How to Find Airbnb Co-Hosting Clients With Permit Records

How new Airbnb co-hosts find and sign owners: Airbnb's co-host rules, which owners to target, permit registers, lawful outreach, call scripts and pricing.

Published Oct 23, 2026 · 30 min read · by Lead Mining Company

Co-hosting is the cheapest way into vacation-rental management. You do not buy property, lease units or hire a front desk. You work inside an owner's existing Airbnb listing, with the access the owner chooses to give you, and you are paid out of that owner's bookings. The work itself is learnable. The hard part is finding the first owners who will trust you with their listing, and then the next ten.

This guide is for people building a co-hosting business from zero or from a handful of listings. It covers how co-hosting works on Airbnb's own terms, what a book of listings earns, which owners are most likely to say yes, how to find those owners market by market in public short-term-rental permit registers, how to contact them without breaking telemarketing or email law, what to say on the first call, which pricing models Airbnb supports, how to onboard, and the mistakes that cost new co-hosts their first clients.

If you already run a management company with contracts, staff and a phone team, the guide for established property managers fits you better. That guide is about winning full management contracts from owners who have run their own rental for a year or two. This one is about a different sale: a smaller, earlier, more flexible arrangement that a new co-host can win before they have a brand, a portfolio or a review history of their own.

How co-hosting works on Airbnb

Everything you sell as a co-host sits on top of a few platform mechanics. Owners will ask about them, and knowing them exactly is part of looking like a professional on the first call. All of the following comes from Airbnb's own help center and resource pages.

Who adds a co-host, and how many

Airbnb's introduction to co-hosting says that for homes, the listing owner or a co-host with full-access permissions can add a co-host to a listing, and that a listing can have up to 10 co-hosts. That limit matters in practice: an owner can add you and a cleaner, or you and a maintenance person, without hitting a ceiling.

The three permission levels

When an owner invites a co-host, Airbnb makes them choose the co-host's permissions. Its article on what co-hosts can do lists three levels:

Permission level	What Airbnb says the co-host can do	Fits a co-host who
Full access	Manage the listing, including pricing and other details, plus the rest of the listing tools	Runs the whole listing: pricing, calendar, guests, reviews
Calendar and messaging	Message with guests and view but not edit the calendar	Handles guest communication while the owner keeps pricing
Calendar only	View but not edit the calendar	Does on-site work such as cleaning, check-ins or maintenance

Those levels are the natural shape of your service menu. An owner who is nervous about handing over control can start you at calendar and messaging, and move you to full access once they trust you. Airbnb's own Co-Host Network page lists the kinds of work co-hosts offer: listing creation, calendar and pricing decisions, reservation requests, guest messaging, on-site guest help, cleaning and upkeep, photography, interior styling and permits. You do not have to offer all of it.

How co-hosts get paid through Airbnb

Airbnb's article on how co-host payouts work sets out the rules most owners never read:

Only the host who is the listing owner can set up payouts for a co-host. You cannot set up your own.
There are four payout options: cleaning fee, cleaning fee plus percentage, percentage, and fixed amount.
After the owner proposes a payout, the co-host has 14 days to confirm or decline.
Once confirmed, the co-host starts getting payouts for bookings after guests check in.
Service or Experience bookings, host damage protection reimbursements and Resolution Center payouts are not included.
The amounts are based on the host's potential earnings for the booking: the nightly price times the number of nights, plus additional charges to the guest such as a cleaning fee, minus the host service fee and any applicable taxes or fees.

Airbnb's Co-Host Additional Terms add two details that matter for cash flow. A payout instruction applies to reservations with check-in dates after both the host and co-host approve it, and Airbnb Payments does not guarantee co-host payouts for amounts it has not received from the host or guest. In plain terms: your first dollar from a new owner arrives after the first guest checks in under the agreed instruction, not on the day you sign.

The Co-Host Network, and why you start outside it

Airbnb runs a directory where owners search for a co-host by entering their home's address. The network's requirements, from Airbnb's help center, include 10 or more stays, or 3 or more stays adding up to 100 or more nights, in the past 12 months as a host or co-host; an average guest rating of 4.8 or more across the listings you support; a cancellation rate under 3%, with exceptions for valid reasons beyond your control; and a display name that is your individual name, not a business. To stay visible you need to keep review ratings of 4.7 or higher, and Airbnb recommends a response rate above 90%.

