How to Get & Maintain Airbnb Superhost Status: Ultimate Guide

Who doesn’t want more Airbnb bookings, an enhanced reputation among guests, and increased interest from homeowners?

Becoming an Airbnb Superhost can give you all these business advantages, but consistently delivering a fantastic service to guests—and being recognized for it—is a big challenge. And, if you’re managing a growing number of properties, it’s even harder to keep that status once you’ve got it.

In this guide to achieving and maintaining your Airbnb Superhost status, you’ll learn about the criteria Airbnb assesses you on, the strategies you should follow, and the tools you’ll need.

Here’s what we discuss:

• What an Airbnb Superhost is and its benefits
• The requirements for becoming an Airbnb Superhost
• Tips on how to become a Superhost
• Using Breezeway to maintain your status as you scale
• Taking full advantage of the Airbnb Superhost Program

What is an Airbnb Superhost and what are its benefits?

Airbnb describes Superhosts as a “shining example” to all Airbnb hosts. Here we look at what having Superhost status actually means and the advantages it can bring to your short-term rental business.

Airbnb Superhosts: The platform’s most trusted hosts

Airbnb’s Superhost Program rewards hosts that meet the program’s specified performance criteria with recognition and benefits that ultimately lead to greater visibility and trust among Airbnb’s guests.

There’s no application process to become a Superhost—Airbnb simply reviews your performance data every three months (the first week of every January, April, July, and October). If you meet the program’s standards and conditions, you’re automatically granted Superhost status. 

Then, you simply have to keep those metrics up for the following quarter to maintain your status. Of course, that’s easier said than done—especially if you’re growing your business and managing an increasing number of stays and guests. We talk about tips on maintaining your Superhost status toward the end of the article.

Now find out why being a Superhost can be so good for your vacation rental business.

The special benefits of being a Superhost

From increased visibility and trust to exclusive rewards and more revenue, here’s what you need to know about the benefits of being a Superhost.

There are four direct benefits that Airbnb gives its Superhosts:

1. Superhost badge: The badge is added to your profile so guests can immediately see you’re a trustworthy host with a great track record.
   The Superhost badge is immediately visible to Airbnb users, telling them you’re a host they can trust.
2. Filtered searches: Travelers can filter for Superhosts—if you don’t have the status, you won’t appear in those searches.
   
   If you’re a Superhost, you’ll appear in more searches than listings from non-Superhosts.
3. Coupons: Airbnb rewards Superhosts who’ve maintained their status for a year with a $100 USD Airbnb coupon that can go toward Airbnb stays or Airbnb Experiences.
   

   “Got my $100 voucher last year October and spent it a month later staying in a lovely house with big garden in Jhb.” Airbnb Superhost

4. More for your referrals: As a Superhost, you’ll receive 20% more for every new host you refer to Airbnb.

Airbnb’s host referral system is more lucrative for Superhosts.

There are also numerous business benefits that the badge and filtered searches offer:

• Higher occupancy rates: The trustworthiness that Superhost status gives your services, along with the fact that you can appear in more searches made by your target audience, gives you the chance to sell more nights.
• Increased nightly rates: Because guests often only want to book with Superhosts, you could consider increasing your rates if you think you’ll remain competitive against local non-Superhost competitors.
• More trust from owners: If you’re looking to scale your operations, you can use your Superhost status to help convince new homeowners of your service standards.
  
  

The requirements for becoming an Airbnb Superhost

Airbnb provides very specific details on Superhost requirements across four criteria, which you have to meet for its quarterly assessments: 

1. Overall rating of 4.8 or more

Keeping guests happy is essential to your success as a vacation rental business, and your star ratings are the most obvious and immediate way for Airbnb users and homeowners to assess your hosting performance.

But guest ratings don’t just speak to how good a stay was—they also reflect your ability to create a rapport with your guests, set and meet their expectations, and manage the reviews process. In fact, ratings are a strong indicator of all your operations, including guest communication, task coordination, and property care.

