# What is my Base Price and When should I change it? (VIDEO)
> The Base Price is the starting point for our price fluctuations Think of it as the average price for your listing for the year Well go above it during p
Source: https://support.beyondpricing.com/en_us/what-is-my-base-price-and-when-should-i-change-it-video-Hy9E8HorO
Last updated: 2026-08-13T16:13:54.537Z
The Base Price is the starting point for our price fluctuations. Think of it as the **average price** for your listing for the year. We'll go above it during periods of high demand and below it during low-demand periods.
Setting the correct Base Price for your listing is one of the keys to maximizing revenue. Once the right Base Price is set, we can appropriately apply factors that change nightly demand, such as Seasonality, Day of the Week, Availability Yielding, and Events.
**In This Article**
[Base Price Helper](#base-price-helper)
[Initial Base Price](#initial-base)
[Setting your Initial Base Price](#set-initial-base) [Adjusting your Base Price](#adjust-base)
[Additional fees and your Base Price](#additional-fees)
[Minimum Price](#minimum-price)
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**Base Price Helper**
Setting the perfect Base Price can be tough! This is why we created the Base Price Helper -- To help you kickstart your pricing strategy on the right foot. The Base Price Helper is available for all new listings where pricing is not enabled.
The Base Price Helper can be accessed:
1\. By clicking "Set up" on a new listing with price posting off, then clicking on the tooltip for the recommended Base Price:
2\. The Base Price Helper can also be found by clicking the “Review pricing” modal on the listing page:
Data is based on current market conditions, along with historical and future scraped prices for listings in your market, to determine the best starting point for your specific listing type and size.
For new listings, when you first set them up, you will see how Beyond has determined the Base Price for you to review:
If you have any questions about the Base Price Helper or how to get started, feel free to reach out to us at [**support@beyondpricing.com**](mailto:support@beyondpricing.com), and we would be happy to help!
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**Initial Base Price**
When you first connect your account, you will see that there is an initial Base Price created for your listing. This is created by taking a look at your pricing for the next 60 days and adjusting for Seasonality in order to achieve roughly the same revenue you would at your current prices.
This is just a reference point to get you started. You should always assess and adjust the Base Price before syncing your listing. So let's look at how to do that:
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**Setting your Initial Base Price**
Whether you are an experienced host or new (see more info below), we recommend setting the Base Price in the Chart View Tab for your listing. Here you can easily identify demand trends caused by Seasonality, Day of the Week, Availability Yielding, and Events.
Looking at our listing in Orlando, Florida, in the Chart View, we can see peaks in the suggested pricing, showing variation between weekdays and weekends, lower suggested prices during low season and higher suggested prices during high season, as well as spikes for holidays.
The Chart View is also a great place to see the impact that changing the Base Price has on the next 365 days.
For example: With a Base Price of $161, we are suggesting a nightly price of $183 for September 07, 2026 (Labor Day). With a Base Price of $200, we suggest a nightly price of $226 for September 07, 2026.
For more information on the Chart Tab, please check out **[How do I use my Chart Tab to make pricing decisions?](https://support.beyondpricing.com/en_us/how-do-i-use-the-chart-tab-to-make-pricing-decisions-(video)-H1AXdSirO)**
**Experienced Host/Owner**
If you have been renting out your property for a while, you should set your Base Price at the average price you've been getting bookings at. For example, if you charge $200 per night in the summer and $150 in the winter, the average is $175. You can set your first Base Price at $175. If you simply have a weekday and a weekend price, it would be the average of those two.
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**New to vacation rentals**
If you're a new host and you don't have any bookings yet, we recommend checking out the Comp Sets tab. Here you can see information on listings in your area you are competing directly against. As a first step, sort the Comps by Health Score and focus your attention on the listings with good Health Scores. A good Health Score generally means that the property is booking well, so this is a good guide as to what your starting Base Price might be:
Having said that, as a general rule, we do not recommend making Base Price decisions by copying your local competition. As we like to say, you wouldn't want to cheat off a C student! Rather, we recommend opening a few listings on Airbnb, Booking.com, and/or Vrbo to see how they look online. So, for example, if you find a listing that is similar to yours but yours has a pool, you may be able to charge a higher price.
For more information, check out this article on the [**Comp Sets**](https://support.beyondpricing.com/en_us/what-is-competitive-sets-and-why-is-it-important-Bksb8Urki).
Another good guide as to where to set your initial Base Price is the Neighborhood Pricing Chart on the Market Data Tab for your listing. Here you can see the Airbnb and/or Vrbo average pricing for any given day and see how our suggested pricing compares to your current Base Price. You can also toggle on the Airbnb and/or Vrbo average price for the year to see if your Base Price is in line:
If your listing is brand new and doesn't yet have any reviews, once you have set your Base Price, we recommend setting some aggressive discounts in the Time-Based Adjustments for your listing. This will ensure you get some bookings in the short term and help build those important 5-star reviews. Check out [**What are Time-Based Adjustments and how should I use them?**](https://support.beyondpricing.com/what-are-last-minute-discounts-and-how-should-i-use-them-HJpAUBiSO) For more information.