Airbnb's page on finding a co-host says that on average, co-hosts in the network have an overall guest rating of 4.86 stars and four years of experience on Airbnb, that 73% are Superhosts, and that 84% host at least one Guest Favorite listing. It lists 13 countries where the network operates, including the US.

Read those requirements as a business plan. A brand-new co-host cannot be found in Airbnb's own directory until they already have stays and ratings. The first listings have to come from somewhere else: your own outreach. That is what the rest of this guide is about.

Co-hosting compared with a management contract

A co-host and a traditional property manager often do the same daily work. The sale is different, and that difference is your advantage when you are starting out.

	Co-hosting on Airbnb	Traditional management contract
Who owns the listing	The owner keeps the listing, the account, the reviews and the payouts	Set by the management contract
Who controls access	The owner picks your permission level and can change it	Set by the contract
How you are paid	A payout share the owner sets up inside Airbnb, or an invoice	Set by the management contract
How hard the yes is	Small and reversible	A signed contract with its own term and exit clause
What the owner can buy	One task or the whole listing	Whatever the contract covers

Because the owner keeps the listing and can change your permissions, the decision to try you is much smaller than the decision to sign a management contract. You can sell a 60-day trial, a single task such as a listing rebuild, or guest messaging only. The flip side is that an owner can leave just as easily, so retention depends on results the owner can see in their own Airbnb dashboard.

Licensing comes before marketing

Before you send a single letter, find out whether your state treats co-hosting for pay as a licensed activity. Airbnb's permission settings do not answer that question. In Florida, for example, the real estate statute defines a broker to include a person who, for another and for compensation, rents or offers to rent real property, and to include persons who advertise rental property information (Florida Statutes 475.01). Whether a particular co-hosting arrangement falls inside that definition or an exemption is a question for a real estate attorney in your state, not for a blog post. This guide is not legal advice.

Local rules can also name the manager directly. Permit Sonoma lists becoming a Certified Vacation Rental Property Manager among the requirements for a vacation rental in unincorporated Sonoma County, next to a zoning permit, a transient occupancy tax number and a vacation rental license. If you plan to work a county like that, the certification is part of your cost of entry, and it is also a selling point: an owner there needs someone who holds it.

What a co-hosting book earns

There is no official source for what co-hosts charge in a given market, so this section does not quote a "typical" rate. It shows the arithmetic you will run with your own numbers. The rates below are round numbers picked only to show the math.

Revenue per listing

Start from the owner's potential earnings, the same base Airbnb uses: nightly price times nights, plus guest charges such as the cleaning fee, minus the host service fee and taxes. Suppose one listing's bookings for a month add up to $3,000 of potential earnings after those deductions.

On a percentage payout of 15%, you receive $3,000 × 0.15 = $450 for that month.
On a percentage payout of 25%, you receive $3,000 × 0.25 = $750.
On a fixed amount of $60 per booking and six bookings, you receive 6 × $60 = $360, whatever the nightly rate.
On the cleaning fee option, you receive the cleaning fee of each booking. If the cleaning fee is $140 and you pay a cleaner $95, your margin is $45 per turnover, before supplies.

A percentage aligns you with the owner's revenue and rises in busy months. A fixed amount protects you in slow months and when an owner cuts prices. The cleaning fee option works only if you control the cleaning and know your real cost per turnover.

Your effective hourly rate

Track your hours per listing from day one: messaging, pricing, restocking, inspections, drive time, problem calls. Then divide. If a listing pays you $450 a month and takes 15 hours of your time, you are earning $450 ÷ 15 = $30 an hour before expenses. If it takes 30 hours, you are earning $15. The listings that look best on revenue are not always the best on hours, especially when they are far from your other listings or the owner messages you constantly.

How many listings you need

Work backward from an income target. If you want $6,000 a month in co-hosting revenue and your listings average $450 each, you need $6,000 ÷ $450 = about 13 listings. If they average $750, you need 8. That number tells you how many owners you have to sign, which tells you how big a prospect list has to be.

The prospect list arithmetic has two rates you will only know after your first campaign: how many contacts turn into a call, and how many calls turn into a signed owner. We do not publish a figure for either, because nothing in permit data predicts it and any number we gave you would be invented. Run a first batch, measure both, and then size the list: listings needed ÷ (calls per contact × signings per call) = contacts needed.