For example, by using Breezeway to run remote cleaning inspections, Nopali Properties was able to attain a 4.99 Airbnb rating.

2. Response rate of 90% or more

A 90% response rate means you respond to 9/10 messages made through the Airbnb platform within 24 hours. This includes inquiries and reservation requests, as well as messages from your in-stay guests.

This requirement can put a lot of pressure on you to be constantly available, which makes managing multiple properties stressful and inefficient. This is especially true when you consider that guests often ask about information you’ve already provided, while potential guests can be quick to turn to an alternative property if you don’t answer their inquiries within minutes, let alone a full day.

We talk about solutions to guest messaging in our tips section, below.

3. Host 10 stays in the past year or a minimum of 3 stays that total at least 100 nights

A minimum number of stays ensures that Superhosts are active service providers. Note that long-term Airbnb guests are often digital nomads—remote workers you can attract with amenities catered to their needs, like quiet office space; fast, reliable internet; and pet-friendly extras.

4. Cancellation rate of 1% or less

Cancellations can cause a very negative experience for guests, and Airbnb is naturally very keen to keep them to a minimum. So, if you have fewer than 100 stays over the course of a year, you’ll need to have 0 cancellations to be a Superhost.

However, there are exceptions, which are designed to protect both Airbnb guests and hosts. For example (as per Airbnb’s extenuating circumstances policy):

• Changes to government travel requirements

• Declared emergencies and epidemics

• Government travel restrictions

• Military actions and other hostilities
• Natural disasters

A more common cause for a cancellation, though, is a double booking. These can occur if you’re taking reservations from multiple sources, like other online travel agencies (OTAs) and direct bookings.

We look at how to deal with this and other challenges, next.

5 tips for becoming a Superhost on Airbnb

To become a Superhost, you need to be consistently, predictably outstanding throughout your internal operations and guest-facing services. See our top five tips on how to make this possible for a growing short-term rental business.

1. Prioritize the guest experience

Just one bad star rating could be enough to force you below Airbnb’s 4.8 threshold for Superhosts, which puts you under a tremendous amount of pressure to consistently provide fantastic stays.

This means delivering on guest expectations across the board, including messaging, arrival and check-in, and property care.

The only way for you to regularly get 5-star reviews, then, is to prioritize the guest experience. Here are three strategies that will help you do that:

• Set realistic expectations in your listings. If you over-promise in your Airbnb listings, you could be giving guests a false impression of the property or local area. So, if the local traffic is heavy, the water’s choppy at this time of year, or there are noisy nightclubs nearby, let potential guests know before they book.
• Establish highly efficient property care operations. Any issues with cleanliness or maintenance could result in a negative review, so use Airbnb cleaning software to simplify communication with your cleaners and standardize your cleaning inspection process.
• Be warm, welcoming, and approachable. Most Airbnb hosts are passionate about providing fantastic hospitality, but the pressures of managing multiple properties can make being warm and friendly a challenge. To avoid this (and the impact it can have on your ratings), have a guest messaging solution in place.
  
  

2. Be highly responsive with guest messaging software

Just one guest repeatedly calling you for directions, property access information, or WiFi passwords can cause you unnecessary stress and make for an overwhelming afternoon. You simply can’t be in all places at once, dealing with everyone’s problems—so automate your Airbnb messages to pre-emptively answer commonly asked questions. 

Use guest messaging software to send templated responses with property-specific details, as well as share a digital welcome book that provides your guests with all the information they need for their stay. This includes smart lock codes, WiFi instructions, and house rules. 

Breezeway’s integration with Airbnb lets you respond to guest messages on one centralized platform—you can view and respond to Airbnb message threads within Breezeway, meaning you don’t have to switch back and forth between tabs.

Breezeway’s digital guide gives guests key information so they can be more independent throughout their stay.

