A turnover clean makes the unit ready for the next check-in: beds, towels, restock, staging, photos — 1 to 2 hours, from $225 per checkout. A deep clean is the groundwork underneath it: 42 items, 4 to 6 hours, from $375. You need a turnover after every single checkout. You need a deep clean when the unit asks for one — not when the calendar does.
Almost everything written about this comparison treats the two as long and short versions of the same clean. They are not. They are built around different things. A turnover is built around a window — the gap between one guest leaving and the next arriving — and around proof that the unit looks the way your listing promises. A deep clean is built around accumulation: what has collected on the surfaces no guest ever looks at, which speed does not remove.
What each visit actually buys
A turnover is a 20-item guest-ready reset with a 2-person team: strip and remake every bed, refresh towels, restock toiletries and coffee, clean the kitchen and bathrooms, quick-vacuum the floors, wipe counters and high-touch surfaces, and stage the unit — finishing with photos posted to your host dashboard within 60 minutes of finishing. The full list, grouped the way a turnover is worked, is in our Airbnb cleaning checklist; the canonical source for both the count and the price is the Airbnb turnover cleaning in Miami page.
A deep clean is a 42-item, photo-verified visit, also with a 2-person team, aimed at everything a turnover deliberately does not touch: baseboards, detailed doors, frames and handles, cabinet faces, grout, under furniture, accessible light fixtures, air vents, switches and outlets, build-up removal, and cobwebs. Appliance interiors and window services are quoted separately. The source is the deep cleaning in Miami page, which also publishes the 24h reclean guarantee; on eligible completed visits, the CleanCheck Report carries checklist status and customer-safe photos.
The two published tables, side by side
Turnover, per checkout — the canonical source is the table on the turnover page:
- Studio · 1 hr · $225
- 1 BR · 1 bath · 1–1.5 hr · $225
- 2 BR · 2 bath · 1.5–2 hr · $225
- 3 BR · 2 bath · 2–2.5 hr · $225
- 4 BR+ · 3 bath · 2.5–3 hr · $225+
Deep clean, per visit — the canonical source is the table on the deep-clean page:
- 1 BR · 1 bath · 3 hr · $375
- 2 BR · 1 bath · 3–4 hr · $420
- 2 BR · 2 bath · 4–5 hr · $485
- 3 BR · 2 bath · 5–6 hr · $530
- 3 BR · 3 bath · 6–8 hr · $595
Look at the shape of the two tables, not just the numbers. On the turnover ladder every row starts in the same place and only the duration moves: in turnover work, beds matter more than square footage. On the deep-clean ladder the price climbs with size, because what is being priced there is surface and hours. Two different ways of counting the same apartment. If the per-checkout price breakdown is what you came for, it lives in how much Airbnb turnover cleaning costs.
“A turnover is measured against your next guest. A deep clean is measured against your last fifty.”
How often you need each
The turnover: your calendar decides
This half is easy, which is exactly why it should be automatic. One turnover after every checkout — no exceptions, no judgement call in the loop. iCal sync with Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com auto-triggers a turnover from your booking feed, so a new reservation becomes a scheduled clean without you booking each one by hand. For one-off requests without sync, book 24–48 hours ahead. The classic new-host mistake is not skipping a turnover; it is booking each one by hand and finding out on Thursday that the guest moved their arrival up.
The deep clean: the unit decides
This is where most articles hand you a number — every three months, every six, twice a year. We do not publish an interval, because it would not be true: a studio hosting two quiet stays a month and a four-bedroom hosting thirty guests a month cannot share a calendar. What we can give you are the triggers the site already publishes.
The unit sat closed. The turnover page says it in those words: a unit that has sat closed between seasons may need a deep clean before it goes back on a turnover rhythm. A shut-up apartment in Miami does not merely gather dust — it goes stale, and the first guest of the season notices before they put the suitcase down.
A checkout went out of range. Turnover pricing assumes normal guest use. When a checkout goes well beyond it, we document the condition in photos, tell you what we found, and flag whether the visit needs extra time or a deep clean instead. The decision stays yours, and the photo record is yours if you need to raise it with your platform.
Your turnovers started running long. This is the most useful signal and the one almost nobody watches. If the same team, in the same unit, after the same size of booking, starts needing more time, the 20-item list is fighting build-up that is not its job. The deep-clean page states the other side of it: the longer it has been since the last professional deep clean, the more hours the 42-item checklist takes. Postponing it does not avoid it — it prices it up.
The season turned. The seasonal reset card we publish on the service pages names spring and fall: Miami pollen, hurricane dust, holiday entertaining — and on a short-term rental those months carry an operational advantage too.
