Best Cleaning Management Apps: Turno vs Breezeway vs Properly
Tired of turnover chaos? We break down the top three cleaning management apps for Airbnb hosts: Turno, Breezeway, and Properly. Find your perfect fit.
- Turno (formerly TurnoverBnB) is best for finding and paying cleaners through its marketplace, ideal for new hosts or those in new markets.
- Breezeway focuses on comprehensive property care and operations, including maintenance tasks, making it a fit for professional managers with complex needs.
- Properly excels at visual checklists and quality assurance, ensuring brand standards are met across a portfolio. It's strong for detail-oriented hosts and growing brands.
- Your choice depends on your primary goal: sourcing cleaners (Turno), managing complex operations (Breezeway), or ensuring detailed quality control (Properly).
As a short-term rental host, you know the turnover is where the magic happens or where it all falls apart. A missed cleaning, a late cleaner, or a poorly done job can sink your guest experience and torpedo your reviews. You need a system. Not a spreadsheet, not a flurry of text messages, but a real, dedicated tool to manage the critical task of cleaning your properties. The good news is, there are powerful platforms built for exactly this. Turno, Breezeway, and Properly are the three heavyweights in the space, each with a dedicated following.
But they aren't interchangeable. Each app is built around a different philosophy of property care. Choosing the right one for your business depends entirely on your portfolio size, your team structure, and whether your biggest headache is finding cleaners, managing detailed tasks, or ensuring brand consistency. Let's break down how they compare so you can make the right call.
Key takeaways- Turno's Strength is the Marketplace: Its primary value is connecting hosts with a vast network of vetted cleaners, simplifying sourcing and payments.
- Breezeway is the All-in-One Ops Tool: It goes beyond cleaning to include maintenance management, guest messaging, and detailed task scheduling for a holistic operational view.
- Properly is the Quality Assurance Champion: It's built around visual, evidence-based checklists, making it incredibly powerful for ensuring every turnover meets your exact standards.
- Pricing Models Differ Significantly: Turno offers a free tier and per-project fees, while Breezeway and Properly use per-property monthly subscriptions that scale with your portfolio.
- Integration is Key for Scalability: For hosts with more than a few properties, how these tools connect to your PMS (Property Management System) is a crucial decision factor.
- Operational tools tell only half the story: The best cleaning schedule can't fix a poor guest experience. You need to combine your operational software with guest-facing tools for a complete solution.
At a Glance: Turno vs. Breezeway vs. Properly Feature Showdown
When you're in the weeds, the small differences between platforms become major factors. Does it have photo checklists? Can you manage inventory? How does it handle paying your team? This table gives a direct comparison of the core features you'll use daily. Keep in mind that 'Yes' doesn't tell the whole story; the depth and implementation of each feature vary significantly.
| Feature | Turno (formerly TurnoverBnB) | Breezeway | Properly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auto-Scheduling Cleanings | Yes, via PMS sync. | Yes, robust rules-based engine. | Yes, via PMS sync. |
| Cleaner Marketplace | Yes, this is its core strength. | No, for your existing team. | No, for your existing team. |
| Visual Checklists | Yes, text-based with photo uploads. | Yes, highly detailed and customizable. | Yes, a core feature with robust visual proof. |
| Problem Reporting & Photos | Yes, cleaners can report issues. | Yes, integrated into task flows. | Yes, cleaners can report issues directly from checklist items. |
| Inventory Management | Basic (e.g., tracking supplies). | Yes, with customizable alerts. | Yes, can be tied to checklist items. |
| Maintenance Work Orders | No, focused on cleaning. | Yes, a core part of the platform. | Limited, focused on cleaning-related issues. |
| Cleaner Payments | Yes, automated payments via Stripe. | Yes, can track payments but not a payment processor. | Yes, can track payments, but not a processor. |
| Guest Messaging | No. | Yes, integrated messaging capabilities. | No. |
| Mobile App for Cleaners | Yes. | Yes. | Yes. |
| PMS Integrations | Excellent, wide range of partners. | Excellent, deep integrations with top PMSs. | Good, connects to major PMSs. |
The Cleaner's Experience
Don't forget the other user of this software: your cleaning team. A platform that your cleaners hate is a platform that will fail. All three offer dedicated mobile apps. Turno's app is straightforward, focusing on accepting jobs, viewing schedules, and getting paid. It's very popular with cleaners who work for multiple hosts, as the marketplace model aggregates their work in one place. Breezeway's app is more comprehensive, showing cleaners detailed task flows that might include light maintenance or property prep, reflecting its broader operational scope. Properly's app is centered on the visual checklist; it guides the cleaner through the property room-by-room, requiring them to follow a precise workflow and capture photo evidence. For detail-oriented cleaners, this is great; for those who prefer more autonomy, it can feel restrictive.