##
**Adjusting your Base Price**
So now that you have a good starting Base Price, you're ready to go. The next step is to watch how well you book at this Base Price to determine if you have the right Base Price or if you should adjust it.
This is where your Health Score comes in. Your Health Score is designed to be a feedback loop on how well your Base Price is doing where it is currently set. It is essentially a measure of your booking pace and helps you determine whether your listing is booking up too quickly, too slowly, or just right.
To monitor your Booking Pace relative to the ideal Booking Pace in your market, hover over the “i” next to Occupancy on your [**Beyond Dashboard**](https://beyondpricing.com/dashboard/pricing):
In general, we advise that if your listing’s performance is “Too Low”, the best next step is to lower the Base Price for that listing by 5-10% to begin to capture more bookings.
Conversely, if your listing’s performance is “Too High”, the next step is to raise your Base Price by 5-10% to start to capture bookings with a higher Average Daily Rate (ADR).
Let's take a look at some examples-
For our listing in San Francisco, California, the ideal(Neighborhood) booking percentage is 51% booked for the next 30 days, and we are 90% booked. The ideal(Neighborhood) booking percentage for the next 90 days is 38% booked, and we are 74% booked. We are much higher than the ideals and have a fair but not ideal(Good) Health Score of 62.
**Action:** Increase Base Price
For our listing in Palm Springs, California, the ideal(Neighborhood) booking percentage is 20% booked for the next 30 days, and we are 0% booked. The ideal(Neighborhood) booking percentage for the next 90 days is 23% booked, and we are 0% booked. We are much lower than the ideals and have a low Health Score of 17.
**Action:** Decrease Base Price
For our listing in San Francisco, California, the ideal(Neighborhood) booking percentage is 51% booked for the next 30 days, and we are 53% booked. The ideal(Neighborhood) booking percentage for the next 90 days is 38% booked, and we are 42% booked. We are really close to the ideals and have a great Health Score of 92.
**Action:** No Base Price adjustment is needed
For more information on your Health Score, check out [**What is my Health Score and what does it tell me about my listing?**](https://support.beyondpricing.com/en_us/what-is-my-health-score-and-what-does-it-tell-me-about-my-listing-(video)-rJZi8BoHd)
We recommend monitoring your Booking Pace at least every two weeks to effectively hone in on the optimal Base Price for your listing.
We don't automatically adjust your Base Price for you because we realize that we don't always have perfect information about whether dates for your listing are blocked for personal use or blocked because of a reservation on another channel.
A lot of people ask why it's not necessarily good to be fully booked up. Sometimes, it means we know you could get booked at a higher rate, so you are leaving money on the table. [**Click here**](http://blog.beyondpricing.com/fully-booked) to learn more about how we help you optimize your revenue by helping you strike the right balance between the number of nights booked and the nightly price.
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**Additional fees and your Base Price**
Our price recommendations are for your nightly rate. But we understand that you have other fees associated with your listing, and these are indirectly factored into our algorithm. Our general guidelines are:
**Cleaning Fee \-** Charge what it costs you. This way, even if you receive a one-night booking at a low rate, you'll still be sure to cover your costs. It's also the fair thing to do.
**Extra Guest Fee \-** Generally, we don't recommend charging an extra guest fee for fewer guests than twice the number of beds.
For example, if you have a two-bedroom listing with two beds, the first four guests would be free.
Beyond adjusts for these by looking at how quickly your listing books up.
For example, let's say you and a neighbor both have great one-bedroom apartments available for $200 per night. If your cleaning fee is $200 and theirs is $50, you'll probably get fewer bookings than your neighbor. If you get too few bookings, your booking percentage will be too low, your Health Score will go down, and you'll know it's time to lower your Base Price to, say, $150 per night.
We recommend that you look at other listings in your area to see what the average cleaning and guest fees are so you won't have to make up for it with a lower room rate.
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**Minimum Price**
Your Minimum Price is the lowest rate you'd be willing to accept for a night. This is completely up to you. We recommend setting it as low as you feel comfortable. This doesn’t mean our suggested pricing will ever reach that point; rather, it allows for appropriate fluctuation in the daily rate given the demand in your market. Just remember that a high Minimum Price will likely result in fewer bookings in periods of low demand and limit last-minute bookings.
If you reduce your Base Price, you may also need to reduce your Minimum Price to allow our pricing suggestions to fluctuate.
For our listing in San Francisco, California, if we reduce our Base Price from $150 to $100, you can see that during periods of low demand, we hit our Minimum Price of $90, and we are essentially flat pricing throughout October. If we reduce our Minimum Price from $90 to $70, you can see our suggested pricing fluctuate more throughout that period.
For more information, check out [**What is my Minimum Price is, and how do I know if it's correct?**](https://support.beyondpricing.com/en_us/what-is-my-minimum-price-and-how-do-i-know-if-it's-correct-rkhN8roSu)