By Baris Ergin
Checkmate Rentals is a co-host operator headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, covering 25+ states (remote). This review sets out what it actually discloses about pricing, how its model works in practice, and what to compare before signing.
Checkmate Rentals review: the short answer
As of July 2026 Checkmate Rentals publishes a management fee of 15% of the nightly rate only. It operates a co-host model and covers 25+ states (remote).
Published as ‘Average management fee of just 15%, of nightly rate only’. It explicitly keeps cleaning out of the base – ‘we exclude cleaning and other additional fees from our calculations’ and ‘the cleaning fee should be a pass through cost’ – which is the detail that makes a percentage comparable.
Checkmate Rentals at a glance
| Item | Detail (as of July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Published management fee | 15% of the nightly rate only |
| Model | Co-host |
| Coverage | 25+ states (remote) |
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, PA |
| Scale | States 10K+ stays managed, $12M+ in client revenue hosted and experience in 25+ states. |
Co-host rather than full service: ‘Co-host all listings: So you own your Airbnb listings forever’, with owners keeping their Airbnb and Vrbo accounts.
What a co-host does, and what stays with you
A co-host handles the operating layer of your listing — messaging, calendar, pricing, guest issues — without taking over the property the way a full-service manager does.
It suits owners who want the day-to-day taken off their hands but intend to stay involved. It does not suit owners who want to forget the property exists.
Because the scope varies far more than in full service, the written list of what is and is not included matters more here than the percentage.
Who Checkmate Rentals is best for
- Good fit: owners who value the reach and systems of a large network across 25+ states (remote).
- Good fit: owners with more than one property who want a single counterparty across markets.
- Poor fit: owners who want a named person accountable for their specific home rather than a process.
- Good fit: owners who want to see a rate before a sales call — it publishes 15% of the nightly rate only.
- Poor fit: owners whose first requirement is a written, itemised scope — always request one regardless of the brand.
National coverage and what it does not mean
This company works across many US markets. That is a distribution claim, and it is a genuine advantage for an owner with property in more than one place or for one buying into a market they do not know.
Coverage on a map is not the same as presence on your street. The question that matters is who physically attends your property, where they are based, and whether they are employed by this company or subcontracted. All three answers should be easy to get and sometimes are not.
Ask specifically how many properties the company runs in YOUR market, not nationally. A national brand with forty homes in your city behaves like a local operator; one with three behaves like a call centre.
How much does Checkmate Rentals charge?
Checkmate Rentals publishes 15% of the nightly rate only. That makes it one of the minority of US managers you can compare on price before a sales call, which is worth crediting.
Confirm the rate for your specific property in writing anyway. Published rates are usually the starting point for a standard home, and scope is what moves them.
Checkmate Rentals vs One Fine BnB
Read from each company’s own website on 1 August 2026.
| Feature | Checkmate Rentals | One Fine BnB |
|---|---|---|
| Published management fee | 15% of the nightly rate only | Full Service 20% / Partner 10% |
| Model | Co-host | Owner chooses hands-off or partner |
| Coverage | 25+ states (remote) | Nationwide US plus select international |
| Setup cost | Not published | $500 one-time onboarding retainer |
| What the percentage is charged on | Ask | Rental revenue only – never the guest-paid cleaning fee, lodging or sales tax, or damage deposits |
| Who pays for cleaning | Ask | Guests, through the booking – turnover housekeeping costs the owner nothing |
| Price visible before a sales call? | Yes | Yes |
What to compare besides the management fee
Owners switch on a percentage and regularly end up worse off, because the rate is one of six variables. Four of them decide most of it:
- The rate for your property – not a range, not a starting point.
- What the rate covers – cleaning coordination, restocking, inspections, on-site guest support: included, billed, or yours?
- Maintenance markup – vendor invoices at cost, or with a coordination percentage on top?
- Who owns the listing account – if it is theirs, leaving restarts your review history.
That last one is the most expensive detail in the whole decision and it never appears on a fee comparison. Setup costs, contract length and notice periods matter too and are the same questions everywhere – the management FAQ has the full list in a form you can paste into an email.
Is a lower percentage actually cheaper?
Only when the scope is identical. On a home grossing ~$72,000 a year, its published 15% works out at $10,800.
| Line | Checkmate Rentals at 15% | One Fine BnB Full Service 20% | One Fine BnB Partner 10% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross booking revenue | ~$72,000 | ~$72,000 | ~$72,000 |
| Management fee | $10,800 | $14,400 | $7,200 |
| Local cleaning, restocking, on-site response | Ask what is included | Included | Owner arranges and pays |
On the headline alone that is $3,600 a year less than our full-service rate. That is a real difference and it is exactly the point at which to ask hardest what is included: a rate below 20% usually means something in the list above is yours to arrange.
So the real question is whether you can cover local cleaning, restocking, inspections and on-site response for less than $7,200 a year. Near the property with a cleaner you trust, often yes. In another state with no vendor bench, usually not. Our guide to vacation rental management works it through a full year.
Where Checkmate Rentals sits against the rates US managers actually publish
Only 17 of the 94 US companies we verified publish a rate at all – which is the first thing worth knowing. Among those that do, its published 15% places Checkmate Rentals 3rd cheapest.
| Company | Highest published rate | On a $72,000 year |
|---|---|---|
| Awning | 10% | $7,200 |
| Tampa Bay Stays | 10% | $7,200 |
| Evolve | 15% | $10,800 |
| MasterHost | 15% | $10,800 |
| Guest Haus | 15% | $10,800 |
| Checkmate Rentals | 15% | $10,800 |
| Air Concierge | 20% | $14,400 |
| Superstays | 20% | $14,400 |
| SEA Getaways | 20% | $14,400 |
| Stay Awhile Cohosting | 20% | $14,400 |
| Host & Keep | 20% | $14,400 |
| Rest Easy Nashville | 20% | $14,400 |
| Open Air Homes | 25% | $18,000 |
| COBnB | 25% | $18,000 |
| HostWise | 25% | $18,000 |
| JaxBNB | 25% | $18,000 |
| Alluvion Vacations | 30% | $21,600 |
| One Fine BnB | 20% full service / 10% partner | $14,400 / $7,200 |
A wide spread is not evidence that the cheap end is a bargain. It usually means the plans are not the same job – the lowest published US rates are co-hosting or remote tiers, with the cleaning, the keys and the call-outs left with you.