Decoding the Dollars: A Pricing Comparison
Your software costs are a business expense, deductible on your IRS Schedule E (for passive investors) or Schedule C (for active business operators). Still, you need to ensure the price aligns with the value you receive. The pricing models for these three tools are fundamentally different, which can make direct comparisons tricky. Turno can be free if you're only using your own cleaner, while Breezeway and Properly operate on a per-property subscription model.
| Platform | Pricing Model | Typical Cost | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turno | Freemium + Marketplace Fee | Free for one property with your own cleaner. Marketplace fees are 5% of the cleaning cost, paid by the host. | Hosts with 1-3 properties or those needing to find new cleaners. |
| Breezeway | Per-property, tiered plans | Starts around $8 per property/month (Pro Plan). Scales up for more features. Custom pricing for 20+ properties. | Professional managers of 5+ properties needing deep operational control. |
| Properly | Per-property, tiered plans | Starts around $10 per property/month. Scales up for more features. Discounts for annual payment. | Hosts and managers of 3-25 properties focused on brand standards. |
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Get Started FreeHidden Costs and What to Watch For
With Turno, the primary 'hidden' cost is the 5% marketplace fee. If your cleaning fee is $150 (a common price in markets like Scottsdale or Miami for a 3-bedroom), that's a $7.50 fee per turnover. For a property with 4 turnovers a month, you're looking at $30 per month, per property. This can quickly become more expensive than a flat subscription on the other platforms if you have high occupancy. For Breezeway and Properly, the sticker price is for a specific feature set. Advanced features like owner reporting, advanced analytics, or specific integrations might require you to upgrade to a more expensive tier. Always check which features are included in the base plan before committing.
TipRemember to factor in your cleaning fees correctly when setting your pricing. Software costs, just like supplies and labor, should be accounted for in what you charge. Dive into our guide on the average Airbnb cleaning fee to benchmark your pricing.TipWant this handled automatically?CheckinGuide builds a beautiful digital welcome guide for every booking, so guests stop messaging you about WiFi, parking and check-in. Free for your first guide.Which Platform Fits Your Portfolio?
The 'best' app is relative. It depends on your specific challenges, team structure, and goals. Let's walk through three common host scenarios to see which tool might be the natural fit.
Scenario 1: The New Host with One Property
You just launched your first Airbnb, a condo in downtown Denver. Your biggest problem is finding a reliable cleaner. You don't have a team yet, and you're not sure what the going rate is. You need scheduling automation but are very budget-conscious.
- Primary Need: Find a reliable cleaner.
- Budget: As low as possible.
- Recommendation:Turno is the clear winner here. You can use the marketplace to post your job, get bids from local, rated cleaners, and compare profiles. The automatic scheduling from your Airbnb calendar is a huge time-saver, and the integrated payment system means you don't have to worry about paying your cleaner on time. The free plan (if you find a cleaner and invite them) or the low marketplace fee is perfect for a new host managing costs.
Scenario 2: The Growing Operator with 5-10 Properties
You've scaled from two cabins in Joshua Tree to seven properties, a mix of architectural homes and stylish A-frames. You have a few cleaners you work with, but ensuring every property is cleaned to your high 'Instagrammable' standard is becoming a challenge. You're worried about quality control as you can't inspect every turnover yourself.
- Primary Need: Quality assurance and brand consistency.
- Budget: Willing to invest in software that saves time and protects brand reputation.