How big the pool is in one market

The pool itself is countable. In Kissimmee, Florida, our files hold 2,788 vacation-rental license records as of October 2026. Of those, 413 sit under owner names that appear on two or more property addresses in the Florida file, which leaves 2,788 − 413 = 2,375 records under names that appear on only one address. That single-address group is where one-listing owners sit, and after you remove business names it is the core of a new co-host's prospect list. Even a co-host who needs 13 listings is looking at a pool more than 150 times that size in one town.

The owners most likely to hire a co-host

Not every licensed owner is a prospect. The best first clients share a few traits you can read straight off a permit record or an export.

Self-managing individual owners

An owner who runs their own listing and is starting to feel the load is the classic co-hosting client. The permit record cannot tell you who answers guest messages, but the name on it gives a strong hint. In the Florida DBPR vacation rental file, 22,242 of 50,110 records name a business entity (an LLC, corporation, company or similar) and 531 name a trust, as of October 2026. The remaining named records, about 50,107 − 22,242 − 531 = 27,334, carry what looks like a person's name. Our study of who holds short-term rental permits breaks this down by register.

A person's name is not proof of self-management. A person can hire a manager, and a one-house LLC is often just an individual with an accountant. Use the name as a first sort, not a verdict.

Owners with one to three properties

An owner with one listing has the most to gain from help and the least ability to hire a full-time person. An owner with two or three is often at the point where self-management stops working. An owner with ten or more is usually a management company, a large investor or a co-host like you, and is a competitor or a partner rather than a client.

Registers do not count properties per owner, but you can, by grouping an export on the owner name and counting distinct property addresses. Our files already do this for each town. In Kissimmee, 2,375 records sit under single-address names, 413 − 23 = 390 under names on two to nine addresses, and 23 under names on ten or more. The largest single name in the Florida file holds 86 addresses. Those three layers are three different sales: a one-listing owner, a small portfolio, and a firm you might partner with. The guide to multi-property owners covers the grouping in detail, including how to catch the same owner spelled two ways.

Out-of-state owners

An owner who lives a plane ride away from the rental cannot meet a cleaner, let in a plumber or check a property after a storm. That is the job a local co-host does. The signal is a mailing address in a different state from the property.

Some registers publish a mailing address, and those are the ones to work for this segment. In Florida, 51,116 of the 53,152 records in our state file carry a mailing address as of October 2026. Nashville's file has one on 31,672 of 33,142 records, and the Destin and 30A file has one on every record. Sort the export by the state in the mailing address, and every row where it differs from the property's state is an absentee owner by the plainest definition.

Two cautions. A mailing address can be a management company's office, an attorney or a tax preparer, so a cluster of many properties mailing to one office address usually means the owner already has help. And some owners who live in-state still live hours away, so a mailing ZIP far from the property counts too.

New permit filers

The property-manager guide argues that brand-new filers are poor prospects for a full management contract, because they have just decided to run the rental themselves. For co-hosting the logic changes. A new owner has a list of setup jobs that Airbnb itself names as co-host services: creating the listing, photography, styling, pricing, permits. You can sell one of those jobs now and the ongoing work later.

Registers that date their records let you find these owners. As of October 2026, the New Orleans files hold 6,120 records filed in the last 12 months, Louisville 1,194, the Big Bear and Joshua Tree file 1,043, and Traverse City 621. Florida's state license file is not dated for most records, so there the signal is the date a record first reached our dataset: 197 Florida records were first captured in the week starting October 12, 2026, every one of them with a phone or email. The guide to pending and granted permits explains what each status means for timing.

Owners to set aside for now

Home-share hosts who live on site. Asheville's homestay permit, per the City of Asheville, is for an applicant who lives in the dwelling full-time and rents one or two bedrooms. Philadelphia's Limited Lodging Operator License is limited to an owner or tenant renting their primary residence. These hosts can need help, but they are home, and the job is smaller.
Names on ten or more addresses. Approach them as partners or overflow sources, not as clients.
Revoked, denied and expired records. Asheville's register, for example, shows 326 revoked and 98 denied records among its 1,711. Some of those owners have stopped renting short-term. Check the status column before you mail.