What Miami changes about this question
The calendar is the real constraint. A deep clean needs the unit empty for most of a day, and Miami’s winter high season is exactly when you do not have that day: bookings chain together, and every 24-hour hole you block is a night you did not sell. Which is why hosts who plan well put the deep clean in the shoulder of the season — when the calendar breathes — instead of in January, when it is already impossible.
Sand and salt air. In the beachfront condos of Miami Beach and Sunny Isles Beach, sand control is part of every single visit rather than an occasional extra; sand travels from the balcony into the sliding-door tracks and from there into everything. The balcony area and sliding-door tracks are added on at booking precisely because they are not part of the base turnover list — if your unit faces the water, deciding those two add-ons is part of setting the turnover up properly.
Storm season. From June 1 to November 30, a system passing near town leaves windows and balconies with a film that no guest attributes to the weather — they attribute it to you. It is dust and salt, not damage, and one visit clears it, but it is surface work, not 20-item-window work. A deep clean scheduled right after the season ends makes operational sense here in a way it does not in an inland market.
Your building gets a vote. A deep clean is a crew inside the unit for hours, and in a tower that means service-elevator rules, front-desk registration, and parking. Tell us about them when you book and the team arrives ready. Plenty of buildings also restrict vendor work to certain days or hours, which narrows the possible dates further — one more reason to pick the gap before you pick the service.
What neither one does
We bring all cleaning supplies and equipment — eco-friendly by default. Linens and consumables work from the stock you keep at the unit: we strip and remake beds with your fresh sets, reset towels, and restock toiletries and coffee from your supply, and we flag when stock runs low so you can top up before it becomes a guest problem. Neither visit buys your inventory for you, and neither is a repair service: if something is broken, you will see it in the photos rather than fixed.
And if you cannot tell which one this week needs, book the turnover — it is the one with a date attached — and let the team tell you in the photos whether the unit is asking for the other.
Quick answers
How often should an Airbnb be deep cleaned?
We do not publish an interval, because an honest one does not exist in the abstract: a studio that hosts two quiet weeks a month and a four-bedroom that hosts thirty guests a month are not on the same clock. What we publish instead are the triggers. A unit that has sat closed between seasons may need a deep clean before it goes back on a turnover rhythm. A checkout your cleaner flags as beyond normal guest use is another. And the deep-clean page states the economics plainly: the longer it has been since the last professional deep clean, the more hours the 42-item checklist takes. Beware any article that gives you a number without ever seeing your calendar.
Can I just pay for extra time on a turnover instead of booking a deep clean?
Extra time on a turnover buys you a longer turnover, not a deep clean. They are different published visits: 1–2 hours on a 20-item guest-ready reset versus 4–6 hours on a 42-item checklist verified by photo. The constraint is not money, it is the window — a deep clean needs a vacant unit and most of a day, which no checkout-to-check-in gap contains. Book it into a night you have not sold.
What does a vacation rental deep clean include that a turnover does not?
The published 42-item list adds the surfaces a guest never notices until they do: baseboards, detailed doors, frames and handles, cabinet faces, grout, under furniture, light fixtures, air vents, switches and outlets, build-up removal, and cobwebs. Appliance interiors and window services are quoted separately on that page. A turnover is not a shorter version of that list — it is a different list, built around linens, restock, staging, and photographic proof for the next check-in.
A guest left the unit rough. Does that turn into a deep clean automatically?
Not automatically, and not silently. Turnover pricing assumes normal guest use. When a checkout goes well beyond that, we document the condition in photos, tell you what we found, and flag whether the visit needs extra time or a deep clean instead — your call, not ours. That photo record is yours if you need to raise the issue with your booking platform.
How far ahead do I book each one?
Turnovers are best left to the calendar: iCal sync with Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com auto-triggers a turnover from your booking feed, so a new reservation becomes a scheduled clean without you booking each one by hand. For one-off requests without iCal sync, book 24–48 hours ahead. A deep clean is the opposite kind of booking — you are choosing a day, so pick the gap first and schedule around it.
The short version
The turnover is the visit with a date on it: 20 items, 1 to 2 hours, from $225 per checkout, after every single check-out, with photos on your dashboard inside the hour. The deep clean is the visit with a judgement behind it: 42 items, 4 to 6 hours, from $375, when the unit has sat closed, when a checkout goes out of range, when your turnovers start running long, or when the season turns. The turnover protects your next review. The deep clean protects your year.
This guide is part of the JAS operating playbook — written to answer with the published tables in view, and without inventing the interval nobody can know on your behalf.