RESOURCES · GUIDEBOOKS
Checkout instructions guests won't resent (template included)
Checkout instructions have become the most resented artifact in short-term rentals: screenshots of four-page cleaning checklists, stacked on top of three-figure cleaning fees, go viral on a regular schedule. The backlash is earned, and it is also avoidable, but not by asking for nothing. Working hosts run checklists of eight or nine items and keep five-star averages, because every item passes a test: it protects the guest, protects the home, or unblocks the cleaner. What guests resent is not length; it is being handed the cleaning fee's job. Here is the full message working hosts actually send, then the tests behind every line.
The template
A real checkout message has three parts: the reminder with a paid flexibility option, the checklist itself, and the reassurance about what you are not asking. Here is the version to copy, then the reasoning line by line.
Hi [Name], We hope you've been loving your stay at [Property Name]! A friendly reminder that checkout is by [10:00 AM]. Need more time? A late checkout is available [in our store / by message] until [7 PM the night before]; after that we can't get confirmation from our cleaning team. The fee goes directly to the cleaners, since they charge by the hour. CHECKOUT CHECKLIST Your door code stops working at [10:00 AM], so before you go: 1. Sign out of Netflix and any accounts you signed into 2. Leave sheets and comforters on the beds; no need to strip anything 3. Load the dishes and start the dishwasher on a normal cycle 4. Take your food from the fridge, and toss what you're not taking 5. Return [the pool floats / bikes / sports equipment] to [where they live] 6. Bag the trash and add it to [the outdoor bins by the garage] 7. If you moved furniture, slide it back where you found it 8. Close windows, set the thermostat to [72], and check the doors lock behind you Do one last sweep for chargers, toiletries, and anything in the dryer; those are our three most-mailed items. The beds, towels, floors, and everything else are ours to handle; that's what the cleaning fee is for. Questions before you head out? Just message us. Safe travels, and we hope you made some great memories! [Your names]
Keep the core tasks; keep only the bracketed property blocks that apply to your home. Every task must protect the guest, protect the home, or unblock the cleaner. If a line does none of those, it is your cleaner's job.
The three tests every task must pass
Protect the guest, protect the home, or unblock the cleaner. Signing out of Netflix protects the guest: their accounts should not ride along for the next stay. Clearing their food from the fridge protects the home from a week of decay before anyone notices. Starting the dishwasher unblocks a cleaner working a four-hour turnover window. What fails all three tests is exactly what the viral checklists demand: stripping beds, starting laundry, vacuuming, wiping counters. Those duplicate the cleaning fee, and guests know it. 'Leave sheets and comforters on the beds' is the single most goodwill-generating line in the template precisely because it is an anti-task: it tells guests what not to do.
Say why, every time it costs money or effort
The template explains the checkout time (the cleaner's window), the late-checkout cutoff (no confirmation from the team after evening), and where the late fee goes (directly to cleaners who charge by the hour). Guests granted a reason comply at dramatically higher rates than guests given a deadline, and the money framing matters most of all: a fee that pays a person reads as fair, while a fee that pads a host reads as a grab. If you sell late checkout, name the cutoff time and the reason for it, or you will be negotiating at 9 PM.
Enforcement without confrontation
One sentence does the enforcement work of a whole paragraph of warnings: 'your door code stops working at 10 AM.' It is not a threat, just physics, and it moves the checkout time from a request to a fact. Smart locks make this literal; even without one, stating when access ends changes morning behavior more than any bolded deadline does.
The forgotten-items sweep
Ask hosts what guests leave behind and the same three answers come back: phone chargers, toiletries, and clothes in the dryer. A one-line sweep reminder saves you a weekly trip to the post office and saves guests the sinking feeling on the highway. Frame it as a favor to them, because it is one, and it doubles as the note that ends the list on service rather than obligation.
When and where to send it
Three placements, one message. The checkout section lives in your digital guidebook from day one, so nothing is sprung on anyone. The message goes out the evening before departure, when morning plans are being made, not at 7 AM day-of. And if you sell late checkout, the message is also your sales window: the option, the deadline, and the store link belong at the top, before the checklist, while changing plans is still possible.
The review math
Checkout is the last thing guests experience before Airbnb asks them how it went, which gives the final morning outsized weight in the review. A checklist that reads as fair, explained, and capped with 'the rest is ours to handle' is routinely quoted in reviews as evidence the host was easy to stay with. If you measure which guidebook pages guests open, checkout instructions are reliably near the top on the final morning; that attention is a marketing channel, and resentment is a bad ad.
Build a guide guests actually open
Tabellara turns this advice into a working guidebook: app-style guides, area maps, and page-level analytics.
Create your guide