Is a second cleaning crew worth it? Checkout windows and drive-time math
Short answer: a crew earns its place when the turnovers it adds, after supplies, clean time, the drive between units and the dead time waiting for checkouts, pay more than the crew costs. Checkout and check-in windows decide how many turnovers one crew can physically reach, so the answer is a property of the day's queue, not of the business.
A worked queue
Ten turnovers, crews leaving a depot at 09:00 and due back at 18:00, each crew costing $40 an hour while driving or cleaning and $0.70 a mile, driving 30 mph over roads 1.3 times the straight-line distance. Fees run from $85 for a studio to $300 for a linen-heavy penthouse.
One crew takes 3 turnovers for $119.13 over 31.4 miles. Booking in the order owners asked would have earned only $32.70, and the biggest fees first $90.94.
Two crews take 6 turnovers for $214.41 over 52.6 miles, $95.29 more than one. That is $138.92 more than the better of first-come and biggest-fee-first booking, which fill the two crews with $75.49 and $62.04 days.
Three crews take 8 turnovers for $245.43 over 107.3 miles, only $31.02 more than two: the third crew spends most of its day driving between far units.
With two crews the planner declines the $210 Pine Cabin, the $240 Harbor 3BR, the $260 Ski Chalet and the $175 Mill Cottage. Each would earn a place only at a higher fee: about $258.89, $271.03, $336.11 and $208.24 respectively. Those are the quotes to give an owner, not the fees asked.
What to feed it
Crew cost per hour: wages and payroll cost for the whole crew divided by hours actually worked, not hours paid.
Per-mile cost: fuel plus tires and maintenance per mile driven.
For each turnover, the checkout and the next check-in from your calendar, and the miles east and north from your depot.
Check any management contract first: some require you to service certain units, and a guest arriving to an unfinished clean costs more than any optimum saves.
Questions
Is a second cleaning crew worth it?
It is worth it when the extra turnovers it can take clear the crew's cost after the drive and the idle time between checkouts. On the worked queue a second crew lifts the day from $119.13 to $214.41, a gain of $95.29, but a third lifts it only $31.02 more, so the third is worth it only if its cost for the hours it works is below that.
How do I decide which turnovers to take on a busy checkout day?
Compare whole days, not single cleans: for a set of turnovers, each crew's order, add what each pays after supplies and clean time, subtract the drive between them and check each window. The best day is the best such split. The planner finds it exactly for up to 12 turnovers and 3 crews.
What should a turnover pay to be worth a detour?
The planner prints, for each turnover it declines, the fee at which the best day would include it. Quote that for a far or tight-window unit, or use it as the floor when an owner asks for a discount.