Finding owners in your market with public permit registers

Many US cities, counties and states require short-term-rental owners to register, and many of those registers are public. They give you something listing sites hide: the owner's name, the property address and, in some places, a phone or email. The explainer on STR permit data covers the fields in general. Here is the method for a co-host.

Draw your service area. Co-hosting is local work. Pick the towns you can reach in under an hour, because on-site problems do not wait. Write down the ZIP codes.
Find out what your register publishes. Some registers publish phones and emails on most records; others publish only the address and the name. That decides your channel before you write a word. The table below shows the spread.
Pull the records and keep only live ones. Filter on the status column. Keep active, issued, renewed and pending. Drop revoked, denied and closed.
Group by owner name. Count distinct property addresses per name. Tag each record 1, 2 to 9, or 10 or more.
Read the name and the mailing address. Tag individual names, entity names and trusts. Tag mailing addresses outside the property's state.
Add the date. Where the register dates its records, tag anything filed in the last 12 months. Where it does not, use the first-captured date.
Score and sort. Work the top of the list first, in small batches you can follow up properly.

Before a call or a site visit, you can check any single address with the free STR permit lookup, which shows whether the address appears on a public register.

What each market publishes

Counts as of October 2026, from our market files. "Names on 2+ addresses" is the number of records whose owner name appears on two or more property addresses.

Market	Records	With phone	With email	Records under names on 2+ addresses	Filed in last 12 months
Orlando and Kissimmee	6,392	5,003	907	816	127
New Orleans	33,638	29,120	29,062	15,662	6,120
Big Bear and Joshua Tree	5,328	5,327	0	1,557	1,043
San Diego	8,847	8,847	0	24	not dated
Louisville	2,537	2,477	2,477	494	1,194
Traverse City	1,530	1,147	0	881	621
Destin and 30A	3,359	2,667	0	492	not dated
Nashville	33,142	0	0	12,728	1,361
Austin	7,744	0	0	1,246	344

Three things stand out. First, contact coverage is a property of the register, not the market: San Diego's file has a phone on every record, Nashville's on none. Second, the New Orleans file includes historical applications, so the same owner and property can appear several times, which inflates the multi-address count; filter on the active licenses before you group. Third, an address-only market is not a dead market. Nashville carries a mailing address on 31,672 of its records, which is exactly what a letter needs.

A scoring sheet you can copy

Add one column per signal in your spreadsheet and sum them. The weights below are a starting point; change them once you see who answers.

Signal in the record	Points	Why
Owner name looks like a person	2	More likely to self-manage
Name on 1 address	2	Single-listing owner, the core client
Name on 2 to 9 addresses	3	Small portfolio, more work to hand off
Name on 10 or more addresses	0	Likely a manager; treat as a partner
Mailing address in another state	3	Cannot be on site
Filed or first captured in last 12 months	2	Setup work to sell now
Whole-home permit type	1	Owner does not live there
Status active or pending	required	Do not contact ended permits

Two worked examples

Kissimmee and Davenport, Florida

The Orlando and Kissimmee market file holds 6,392 records as of October 2026, 5,003 with a phone and 907 with an email. Almost all of them come from Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation vacation rental licenses, which carry the licensee's name and a mailing address. You can see the register's coverage on the Florida DBPR register page.

Kissimmee alone has 2,788 records, 2,106 with a phone. They cluster: ZIP 34747 holds 1,739 of them (1,275 with a phone) and 34746 holds 860. Houses dominate, with 2,297 dwelling licenses against 486 condo licenses. Davenport, next door, has 2,409 records, 1,801 with a phone, spread over 33897 (1,044), 33896 (788) and 33837 (546), and 2,194 of them are dwelling licenses.

For a co-host starting out here, the work plan writes itself:

Start in one ZIP code, 34747, so every listing you win is a short drive from the next.
Keep dwelling licenses with an individual name on a single address. In Kissimmee as a whole that pool is up to 2,375 records before you remove entity names.
Sort by mailing state. Owners mailing from outside Florida go in the first batch.
Mail first, because Florida's own telemarketing law is stricter than the federal baseline (the TCPA and Do Not Call guide covers it), and call only after a DNC scrub.
Know the local paperwork. Osceola County tells operators to confirm zoning, get a state vacation rental license and then register a Local Business Tax Receipt with the county Tax Collector using that license number (Osceola County licensing). An owner who sees you know the steps is more likely to trust you with the rest.