What Checkmate Rentals discloses, and what it leaves for the sales call
How much a company says in public is not how good it is, but it decides how much homework you can do before you pick up the phone. This is what sits on its own site:
| What we looked for | On its own site |
|---|---|
| A management rate | Yes – 15% of the nightly rate only |
| Scale, in its own words | Yes – States 10K+ stays managed, $12M+ in client revenue hosted and experience in 25+ states. |
| How the model works | Explained in detail |
| What sits outside the fee | Itemised |
| Numbers that look like fees but are not | None found |
4 of the first four answered in public. That is unusually open for this market. Any performance figure a company publishes is always its own number about its own portfolio, and is reproduced here as such.
The best Checkmate Rentals alternatives
Best full-service alternative
One Fine BnB charges 20% for Full Service Management: professional listing creation and photography, dynamic pricing, 24/7 guest communication, booking management across platforms, turnover cleaning coordination, restocking, inspections, maintenance coordination and on-site guest support as needed.
A one-time $500 onboarding retainer funds setup – photography, listing creation, property prep – after which we are paid only when you are paid, with no long-term contract. Properties needing extras such as in-person meet-and-greets at every check-in may be quoted above 20% based on scope.
Best alternative if you keep a local team
Partner Management at 10% covers listing optimization, dynamic pricing, booking management and 24/7 guest communication, plus coordination with your own cleaning and maintenance vendors, while you provide local cleaning, restocking and on-site support.
Comparing the other national operators
See Evolve alternatives, Vacasa alternatives, our Awning review, or the full directory of Airbnb management companies and their published fees.
Local alternatives in markets where Checkmate Rentals appears
In most markets the strongest option is a regional operator with people on the ground. Our market-level comparisons include local operators alongside the national brands: Fort Smith Arkansas, Medford Massachusetts, Fairfield California, Severna Park Maryland, West Valley City Utah, Albany Oregon, Forrest City Arkansas.
If your market is not listed, find an Airbnb manager near you.
How to judge whether this manager is performing
Occupancy on its own tells you almost nothing – any property fills at a low enough price. Ask monthly, in writing, for revenue per available night rather than occupancy, the share of nights won outside peak season, average length of stay, and the trend in review scores rather than the headline number. A manager who reports those without being chased is telling you something about how the business is run.
You are also allowed to ask for a price on your specific property before you sign. A good answer names numbers – a nightly rate for July and one for November, an expected number of booked nights, what the percentage is charged on, what cleaning costs per turnover, and who holds the listing account.
An answer about passion and peace of mind that arrives at no number at all is the same non-answer you would not accept from a contractor.
How to switch to or from Checkmate Rentals
- Read the termination clause first — notice period, termination fee, and whether booked reservations transfer.
- Confirm who owns the listing account before giving notice. This is the detail that turns a routine switch into a restart.
- Agree how in-flight bookings are serviced and who is paid for them, in writing.
- Get the new terms on one page — rate, inclusions, setup cost, maintenance markup, notice period.
- Move in the shoulder season. Switching at peak risks revenue you cannot recover.
What no management fee covers
Property taxes and insurance written for short-term letting rather than for a home you live in. HOA or condo dues, which do not pause out of season. Furnishing and replacement, because guest turnover wears a property faster than a tenant does. Utilities. Permit and licence fees where your city requires them. And major repairs, whoever coordinates them.
Budget for those separately or the percentage will look cheaper than the year turns out to be.
Two contract terms that cost more than the fee
If you read nothing else in a management agreement, read these two.
Who owns the listing account. If the listing lives on the manager’s account, your reviews and search history belong to them. Leaving means starting a new listing from zero, which on a well-reviewed home is worth far more than several percentage points of fee.
How the agreement ends. Notice period, termination fee, and what happens to reservations already on the calendar. A low rate inside a multi-year term with an exit penalty is not a low rate.
Both are answerable in one email before you sign, and both are effectively unfixable afterwards.
Sources and method
Details were read from Checkmate Rentals’s own website on 1 August 2026 and are stated as of that date; companies change pricing and terms without notice, so treat this as a snapshot rather than a live quote. Model, coverage and headquarters come from our own management-company dataset.
We publish no star rating or review score for Checkmate Rentals. We have never been its customer and we compete with it, so a score from us would not be evidence. One Fine BnB’s own rates are stated in full above: Full Service 20%, Partner 10% of rental revenue, plus a one-time $500 onboarding retainer, with no long-term contract.
Disclosure: One Fine BnB is a management company and competes with the companies named here. Every figure comes from each company’s own website and is dated July 2026.
Written by
Baris Ergin
Baris Ergin is a co-owner of One Fine BnB, a management company running hundreds of vacation rentals, and one of the three founders of BnB Genius, Inc., along with Chad Ozgur and Kent Morgan. Before short-term rentals he built and exited three tech companies. At BnBGenius he works on the automation itself — the guest messaging, the task dispatch that fires on checkout, and the voice agent that answers the phone when a guest calls and nobody is free to pick up. He built it to give a host with one to five listings the tools a manager with hundreds of properties already has.
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