Airbnb Superhost: What it Is and How to Get it

If you’re interested in the short-term rental industry, you must have heard about Airbnb Superhosts. While this sounds like an attractive title for aspiring vacation rental investors, there are a lot of doubts and uncertainties about what exactly this means and what it entails.

In this article, we will look at what the Airbnb Superhost status means to both hosts and guests, what it takes to become one, what the benefits are, and what you need to do and to avoid in order to maintain this title.

What an Airbnb Superhost Is

The Airbnb platform launched the Airbnb Superhost program in 2014 - six years after the establishment of the company - to acknowledge and recognize the most welcoming and top-performing hosts. The aim is to make the best Airbnb hosts stand out from the rest and highlight the great services which they provide to guests.

In this way, guests know they can have complete trust in Airbnb Superhosts and book with them with confidence that everything will go well with their booking and all their needs will be properly addressed.

For vacation rental hosts who can achieve this status, it translates into a higher occupancy, fewer vacancies, and more rental income.

To differentiate between Superhosts and regular hosts, Airbnb provides the former with a special badge on their profile.

There is a specific set of criteria which a host has to meet in order to be awarded with an Airbnb status. Importantly, you don’t need to undergo an application process as Airbnb reviews all hosts every three months to check if they’ve met the requirements over the last quarter. You should keep in mind that gaining the Airbnb Superhost status once does not guarantee holding onto it forever. If you drop any of the requirements, you will lose this status during the next round of reviews.

What Airbnb Superhost Means to Guests

One of the primary goals of the Airbnb Superhost program is to show guests which hosts they can trust the most because they have showed outstanding service and commitment to their guests during the last three months. While guests don’t have to book with Superhosts only, there are some advantages that come with choosing them over other regular hosts.

Here is what Airbnb guests get when they make a reservations with a Superhost:

• Outstanding hospitality and guest service: The excellent overall rating of an Airbnb Superhost gives guests the confidence that the host will not only meet the minimum requirements for a comfortable stay but will actually go above and beyond to provide everything that they need. Guests have a higher chance of choosing an excellent location, well-maintained, properly stocked, and clean rental, and great customer service.
• Assurance that everything will go well: Airbnb Superhosts are experienced hosts as they’ve completed multiple stays with high quality. Guests know the property and the experience will be up to standard.
• Minimum risk of cancellation: The fact that Airbnb Superhosts have been able to meet (nearly) all of their reservations over the past year means they take their Airbnb business seriously and will continue to honor reservations in the future. While any host might face extenuating circumstances, guests have a higher probability of not experiencing a last-minute cancellation with a Superhost.
• Immediate responses: Guests can expect their questions and concerns to be answered in less than 24 hours when booking spaces with an Airbnb Superhost. This means that they can better plan their stay and better enjoy vacation.

In sum, guests know they can trust Airbnb Superhosts because they have shown excellent service to other guests and because the Airbnb platform acknowledges them for their efforts through the special badge. Guests are more likely to choose the listing of a Superhost than of a regular host.

Airbnb Superhost Requirements

The Airbnb website has a very clear and concrete set of requirements that hosts need to meet in order to be awarded with the Superhost status and badge. While these criteria are strict and there is no way around them, they are not that difficult to achieve as long as you provide a good service to your guests, market your property well, honor reservations, respond to questions, and work towards getting positive reviews.

To become an Airbnb Superhost, you need to achieve:

• Overall rating of 4.8+: You need to have an overall rating from guests of 4.8 or more over the last year. Based on Airbnb criteria, a review counts towards your rating if both the host (you) and the guest have submitted a review or the 14-day review window has expired. While getting some negative reviews along the way slows down your process towards the Airbnb Superhost status, you can still achieve it. You need to improve your service to guests and work actively on generating a lot of positive reviews to compensate for the bad ones. After all, your overall rating is the average of all reviews that you get.
• 10+ stays: You have to complete a minimum of ten stays or 100 nights over a minimum of three stays in the past year. This means that you are an active Airbnb host whose listing gets a lot of interest and reservations.
• Cancellation rate of <1%: You cannot cancel guest reservations over 1% of the time. If you have fewer than 100 reservations per year, you cannot cancel any of them. There are extenuating circumstances that don’t count towards this requirement, and you need to be familiar with them.
• Response rate of 90%: You need to respond to new messages within 24 hours. This means that you are available to communicate with guests and address their concerns.

The four requirements listed above are the same across all markets and property types. This is what Airbnb considers to be required to be entrusted with their special recognition award no matter where you host and what space you own.

The Airbnb Superhost recognition process is very dynamic. The platform reviews all host performance and evaluates their achievements every three months. Assessments start on January 1st, April 1st, July 1st, and October 1st of each year and last for five days. At the end of the evaluation period, you will receive a notification whether you’ve gained the Superhost status. This means that you have a chance of becoming an Airbnb Superhost every three months as long as you’ve met the requirements. But it also means that you can lose the status every three months if you cannot maintain your excellent work.

While each evaluation covers the past 12 months, you don’t need to have hosted for all 12 previous months. New Airbnb hosts also have a chance of getting this status if they’ve hit all targets.

One more thing that hosts need to know is that they don’t have to apply for the Airbnb Superhost program. Quarterly evaluations are automatic and apply to all hosts. As long as you list on Airbnb, you are eligible for a Superhost status and will be considered every three months.

9 Steps to Become an Airbnb Superhost

The good thing about the Airbnb Superhost requirements is that they are easy to achieve if you put the work into it.