Davenport has a feature worth noticing: 108 of its records sit under names that hold ten or more addresses, against 23 in Kissimmee. Those are likely management companies. Some will want an independent co-host for overflow, a check-in, or a property outside their core area. A short, polite partner letter to them is worth sending alongside your owner campaign.

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is the opposite kind of file. The city publishes its short-term-rental applications with dates, a phone and an email. Our New Orleans market file holds 33,638 records as of October 2026, 29,120 with a phone and 29,062 with an email. But it is a history file: it includes every application, old and current. Only 6,196 records carry an active status and 3,688 are pending.

The city's rule is simple and strict. Its Short Term Rental Administration says short-term rental is a property use that is not legal without a permit, and that rentals of more than thirty consecutive days are long-term rentals that need no STR permit (City of New Orleans). For a co-host, that means every live listing you could win is either on the active list or in the pending queue.

The permit types are useful. In the city's applications register, 15,482 records are filed as "Short Term Rental", 4,184 as "Short Term Rental Commercial Owner", 4,059 as "Short Term Rental Residential Owner" and 3,963 as "Non-Commercial Short Term Rental". Filing is rising: January to September filings in that register went from 993 in 2024 to 1,160 in 2025 and 1,528 in 2026.

The plan here is email-first, because the city publishes emails on most records, with letters to anyone who does not respond:

Start from the applications register and keep pending records and active licenses only.
Pending applicants are setup prospects: they need a listing, photos and house rules before they open.
Group by name and keep single-address owners for the first batch.
Send a plain CAN-SPAM-compliant email (template below), then a letter two weeks later to anyone who did not reply.

Outreach by mail, email and phone within the law

Owners on permit registers are very often individuals, and the phone numbers they put on a permit form are often personal mobiles. That puts much of this outreach under consumer telemarketing rules, even though you are selling a business service. Nothing here is legal advice; if you plan a calling program of any size, have a lawyer review it.

Mail first

Postal mail is the lowest-risk channel. The TCPA and CAN-SPAM cover calls, texts and email, not letters, and a letter that names the owner's street is unusual enough to get read. The direct mail guide covers addresses and timing. A co-hosting letter should be short:

Dear [Owner name],

I'm a local Airbnb co-host in [town], and I'm writing because your rental on [street] is licensed with the [city or state agency].

Co-hosting is different from full management. You keep your listing, your account, your reviews and your payouts. You choose what I can see and do in Airbnb, and you can change it at any time. Some owners hand me guest messages only. Others hand me pricing, cleaning and maintenance too.

If you'd like a second pair of hands nearby, I'll walk the property with you, review your listing and tell you what I would change, at no charge. Call or text me at [number], or email [address].

[Your name], [business name], [mailing address]

Use a separate phone number or a short web address for each batch, so you can tell which segment answered.

Email under CAN-SPAM

Commercial email to owners is legal without prior consent, but it has rules. The FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide lists them: no false or misleading header information, no deceptive subject lines, identify the message as an ad, tell recipients where you are located with a valid postal address, tell them how to opt out, and honor an opt-out within 10 business days. The FTC says the law makes no exception for business-to-business email, and each separate email in violation is subject to penalties of up to $53,088.

Subject: Co-host for your rental on [street]

Hi [first name], I'm a local Airbnb co-host in [town]. Your rental on [street] is on the city's short-term rental list, so I thought you might want to know what a co-host does: you keep your listing and payouts, and I take the jobs you choose, from guest messages to cleaning and repairs. If that would help, reply and I'll send a short review of your listing, free. This is an advertisement. [Business name], [postal address]. To stop these emails, reply "stop" or click [unsubscribe link].

Send from a domain you can afford to protect, in small daily batches, and keep a suppression list that survives every new export.

Phone and text under the TCPA and the Do Not Call rules

Calls and texts carry the most risk, so treat them as the second or third touch, not the first.

