Research · research
How we measure operating benchmarks
The methodology behind every number COOChief Intelligence publishes: what we count, what we exclude, how we normalise portfolios and where the error bars sit.
Key takeaways
- Benchmarks are normalised per available night and per bedroom, never per listing.
- Portfolios with fewer than ninety days of continuous data are excluded from trend series.
- Every published figure carries the sample size and the period it was measured over.
A benchmark you cannot interrogate is a rumour with a decimal point. This note describes exactly how the numbers we publish are produced, so you can decide whether they apply to your portfolio.
What we count
- Revenue is net of channel commission and cleaning fees collected on behalf of the guest.
- Available nights exclude owner blocks and units off-market for renovation longer than seven consecutive days.
- Maintenance cost includes labour and parts, excludes capital improvements above a $2,500 single-item threshold.
- Turnover cost includes cleaner pay, consumables, laundry and documented rework.
Normalisation
Comparing a studio to a five-bedroom on absolute revenue is meaningless. Every cross-portfolio figure is normalised per available night and, where relevant, per bedroom. Currency figures are converted at the period average, not spot rate, so a currency move does not read as an operating change.
| Metric family | Denominator | Exclusions |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue metrics | Available nights | Owner stays, long-term contracts over 90 nights |
| Operating cost | Completed turnovers | Capital improvements, one-off legal costs |
| Maintenance | Unit-months | Insurance-recovered damage events |
| Guest experience | Completed stays | Cancelled and relocated reservations |
What we do not do
- We do not extrapolate a market-level claim from a single-market sample.
- We do not blend scraped listing data with operator-reported financials in the same series.
- We do not restate historical series silently; corrections are dated and noted in the resource.
“Publish the method with the number, or the number is marketing.”
Can I compare my portfolio directly to these benchmarks?
Only if you use the same denominators. The fastest way is to run your own numbers through the calculators, which apply the same definitions.
Do you publish the underlying data?
No. Contributing portfolios are anonymised and figures are only released in aggregate at or above the minimum sample threshold.
COOChief Intelligence Desk
Executive research team
The Intelligence Desk studies how the best short-term rental operators make decisions — pricing, staffing, maintenance, guest recovery — and turns those patterns into operating standards you can run tomorrow morning.