- Recommendation:Properly is an excellent fit. You can build detailed, visual checklists for each specific property. For example, 'Fold towels this exact way,' 'Arrange pillows like this,' with a reference photo for each step. The requirement for cleaners to upload photos as proof of completion gives you peace of mind from afar. It turns your cleaning process into a replicable, trainable system, which is essential for scaling a brand.
Scenario 3: The Professional Manager with 25+ Properties
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See a Live DemoYou manage a portfolio of 30 properties across Austin and Nashville. Your team includes cleaners, handymen, and a guest services coordinator. Your biggest challenge is coordinating all field staff, not just cleaners. A slow drain reported by a cleaner needs to become a work order for a plumber, and you need to track it all centrally. You live and die by your PMS integration.
- Primary Need: Comprehensive operational management for a mixed team.
- Budget: Professional software is a non-negotiable cost of doing business.
- Recommendation:Breezeway is built for this level of complexity. Its ability to create and track maintenance tasks alongside cleaning jobs is a game-changer for professional managers. You can establish automated rules, like 'if guest reports a Wi-Fi issue, automatically create a task for tech support.' The deep PMS integrations and guest messaging features allow you to centralize more of your operations into one platform, reducing chaos and improving efficiency across your entire team.
The Core Differences: Marketplace vs. Quality Control
Beyond the feature checklists, the fundamental difference between these platforms lies in their core philosophy. Understanding this will help you align a tool with your business DNA.
Turno Review: The Marketplace Model
Turno's soul is its cleaner marketplace. It solves the number one problem for many hosts: 'How do I find someone to clean my property?' It functions like an Upwork or Thumbtack specifically for the vacation rental industry. The platform's value is in the network. Cleaners create profiles, get reviews, and set their prices. Hosts post jobs and find the right fit. The software surrounding this (scheduling, payments, simple checklists) is designed to facilitate this host-cleaner relationship. This makes it an amazing tool for market expansion. If you're launching a rental in a new city like Miami where you have no contacts, Turno is your starting point. The potential downside is that you are reliant on a fluid workforce; if your favorite cleaner becomes unavailable, you are back to searching the marketplace.
NoteBuilt into CheckinGuide: ID verification, security deposits, signed rental agreements and revenue-boosting upsells, all from one branded portal. See a live demo.Breezeway & Properly Review: The Quality & Ops Model
Breezeway and Properly operate on the assumption that you already have a team (or are building one) and your primary challenge is managing them effectively. They are less about finding people and more about directing them. Properly's approach is micro-focused on the quality of the turnover. It's for the host who believes the specific way a bed is made or a coffee station is arranged is a critical part of their brand. It's a tool for enforcing brand standards at scale. Breezeway takes a macro view. It sees cleaning as one component of a larger property operations machine. It asks, 'What else needs to happen at the property besides cleaning?' This could be pool servicing, restocking a welcome basket, or performing a quarterly smoke detector check. It’s for managers who are juggling cleaning, maintenance, and inventory across a large and diverse portfolio. Their goal is to create a single source of truth for all property-related tasks.
Completing Your Tech Stack: Beyond Cleaning Management
Here’s a crucial insight: optimizing your cleaning schedule is only one part of running a five-star operation. None of these excellent cleaning management apps handle the critical pre-arrival guest journey. This is a separate, but equally important, job-to-be-done. While your cleaning app ensures the property is perfect, other tools prepare the guest.
This is where a dedicated guest experience platform comes in. For instance, you can use a tool like CheckinGuide to automate the vital steps that happen before a cleaner ever sets foot in the property. This includes verifying guest ID to prevent parties that could wreck the place (Guest Verification), collecting a security deposit for peace of mind, and presenting your house rules clearly in a beautiful digital guide. A smooth, secure check-in process sets a positive tone for the entire stay.
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Get Started FreeFurthermore, guest experience tools can directly impact your operations. Let's say you offer early check-in or late check-out as an upsell. A guest purchasing late check-out through a tool like CheckinGuide Upsells needs to automatically and instantly trigger a notification or schedule change in your cleaning platform. The two systems must work in concert. Your cleaning app manages the physical property; your guest experience app manages the guest's digital journey. For a seamless business, you need both.
- Step 1: Onboard the guest. Use a tool like CheckinGuide to collect ID, security deposits, and get e-signatures on rental agreements.