Scrub against the National Do Not Call Registry. The FTC's telemarketer Q&A says data for up to five area codes is free, that beginning October 1, 2026 the annual fee is $85 per area code after the first five, and that lists must be synchronized with the registry at least every 31 days (FTC Q&A). The same Q&A says most calls to a business made to solicit sales from that business are exempt, but a permit holder's personal mobile is not obviously a business line, so scrub it.
Dial by hand, speak live. The FCC's TCPA rules require prior express written consent for telemarketing calls to a mobile number made with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice (47 CFR 64.1200), and in 2024 the FCC ruled that AI-generated voices count as artificial voices under the TCPA (FCC). No autodialers, no prerecorded messages, no AI voices.
No marketing texts without consent. A phone number on a permit is not permission to text it.
Call between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the owner's time zone. The rule restricts calls to residential subscribers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time. The owner's time zone is where they live, which the mailing address tells you, not where the rental is.
Check your state. Some states add their own rules. Florida's telephone solicitation law bars unsolicited calls that use automated dialing or a recorded message without the called party's prior express written consent, and lets the person called recover actual damages or $500, whichever is greater (Florida Statutes 501.059).

The calling guide for STR owners covers all of this in more depth.

A follow-up sequence

Week 0: letter, or email where the register publishes one.
Week 2: second touch in the other channel, with something useful attached: a one-page review of their listing's photos and title, or the local rule that changed.
Week 4: a manual call to scrubbed numbers, during legal hours, with a short voicemail left by a live person.
Every quarter after that: one short note to anyone who did not say no. Owners' needs change after a bad season, a move or a second property.

Log every touch and every opt-out in one place, keyed on the permit number, so a fresh export never brings back someone who asked you to stop.

The pitch and the first call

Owners do not buy co-hosting. They buy relief from a specific problem, with as little loss of control as possible. Your pitch should name the problem and show how little they give up.

What owners worry about, and what Airbnb's rules say

Owner's worry	Your answer, grounded in Airbnb's rules
"I'll lose my listing and reviews."	You stay the listing owner. A co-host works inside your listing.
"You'll have access to everything."	You choose my permission level: calendar only, calendar and messaging, or full access. You can change it.
"How do I pay you?"	Only you can set up a co-host payout, as a percentage, a fixed amount, the cleaning fee, or the cleaning fee plus a percentage. I confirm it, and payouts start for bookings after guests check in.
"What if it doesn't work out?"	We agree a trial period in writing, and you can remove me as co-host.

A first-call script

This is for a call the owner agreed to, or a manual call to a scrubbed number during legal hours.

Opener: "Hi, is this [name]? This is [your name], a co-host here in [town]. I wrote to you about your rental on [street]. Do you have five minutes, or is there a better time?"

Reason: "I work with owners who want help with part of the work without giving up their listing. I'm calling to see whether any of it is a headache for you right now."

Discovery: ask four or five of the questions below, then stop talking.

Offer: "Based on what you said, the piece I'd take first is [their problem]. You'd add me as a co-host with [permission level], and you'd set up the payout yourself in Airbnb."

Next step: "Could I walk the property with you on [day], and send you a written plan before you decide anything?"

Discovery questions

How long have you been renting it, and do you plan to keep doing it?
Who handles guest messages today, and at what hours?
Who cleans, and what happens when they cancel?
Who meets a plumber or electrician when something breaks?
How do you set prices, and when did you last change them?
What was your worst week as a host?
Are you on other sites besides Airbnb, or taking direct bookings?
Is your permit current, and when does it renew?
Have you worked with a co-host or manager before? What went wrong?
If I took one thing off your plate this month, what would it be?

Question 6 usually tells you what to sell. Question 9 tells you what not to promise.

Common objections

"I can do it myself." "You clearly can. The question is whether it's the best use of your evenings. Want to hand me just the messages for 60 days and see?"
"Managers take too much." "Co-hosting isn't all-or-nothing. You can pay me for one job, and you set the payout yourself."
"I don't know you." "Fair. Start me on calendar and messaging access, so I can't change your prices or listing. Move me up if you like the work."
"I'm thinking of selling." "Then a clean listing and good reviews help either way. I can work month to month."

Do not promise a revenue increase or an occupancy figure. You do not know the property's history yet, and an owner who hears a number will hold you to it.

Pricing models you can offer

Airbnb supports four payout options for co-hosts. They map neatly onto service packages.

