Free Airbnb spreadsheet vs paid workbook: when free is enough, and when you have outgrown it
Here is the short version. If you run one rental, look at one month at a time, and do not need your expenses sorted into tax categories yet, the free StaySums spreadsheet does the job. Start there, it costs nothing and asks for no email address. If you run more than one property, want a full year in one file, need payout differences caught automatically across every booking, or want expenses already organized the way Schedule E asks for them, that is what the $49 workbook adds. The rest of this guide walks through exactly where that line sits.
What "free" means here
Search for an Airbnb bookkeeping spreadsheet and most of what comes up is a generic template: a blank grid with column headers, no formulas checking your work, and no logic built in for what a short-term rental payout actually looks like. Some ask for an email address before they let you download anything.
The free StaySums spreadsheet, called Monthly Close Lite, is a direct download instead. It covers one property for one month, with room for 12 platform payouts and 20 expenses. It compares the payout you expected against what your bank actually received and flags any difference. It totals expenses and shows cash left over. No email, account, payment card, or bank connection is required to get the file.
That is a real, working tool with a narrow scope: one property, one month, and a plain cash summary rather than a full set of reports.
What changes in the $49 workbook
The paid StaySums workbook is the same idea built out to cover a full operating year. It handles up to five properties and a full year of bookings in one file, with room for 400 booking rows and 600 expense rows. It computes the expected payout for each booking and flags any row where the amount that landed in your bank does not match, across the whole year rather than one month at a time.
Expense categories follow the layout of IRS Schedule E, and platform host fees flow into the commissions line on their own. A dashboard reports occupancy, average nightly rate, and net income for each property. A year-end tax summary rolls the twelve months together, there is a mileage log, and a setup guide walks through the first entry. It is a one-time $49 purchase rather than a subscription.
Feature by feature
| What you need | Typical free template online | StaySums free (Lite) | StaySums workbook, $49 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time period | Depends on the file | 1 month | Full year |
| Properties | Usually 1, manual | 1 | Up to 5 |
| Booking or payout rows | Varies | 12 | 400 |
| Expense rows | Varies | 20 | 600 |
| Payout vs. bank deposit check | Not built in | Yes, per row | Yes, per row, full year |
| Expenses mapped to Schedule E | No | Generic categories | Yes |
| Host fees flow to commissions automatically | No | No | Yes |
| Dashboard (occupancy, nightly rate, net income) | No | No | Yes |
| Year-end tax summary | No | No | Yes |
| Mileage log | No | No | Yes |
| Price | Free, quality varies | Free | $49 once |
Three questions that settle it
- How many properties do you manage? One property points toward the free version. More than one points toward the workbook, since the free file does not scale past a single property.
- Do you want one month at a time, or a running year you never rebuild? If reopening a fresh spreadsheet each month is fine, stay free. If you want twelve months of history sitting in one file when tax season arrives, that is a full-year job.
- Do your expenses need to land in tax categories, or is a cash total enough for now? A plain "money in minus money out" number is often enough early on. Once you are filing a Schedule E, having expenses already sorted into its categories saves the sorting work later.
Stay free if
- You manage one short-term rental.
- You are testing whether a manual spreadsheet routine fits your habits at all.
- You only need this month's numbers rather than a running year.
- You are comfortable starting a fresh copy of the file each month.
- A simple cash total, without tax-ready categories, answers your question right now.
Upgrade if
- You manage two or more properties and want them in one place.
- You want a full year of bookings and expenses in a single file instead of twelve separate ones.
- You want payout differences flagged automatically across every booking instead of checked by hand.
- You want expenses already organized the way Schedule E asks for them.
- You want a dashboard, a year-end tax summary, or a mileage log, and would rather not build them yourself.
A note on generic free templates
Plenty of free spreadsheet templates exist outside StaySums, and for a very small operation one of them may be all you need. The trade-off is usually that they do not check a payout against a bank deposit, do not map expenses to a tax schedule, and vary a great deal in quality depending on who built them. That is a fair price for zero cost. It is worth knowing before you build a year of records in a file that cannot do that math, only to redo the work later in something that can.
Common questions
Is a free Airbnb spreadsheet enough for one property?
For one rental and one month at a time, usually yes. The free StaySums spreadsheet tracks up to 12 payouts and 20 expenses, checks the payout against the bank deposit, and shows cash left after expenses. It does not carry a running year in one file, so each month you start a fresh copy.
When should I pay for a bookkeeping workbook instead of using a free one?
Pay when a free monthly spreadsheet stops covering the job: more than one property, a full year of records in one file, expenses organized the way Schedule E asks for them, or payout differences flagged automatically across every booking instead of checked by hand one month at a time.
Does the free spreadsheet do the same math as the paid workbook?
Both compare a payout to a bank deposit and total up expenses. The free version stops at a simple cash summary for one month. The $49 workbook adds a monthly profit and loss statement, a dashboard, and a year-end tax summary across up to five properties.
You can run one real month through the free version with our free Airbnb income and expense spreadsheet, or close the month step by step first with the monthly bookkeeping checklist.