- Step 2: Inform the guest. Provide a beautiful digital welcome book with all your property's info, from the Wi-Fi code to local recommendations.
- Step 3: Manage the turnover. Use Turno, Breezeway, or Properly to schedule the cleaning and any maintenance based on check-out times.
- Step 4: Generate more revenue. Offer paid upsells like late check-out, which then informs the cleaning schedule for the next turn.
Integrations and Your Property Management System (PMS)
For anyone managing more than two properties, a PMS like Hostaway, OwnerRez, Guesty, or Lodgify is the heart of your business. It syncs your calendars and rates across Airbnb, Vrbo, and direct booking sites. Your cleaning software must integrate flawlessly with your PMS. A booking in your PMS needs to automatically create a cleaning job in your chosen app.
All three platforms—Turno, Breezeway, and Properly—have invested heavily in PMS integrations. They connect with dozens of platforms via API. Breezeway often claims the 'deepest' integrations, meaning it can pull more data back and forth from the PMS, which is critical for its complex operational workflows. Turno has one of the widest ranges of integrations, connecting to even smaller and niche PMS platforms. Properly also has solid integrations with all the major players. Before you choose, verify that your specific PMS is on their list and ask what level of data is synced. Does it just pull booking dates, or can it also pull guest details and booking modifications?
NoteAlways check for 'two-way' integrations. This means that a change in one system (like a canceled booking in your PMS) is automatically reflected in the other (canceling the scheduled cleaning), saving you from manual work and potential errors.Frequently asked questions
Is there a free cleaning management app for Airbnb?+Yes, Turno offers a free plan for hosts with a single property who use their own existing cleaners. If you use their marketplace to find cleaners, a 5% fee is applied to each cleaning job. Breezeway and Properly are paid, subscription-based services.Which app is best for finding cleaners for my vacation rental?+Turno is purpose-built for finding cleaners. Its marketplace is its main feature, allowing you to post your property and receive bids from local cleaners with ratings and reviews from other hosts. Neither Breezeway nor Properly have a cleaner marketplace.Can these apps help me comply with local short-term rental laws?+While they don't handle permit applications, they can help with compliance. For example, some city ordinances (like in Austin or Nashville) have rules about noise or trash. Using Breezeway to schedule regular trash bin service or having a checklist item in Properly to remind guests of quiet hours can be part of a broader compliance strategy.How do these apps handle paying my cleaning staff?+Turno has a fully integrated payment system. It automatically pays your cleaners via Stripe after a job is completed, which helps with bookkeeping and preparing 1099-K forms for your contractors. Breezeway and Properly can track amounts owed but do not process the payments themselves; you would still need to pay your team via another method like direct deposit or Zelle.I manage properties for other people. Which tool is best for owner reporting?+Breezeway generally has the most robust features for M_anagers working with multiple property owners. It can generate detailed reports on completed work, maintenance issues, and property status, which can be shared with owners to provide transparency and justify management fees.Turno used to be called TurnoverBnB. Did anything change besides the name?+The name change from TurnoverBnB to Turno was primarily a rebranding effort to reflect a broader vision for the platform. The core functionality—a marketplace to find, schedule, and pay cleaners—remains the same and is still the heart of their service.Can I use Breezeway for maintenance only, without the cleaning features?+Yes, Breezeway is a full property care and operations platform. You can absolutely use it exclusively for scheduling and tracking maintenance tasks, coordinating with handymen, and managing property assets, even if you handle cleaning through another system.Does using an app like Properly mean I can pay my cleaners less?+No, and this is a common misconception. These tools are designed to make your cleaners more efficient and consistent, not to reduce their pay. In fact, providing a great tool can make you a preferred host to work with, helping you retain the best talent. Quality cleaners expect professional tools and fair compensation.Bottom line: choosing between Turno, Breezeway, and Properly isn't about finding a 'winner,' but about diagnosing your biggest operational bottleneck. If you can't find cleaners, start with Turno. If your brand depends on meticulous, replicable quality, look at Properly. If you're managing a complex ecosystem of people, tasks, and assets, Breezeway is your command center. Each is a powerful lever to pull for a better, more scalable hosting business.
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