Full management is 15–30% of booking revenue, depending on the home. City rooms sit at the low end; remote and off-grid homes at the top, because they take more work. Co-hosting — guest communication and cleaning only — is lower. Your estimate shows the exact figure for your home, and it doesn't change without your agreement.

Included: design and styling before listing, photography, listings on every major channel, daily pricing, all guest communication, cleaning and maintenance coordination, and an itemised statement. Not included: the physical things. Furniture, appliances, linens, décor and the initial supplies are bought at cost against a budget you approve, and you own them; we do the choosing, buying and set-up. Ongoing repairs and supplies are billed at cost with your approval first. Guests pay the cleaning fee, not you.

Not if you stay with us for at least a year — our work on the design, the set-up and the listings is on us. If you move on before the first anniversary, we ask for the onboarding fee to cover that work. The amount is in your estimate up front, so it's never a surprise.

If a guest leaves an overall rating below five stars for a stay, we credit our management fee for that reservation back to you on your next statement. The details:

• It applies to the guest's overall rating on Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, or a direct booking. Category sub-scores (cleanliness, location) don't trigger it on their own.

• One credit per reservation, equal to our management fee on that reservation — not the cleaning fee or channel fees.

• It doesn't apply when the low rating is caused by something we told you about and you chose not to fix (a repair you declined, a disclosed condition), by a guest we removed for breaking house rules, by a platform-wide outage, or by an event outside anyone's control — wildfire smoke, a power shutoff, an evacuation.

• We may respond to or dispute a review with the platform first; the credit is applied once the rating stands.

• The credit is a fee reduction, not a cash payment, and it doesn't stack with the first-month-free period (that month is already at 0%).

At the moment the first-month-free program is only available through referral from our partner network. Name the partner who pointed you to us — your agent, lender, CPA, or an owner already with us — and your first 30 days are at 0% management fee (cleaning and channel fees still apply; those go to the cleaner and the platform). It's earned over your first 24 months: leave early and the waived fee is charged back, prorated. One per home. Nobody on our list yet? Easy to do: send your agent, lender or CPA our partner page — stayalphahome.com/partners — and once they're on the list, your referral counts.

Yes — and it's per property, not per person. If you know an owner who would benefit from what we do, send them along: for every home they place with us we pay you one month of our management fee, after that home's first full month. Three homes, three fees. No clawback if the owner leaves early — that's our risk. Join the partner network at stayalphahome.com/partners.

Join our partner network (two minutes at stayalphahome.com/partners), then send us the client — or have them name you before they sign. They get their first month free; you get one month of our fee for each of their homes. We don't hold a real estate license and we don't sell, so when one of our owners decides to sell, or one of our guests decides to buy, we always refer them to a partner on our list.

Yes — you're on the partner list automatically. Your friend gets their first month free, and you get one month of our fee for each of their homes as a credit on your next statement.

No fixed term. Either side can end the arrangement with ninety days' written notice. During those ninety days we keep managing as normal and honour every booking already on the calendar. Bookings that fall after your end date are cancelled or transferred with your agreement.

Every booking on every channel carries per-stay damage protection with $1,000,000 in liability, on top of Airbnb's AirCover where it applies. We photograph every home before and after every stay, and we file and manage the claim. Damage below the protection's threshold, or not covered by it, is billed at cost with your approval.

Yes. Block your dates in the owner calendar. The more notice the better; a block placed over an existing booking has to be resolved with that guest first.

Yes. Remote homes are where we've learned the most — well water, septic, a generator, an hour from the nearest store — and they're the reason a city home feels easy to us. If we can keep a mountain house full and running, a single-family home in San Mateo is a Tuesday. The fee reflects the extra work on a remote property; the estimate will show it.

Happy to — and you're equally welcome to do it yourself. Permit work is billed separately from the management fee, because it's a one-time task that varies a lot by city. Not every stay needs one: some cities don't require a permit for stays over thirty days, and the rules change street to street. Ask us before you apply for anything; we'll walk you through what your address actually needs, and the advice is yours whether or not you sign with us.