3. Avoid cancellations by synchronizing bookings and task scheduling

As you scale your short-term rental business and list your properties on a growing number of OTAs, you run the risk of a missed clean or double-booking, which could lead to you having to cancel a stay. This could cause you significant lost revenue, cost you your Superhost status, and create an issue with the homeowner.

To mitigate this risk, you’ll need to: 

• Use a property management system (PMS) and channel manager to synchronize your reservations. Any time a reservation goes through, your booking calendar will automatically update to reflect your latest availability.
• Integrate property care software with your PMS and OTAs. For example, Breezeway integrates with Airbnb so whenever there’s an update to your booking information, your cleaning schedules are automatically updated.

With these solutions in place, you’ll never have to worry about the possibility of double-booking or missed clean again.

4. Optimize your listings so guests know what to expect 

High-quality photos and in-depth descriptions don’t just help attract Airbnb users and push you up the rankings: They help give guests valuable insights into their stay. Maintaining updated listings is important for marketing, and it helps ensure a positive experience for guests when they visit.

So, update imagery on your listings as you make changes at your property, provide information that’s relevant to the season most guests are booking for, and answer FAQs to save your guests (and yourself) time throughout the booking process.

Also, provide in-depth property information in your listings so guests with special needs can easily see if your property is suitable for their accessibility requirements. Accurate, informative listings help you appear in more searches (and earn you more five-star reviews).

Clear, accurate descriptions of your accessibility features help guests know if your property is right for their needs.

5. Go above and beyond with automated processes

Creating customer delight by exceeding your guests’ expectations is the key to getting amazing guest reviews. If you establish concrete processes for each aspect of your service, you can hit those high standards with the consistency you need to be a Superhost.

For example, you can:

• Integrate your cleaning schedules with your Airbnb bookings
• Schedule templated messages so guests always know how to arrive, access, and settle in
• Add personal local recommendations to your digital guidebook
• Add gifting a welcome basket to your cleaning checklist for each stay
• Schedule a friendly mid-stay message to make sure guests have everything they need
• Automate reminder messages including a request for a positive review

By establishing strong, automated processes for above-and-beyond service, you can avoid errors and surprise guests with your exceptional hospitality.

A welcome basket of local treats doesn’t have to be expensive, but it can make all the difference to your guests.

Using Breezeway to maintain your Superhost status as you scale

If you’re a growing vacation rental business with high occupancy rates, the challenge of meeting guest expectations places you under a lot of stress—but manual processes increase the chance of human error and often aren’t scalable.

Therefore, to maintain Superhost status as you scale, you need to automate your most important processes.

Breezeway auto-scheduling saves you time and protects you from missed cleans.

Breezeway, an official Airbnb partner, does this with the following features:

• Integration with Airbnb to automate your cleaning schedules and inspections based on check-in and check-out
• Digital checklists that provide precise cleaning and maintenance instructions for every turnover
• Representative photos and remote inspections so cleaners have clarity on your expectations and you can review each turnover as soon as they’re ready
• Automated guest messaging so you can save valuable time and avoid any costly mistakes
• Digital welcome book so guests have arrival instructions, access information, and WiFi details when they need them

With Breezeway’s automated solutions for property care and guest experience, you’ll never miss a clean, and your guests can have the independence they want throughout their stay.

Take full advantage of the Airbnb Superhost Program

Becoming an Airbnb Superhost is an exciting step for any short-term rental business. But, with quarterly assessments on your hosting performance, it’s easy to lose that status. That means you immediately miss out on some fantastic perks, including:

• More visibility and better occupancy
• Increased trust from homeowners
• Referral bonuses
• Airbnb Experiences and Airbnb Travel coupons 

However, you can keep your Superhost status by establishing automated processes to:

• Connect your task scheduling with Airbnb bookings
• Synchronize all your latest booking information
• Easily manage guest messaging
• Share digital guidebooks that make guests independent

With these solutions in place, you can remain a top-rated host as you scale your operations—and keep enjoying all your favorite Superhost benefits.