Airbnb payout option	Fits this package	Watch out for
Percentage	Full listing management: pricing, calendar, guests, reviews	Slow months pay less; agree in writing what the percentage covers
Fixed amount	Defined tasks per booking, such as check-in and guest messaging	Long stays and short stays pay the same per booking
Cleaning fee	Turnover cleaning and restocking only	The owner sets the cleaning fee; your margin is what is left after the cleaner
Cleaning fee plus percentage	Full management where you also run the cleaning	Keep the cleaning cost visible so the owner sees both parts

Rules that shape your pricing

Airbnb only pays you on Airbnb stays. Payouts cover guest stays booked through Airbnb. If the owner also takes Vrbo or direct bookings that you manage, agree an invoice for those in your written agreement.
The owner sets it up. Only the listing owner can create a co-host payout, and you have 14 days to confirm. Agree the numbers in writing first, then ask the owner to set them up exactly as agreed.
Payouts follow check-in. Budget for a gap between signing and your first payout.
Some programs restrict payouts. Airbnb's building programs limit co-host payouts. For example, in its Airbnb-friendly building program, US co-host payouts are limited to a percentage per booking, not fixed amounts. Ask whether the property is in such a program before you quote.
One-off work is separate. A listing rebuild, a photo shoot or a permit application is a one-time job. Invoice it directly rather than through a booking payout.

A worked comparison

Take an illustrative month with six bookings, $3,000 of potential earnings after Airbnb's deductions, and a $140 cleaning fee per booking that is already part of that $3,000. The rates are examples, not market rates.

Model	Arithmetic	Your monthly revenue
Percentage, 20%	$3,000 × 0.20	$600
Fixed, $75 per booking	6 × $75	$450
Cleaning fee only	6 × $140, then you pay the cleaner	$840 gross

The cleaning-fee line looks biggest but carries the cleaner's wages. If a cleaner costs $95 a turnover, the margin is 6 × ($140 − $95) = $270. Compare models on what you keep after costs, per hour of your time.

Onboarding a new owner

Airbnb's own guidance for new co-host partnerships suggests putting the details in a formal agreement and agreeing who handles booking requests, day-to-day guest messages, cleaners and maintenance workers, reimbursement requests and contact with Airbnb Support (Airbnb, Establish your partnership). Build your onboarding around that list.

Before you accept the invitation

Check the permit. Look the address up on the STR permit lookup and on the register itself. Note the permit number, type, status and renewal date.
Check the local listing rules. Some cities require a registration number in every listing. Galveston requires its vacation rental number on every listing, and Miami Beach requires its Business Tax Receipt number in every advertisement or listing. If the owner's listing lacks it, fixing that is your first task.
Sign a written agreement. Services, permission level, payout model and amount, off-Airbnb bookings, expense reimbursement, emergency spending limit, trial period and how either side ends it.
Agree the payout in writing, then ask the owner to set it up in Airbnb exactly as written. Confirm within the 14-day window.

The first 30 days

Days 1 to 3: walk the property. Photograph every room, every appliance label, the breaker panel, water shutoff and supply closet. Build a room-by-room inventory of linens and supplies.
Days 3 to 7: review the listing. Title, photos, house rules, check-in instructions, the cleaning fee and the calendar settings. Send the owner a written list of proposed changes before you make them.
Week 2: set up your vendor list: cleaner and backup cleaner, handyman, plumber, electrician, HVAC, locksmith, pest control, pool or hot tub service if needed.
Week 3: agree a reporting rhythm. A short monthly note with bookings, reviews, issues and what you changed is enough for most owners.
Week 4: first review with the owner. Ask what they want you to take on next.

Growing from one owner to a full book

The first listing is the hardest. After that, three things compound.

Density. Permit data shows where rentals cluster. In Kissimmee, 34747 holds 1,739 records; in Davenport, 33897 holds 1,044. Every listing you add in the same ZIP code shortens your drive and lets one cleaner cover more turnovers. Mail the neighbors of your first listing next, and mention the street in the letter.

Proof. Once you have 10 stays, or 3 stays adding up to 100 nights, inside 12 months, and a 4.8 average rating across the listings you support, you can apply to the Co-Host Network and appear when owners search their address. Track your stays and ratings so you know when you cross the line.

A steady flow of new owners. New records reach public registers every week. Across our dataset, 938 records were first captured in the week starting October 12, 2026, 385 of them with a phone or email. The weekly batches are on the fresh records page. A standing monthly mailing to new owners in your ZIP codes keeps the top of the funnel full without a big campaign.

