How Much Did Airbnb Earn in 2021? A Market-Sizing Estimate for Its Core Business

In a product manager interview, you are asked to estimate Airbnb's annual revenue for 2021. Count only Airbnb's core business and leave out revenue from any companies it has acquired. ```hint Follow the money Before multiplying volumes, decide what Airbnb actually earns on a booking. What a guest pays and what the company keeps are very different numbers. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Do you mean revenue as Airbnb reports it, meaning the fees it keeps, or the total amount guests pay for bookings? - Is the estimate global, or limited to one market such as the U.S.? - Do Airbnb Experiences count as part of the core business, or only stays? - Should the estimate reflect 2021 travel conditions, when travel was still recovering from the pandemic, or a typical year? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A clear scope: 2021, global, core marketplace only, with revenue defined as fees kept rather than booking value - An equation built from nights booked, average nightly price and Airbnb's share of each booking, with every input labeled as an assumption - Inputs adjusted for how travel looked in 2021 - A second, independent method or a gut check that tests the result - The inputs the answer is most sensitive to ### Follow-up Questions - Which of your inputs would change most if you estimated 2019 instead, and in which direction? - If Airbnb raised its guest fee by two percentage points, how would revenue change, and what second-order effects would you watch? - How would you estimate how much of the revenue comes from stays of a month or longer?