your total net income by more than they cost you. If a manager charges 15 percent but lifts your revenue 20 to 30 percent through better pricing, faster responses and broader distribution, you come out ahead and you do none of the work. If they charge 25 percent and run the listing no better than you would have, you are paying for convenience alone. That can still be a fair trade if your time is valuable, but you should know which deal you are signing.
For the record, Holiday House Manager charges a flat 15 percent with no setup costs, which sits at the competitive end of the Melbourne market. We mention it not to sell you here, but because the spread between operators is wide, and a flat low fee with no hidden extras changes the maths considerably.
The Melbourne-specific factors that tip the decision
A few things make Melbourne different from a generic “should I hire a manager” question.
The short-stay levy is now a permanent part of the picture. The 7.5 percent levy applies to stays under 28 consecutive days and is calculated on the total booking fee, including cleaning fees and GST, but excluding credit card fees. Platforms handle it for platform bookings. You handle it for direct bookings. A manager absorbs that admin entirely.
Owners corporation rules are worth checking before you commit to either path. Since the levy legislation passed, owners corporations can pass rules by special resolution to prohibit short-stay accommodation in their building. If you are in an apartment, confirm where your building stands before you invest in either self-managing or onboarding with a manager.
The regulatory landscape is still moving. Night caps on unhosted properties have been proposed and some councils are looking at their own local limits, and short-stay rules tend to be a live political topic in Victoria. You do not need to panic about this, but it is one more reason that having someone whose job is to track compliance has real value.
And then there is the event calendar. Melbourne’s demand is genuinely seasonal and spiky. The owners who capture the most upside are the ones adjusting rates aggressively around the Australian Open, the Grand Prix, the footy finals and the Spring Racing Carnival. If you are not going to ride those peaks yourself, that is often where a manager earns their fee several times over.
The time factor
Money aside, be honest about your time. Self-managing a single property well is realistically a few hours most weeks, with occasional days that eat your evening when something goes wrong. Multiply that by every property you own. If you have a full-time job, a family, or you live in a different city or state from the listing, the hours do not magically appear, and the quality of the hosting is usually what suffers.
A manager is buying back that time. For some owners that alone is the entire value proposition, regardless of the revenue uplift.
A simple way to decide
Lean towards self-managing if you have one property, you live close to it, you have spare hours each week, you are comfortable with dynamic pricing and guest communication, and you actively enjoy hosting.
Lean towards hiring a manager if you own more than one property, you live far from the listing, your time is scarce or worth more elsewhere, you do not want to be on call, or you want the compliance and pricing handled by people who do it all day.
If you are somewhere in the middle, the deciding question is usually this: would a good manager lift your net income by more than their fee, once you also value the hours you would get back? For most multi-property owners and most time-poor owners in Melbourne, the answer is yes.
If you decide to hire, here is what to check
Not all managers are equal, and the cheapest is rarely the right test. Before you sign with anyone, confirm the fee is genuinely all-inclusive and ask exactly what is billed on top. Check who owns the listing and the reviews if you ever leave, because that matters enormously for your long-term position. Make sure they distribute across Airbnb, Booking.com and Stayz rather than a single platform. Ask how they handle dynamic pricing and how often rates are adjusted. Confirm they have a genuine local presence in Melbourne and a real person who can get to your property quickly. And ask how they handle the short-stay levy and compliance so nothing lands back on you.
Where Holiday House Manager fits
We manage short-stay properties across Melbourne on a flat 15 percent fee with no setup costs. That covers listing optimisation, professional photography, dynamic pricing tuned to Melbourne’s event calendar, distribution across Airbnb, Booking.com and Stayz, guest communication, cleaning and linen coordination, maintenance, and the levy and compliance admin. If you are weighing up the switch from self-managing, we are happy to run your property’s numbers and tell you honestly whether a manager is worth it for you, even if the answer is that you are better off keeping it yourself.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth hiring an Airbnb manager in Melbourne? It is worth it when the manager increases your net income by more than their fee, or when the hours you get back are worth more to you than the percentage. For owners with multiple properties, owners who live away from the listing, and time-poor owners, it usually stacks up. For a hands-on owner with a single nearby property and spare time, self-managing can be the better financial result.
How much do Airbnb managers charge in Melbourne? Full-service management fees in Melbourne generally range from about 15 to 25 percent of booking revenue, with some operators charging more for premium models. Watch for setup fees, photography fees and cleaning markups that are billed on top of the headline rate. Holiday House Manager charges a flat 15 percent with no setup costs.
Do I have to pay the short-stay levy myself if I self-manage? For bookings made through Airbnb, Stayz and Booking.com, the platforms collect and remit the 7.5 percent levy for you. For any direct bookings, you are responsible for registering with the Victorian State Revenue Office and lodging returns yourself. A manager handles this admin for you.
Can I switch from self-managing to a manager without losing my reviews? Usually yes, but it depends on the arrangement. Confirm with any manager that your listing and review history stay under your ownership, so you are never locked in and you keep the reputation you have built.
How much time does self-managing a Melbourne Airbnb take? For a single property, realistically a few hours in a typical week, with occasional days that take much longer when maintenance or guest issues come up. The workload scales with each additional property and with how far you live from the listing.
