Should you hire a co-host — or can you do this yourself?

Your three real options

Run your own numbers in the calculator → On a $60K/year property, the difference between a 20% co-host and AI self-management is roughly $10,000 a year.

What a co-host actually does (and doesn’t)

“Co-host” has no standard definition — that’s the trap. Some handle everything: messaging, pricing, cleaners, maintenance, restocking, taxes. Others just answer messages during business hours and take 15% for it. The percentage tells you nothing about the service; the contract does. Many hosts pay full-service rates for half-service work and don’t find out until something breaks on a Saturday night.

10 questions to ask before you hire one

1. “Exactly which tasks are included at this percentage — and what costs extra?”Get it in writing. Messaging, pricing, cleaning coordination, maintenance calls, restocking, guest issues, reviews — line by line.
2. “Who answers guests overnight, and how fast?”If the answer is “we get to it in the morning,” software already beats them: AI messaging tools answer in about two minutes, at 2 a.m., every night.
3. “Is your fee on gross bookings, or net after cleaning fees and platform fees?”A 20% fee on gross including cleaning fees is quietly much more than 20% of your real revenue.
4. “Who controls the listing, the pricing, and the guest relationship?”Some co-hosts run everything through their own accounts. If you part ways, you can lose your reviews, your ranking, and your repeat guests.
5. “What happens when a guest damages something — who files, who fronts the cost?”The answer reveals how much ownership they really take.
6. “How many properties do you manage, and how many people do the work?”One person “managing” 40 listings is answering your guests four minutes at a time — or not at all.
7. “What software do you run on, and do I keep access?”If they're on a platform like Hospitable, ask what you'd actually be paying for beyond the software — and whether you keep the account and data if you split.
8. “What are your last two owners’ numbers — before and after you took over?”Anyone good has this. Anyone vague about it is selling vibes.
9. “What’s the exit clause?”30 days, no penalty, you keep everything — listing, reviews, guest list, software accounts. Anything less is a hostage situation with cleaning fees.
10. “What would you do in my market to earn more than you cost?”The only question that separates a revenue partner from an expensive answering service.

Red flags — walk away if you see these

• The percentage is the headline and the service list is fuzzy.
• Everything runs through their accounts — their Airbnb login, their software, their guest data.
• They can’t name the tools they use, or they’re proud of doing everything “personally” (translation: slowly, during business hours).
• No written contract, or a contract with a long lock-in and no clean exit.
• They promise specific income numbers. Nobody honest promises income.
• Their fee applies to bookings you generated before they arrived.

The third option, honestly stated

Here’s what changed recently: the biggest thing a co-host sells is availability — someone answering guests when you can’t. That specific job is now done extremely well by software. Platforms like Hospitable (referral link) ship AI that answers routine guest questions from a knowledge base you fill in once, refuses to touch the sensitive stuff (refunds, complaints, anything with money), and wakes you for what actually needs a human. Cleaning scheduling, review requests, and pricing tools automate the same way.

What software does not replace: hands at the property, vendor relationships, and judgment in a crisis. If those are what you need, hire locally — armed with the ten questions above. If what you need is to stop being an answering service, you can keep your 20% and set this up yourself in a weekend — here’s the free 20-minute setup walkthrough.

One honest caveat in both directions: self-managing with AI still means you are the accountable human. About 15 minutes a day of reviewing what the AI did, and you take the escalations. If you want zero involvement, that’s the co-host’s job — pay them happily.