Here are 9 actionable steps you can take to work towards this status:

1. Furnish your property well: Furnish your vacation rental in line with local market trends and guest expectations. Good-looking properties that have everything required for a comfortable stay get more bookings and generate more positive reviews. Focus on high-quality, durable furniture items and smart home devices like smart locks, smart thermostats, and smart TVs. Also provide the best bed sheets and towels.
2. Stock your rental beyond expectations: Study what your competitors in the local market provide and offer more. Make sure that the kitchen is always stocked with coffee, tea, salt, pepper, sugar, and other supplies. Provide plenty of high-quality shampoo, soap, dishwashing liquid, paper towels and toilet paper.
3. Optimize your Airbnb listing: When listing your property on Airbnb, upload at least five professional photos, choose a fun, short title, and write a detailed, truthful, enticing description. Incorporate keywords in your title and description and search suggestions for your local market. Highlight all amenities. Fill in your booking policies and rules in detail. Provide additional information for guests like a guestbook, directions to the property, house manual, check-in and check-out instructions, Wi-Fi information, and more. All these details will help your listing rank higher, get more exposure, attract more interest from guests, and generate more bookings.
4. Price your listing dynamically: Customize your nightly rate for each day when your property is available for rent based on local supply and demand and the rates that your competitors charge. You can use an Airbnb pricing tool like Airbnb Smart Pricing or AirDNA’s Smart Rates to automate this process. The Airbnb SEO algorithm gives preference to listings that are priced competitively in order to help guests save money.
5. Keep your booking calendar up to date: Mark your space available for rent on your calendar for as many days as possible. While it’s OK to stay at your property from time to time, the more open your calendar is, the more bookings you’ll be able to get to achieve the ten required stays per year for an Airbnb Superhost status. Do not mark your space as available for guests unless you are fully sure that it is as you don’t want to cancel guest reservations.
6. Switch on Instant Book: This Airbnb feature allows you to automatically approve reservations from guests that meet certain criteria selected by you with no manual approval. This improves your response rate and also helps your listing rank higher in guest search results on the Airbnb platform.
7. Set up automated message responses: Look for an Airbnb property management automation tool like Evolve or RedAwning that helps hosts automate guest communication. In this way, you can respond to guest messages right away to achieve a 90%+ response rate within 24 hours without having to be available online all the time.
8. Solicit reviews from guests and rate guests after every stay: Send automated messages to guests a couple of days after their stay to make sure that everything has been good, ask for feedback on anything you can improve, and solicit a review of your Airbnb listing. Meanwhile, make sure that you also rate guests within 14 days in order for reviews to qualify.
9. Consider hiring an Airbnb manager: If you invest remotely or don’t have the time to devote to being a full-time Airbnb host, think about working with an Airbnb management company. A good one will take care of all the aspects of running your short-term rental business, optimize your listing’s performance, and get you the Airbnb Superhost status.

How Much Airbnb Superhosts Make

Becoming an Airbnb Superhost comes with some important benefits, but ultimately you should care the most about how this status can affect how much money you make from your short-term rental.

According to Airbnb statistics provided by the platform itself, in Q3/2022 an average Superhost made 64% more revenue than a regular host. The one million Airbnb Superhosts collectively earned $23+ billion in income between October 2021 and September 2022, which averages $23,000+ per Superhost per year. The numbers are likely to be even higher in 2023 when further travel restrictions have been lifted.

Benefits of Being a Superhost

If you’re able to meet the requirements of being an Airbnb Superhost, you’ll gain a lot of advantages over other hosts.

The major benefits include:

• Higher ranking in search results: The Airbnb algorithm gives priority to the listings of Airbnb Superhosts. As the website strives to provide quality to guests, it ranks Superhost listings higher as they promise excellent guest experience and service.
• More bookings: As more guests get exposed to your listing and as they see you as a more trustworthy host, more of them will book with you. This will immediately increase the number of your reservations.
• Less vacancy: More stays translates into a lower vacancy rate. In real estate investing, vacancy is considered a cost, so you should aim to minimize it.
• Higher average daily rates: As you gain the Airbnb Superhost status, you can afford to push your nightly rates higher without losing ranking. This means that you can make more money on each night when your space is rented.
• More revenue: More reservations and higher ADRs mean more rental income. On average, you can expect to make 64% more money as a Superhost.
• Higher ROI: As your rental revenue goes up, so will your Airbnb cap rate too. This is because your operating expenses will remain relatively unchanged as becoming an Airbnb Superhost does not increase expenses.
• Passive income: As your earnings increase, you can hire a full-time Airbnb property manager with the extra money in case the cost was a concern for you. In this way, you can make passive income from your real estate investment property while its performance is being optimized.

How Hosts Can Lose the Airbnb Superhost Status

Before you even become an Airbnb Superhost, you should know that this status is not set in stone. You can easily lose it during each of the three-month reviews. As long as you don’t meet one or more of the four requirements described above, you will lose the Superhost badge.

So, once you’ve been awarded with this status, continue actively working towards providing outstanding service to your guests in order to maintain the prestigious title.

Takeaway

Being an Airbnb Superhost is a great, effective way to show guests you do everything possible to meet the needs and expectations of your renters and provide them with an excellent experience. While gaining this status requires some effort, it is attainable as long as you optimize your listing, keep your rental up to standard, maintain your calendar up to date, and automate pricing and communication. Alternatively, you can hire a short-term rental property management company to do all the work for you.