Two more routes come later. Owners with two to nine properties are your second tier: one signed owner can mean several listings. And the names on ten or more addresses, usually managers, are partners for overflow work and properties outside their area.

Mistakes that cost new co-hosts their first clients

Selling everything at once. A new co-host who only offers full access at a full-management percentage is asking for the biggest possible yes with no track record. Offer a smaller first step.
Skipping the license question. Find out whether your state or county requires a real estate license or a certification before you advertise, not after a complaint.
Calling before mailing. Permit phones are often personal mobiles. Unscrubbed calls, autodialers, prerecorded or AI voices, and texts without consent are where the legal risk sits.
Mailing the rental. A letter to the property address of an absentee owner often lands with a guest or a cleaner. Use the mailing address where the register publishes one.
Ignoring status. Writing to an owner whose permit was revoked or denied wastes postage and looks careless.
Pitching managers as clients. Names on dozens of addresses are not looking for a co-host. Approach them as partners or skip them.
Promising revenue. Do not quote an income increase you cannot show the work for.
Taking listings too far apart. Two listings an hour apart can take more of your week than five on one street.
No written agreement. Airbnb's permissions and payouts are settings, not a contract. Put services, payouts, expenses and exit terms in writing.
Starting payouts late. Payout instructions apply to check-ins after both sides approve them. Confirm the payout before the first guest you serve arrives.

Getting the owner records

You can build all of this from public registers yourself, one city or county at a time. If you would rather start from a cleaned file, our PermitPulse dataset pulls 64 public registers every day and holds 283,611 records as of October 2026, 127,924 of them with a phone or email from the public record. Each record carries the permit number, the name on the permit where published, the property address, the mailing address where published, the permit type and status, and the filing date where the register gives one.

A state subscription is $99 a month for up to 10,000 rows, and national is $299 a month for up to 50,000 rows. A one-time download is $149 for one state or $499 national, and a free sign-up gets you a 25-row sample of any register. Details are on the pricing page, and the page for property managers and co-hosts shows which cities have the most single-property owners.

Questions and answers

What is the difference between an Airbnb co-host and a property manager?

A co-host works inside the owner's own Airbnb listing. The owner keeps the listing, account, reviews and payouts, chooses the co-host's permission level (calendar only, calendar and messaging, or full access) and can change it. A traditional manager works under a management contract whose terms decide who holds the listing and the money. The daily work can be the same; the commitment the owner makes is smaller with a co-host.

How do Airbnb co-hosts get paid?

Through a payout share that only the listing owner can set up in Airbnb. The options are a percentage, a fixed amount, the cleaning fee, or the cleaning fee plus a percentage. The co-host has 14 days to confirm, and payouts start for bookings after guests check in. They cover Airbnb guest stays only, so work on other channels or one-off jobs is invoiced separately.

How do I find my first co-hosting clients?

Start from the public short-term-rental permit register for the towns you can reach quickly. Keep active and pending permits, group records by owner name, and put individual owners with one to three properties, owners with a mailing address in another state, and recent filers at the top. Contact them by letter or email first, and call only scrubbed numbers by hand.

Do I need a license to be an Airbnb co-host?

It depends on your state and county. Some state real estate laws define brokerage to include renting property for others for compensation; Florida's statute 475.01 is one example. Some counties name a manager requirement directly: Permit Sonoma lists becoming a Certified Vacation Rental Property Manager among its vacation rental requirements. Ask a real estate attorney in your state before you advertise. This is not legal advice.

Can I cold call short-term rental owners from permit records?

Carefully, if at all. Permit phones are often personal mobiles, so the TCPA and the National Do Not Call Registry apply. Scrub against the registry at least every 31 days, dial by hand, never use autodialers, prerecorded or AI voices, do not text without consent, call only between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the owner's time zone, and check state rules such as Florida's. Mail is the lowest-risk first touch.

How do I get listed on Airbnb's Co-Host Network?

Airbnb's requirements include 10 or more stays, or 3 or more stays totaling 100 or more nights, in the past 12 months as a host or co-host; an average guest rating of 4.8 or more across the listings you support; a cancellation rate under 3%; and a display name that is your individual name. You then need ratings of 4.7 or higher to stay visible. New co-hosts have to win their first listings through their own outreach.