What should I charge per night? A pricing method for Indian owners

A nightly rate is not a number you pick once; it is a calendar you manage. Here is the method we use, region by region, and the few market figures we are prepared to stand behind.

Most owners arrive with one question: "What is the right price?" The honest answer is that there is no single right price for a home in India. Demand in Goa collapses in July and explodes on 30 December; a Gurugram flat sells on Tuesday nights to business travellers and sits empty on Sunday; a Manali cottage lives on May heat in the plains and on January snow. Your job is to set a sensible anchor, then move it with the calendar.

Six levers, in the order we pull them

• Base price. The rate for an ordinary, unremarkable night in your normal season. Build it from comparable homes near you — same number of bedrooms, similar finish, similar distance to the beach, metro or mall road — not from the most expensive villa on the street.
• Weekend uplift. In leisure markets, Friday and Saturday fill first and can carry more. In business cities the pattern can reverse. Look at which nights of your own calendar get booked first before deciding.
• Seasonal calendar. Mark peak, shoulder and low periods for your region a full year ahead: monsoon, Diwali, Christmas–New Year, school summer holidays, wedding season, local fairs.
• Minimum stay. Longer minimums on peak dates protect you from one-night bookings that block a whole week; short minimums in low season help fill gaps.
• Last-minute and long-stay discounts. An empty night earns nothing once it has passed. A modest discount inside the final days, and a weekly or monthly rate for longer stays, keep the calendar moving.
• Cleaning fee. Charged once per stay, it covers real turnover costs and makes short stays pay for themselves.

An illustration, not market data

Example only: an owner who sets a weekday base of ₹5,000 might test ₹5,750 on Friday and Saturday, raise December peak dates further, and require three nights over New Year. If the peak dates are all gone three months early, the price was too low; if they are still open a fortnight before, it was too high. The numbers here are invented to show the mechanics — they are not a recommendation for your home.

India's demand calendar at a glance

• June to September: the south-west monsoon. By IMD's normal dates it reaches Kerala around 1 June, Goa around 7 June, Mumbai around 11 June and Delhi around 27 June. Beach demand softens; some hill and green-season stays pick up, but landslide risk in the Himalaya can cancel trips.
• October to March: the main leisure season across Goa, Rajasthan's desert and Kerala's backwaters.
• Diwali (8 November in 2026) and the days around it: family travel and short breaks.
• Christmas to New Year: the sharpest peak of the year in Goa and a strong one almost everywhere leisure-led.
• November to February: wedding season, which fills cities and destination-wedding towns.
• April to June: school holidays and heat in the plains send families to hill stations.
• Long weekends around Republic Day, Holi, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti create short, intense spikes.

The market averages we publish

We only quote AirROI 2026 figures, converted at 1 USD = ₹94.82 (rate of 8 September 2026). Occupancy is measured over all 365 days of the year, so it looks lower than figures that only count nights a home was open. Market average (AirROI 2026) nightly rate, by area:

• Assagao, Goa: about ₹17,730; Candolim, Goa: about ₹7,680
• Mumbai: about ₹6,540; New Delhi: about ₹5,120; Gurugram: about ₹5,500
• Bengaluru: about ₹3,790; Hyderabad: about ₹4,080

An average hides the spread: a two-bedroom flat and a pool villa sit in the same number. Use it as a sanity check, never as your price. For regions where we do not yet have verified figures — Rajasthan, the hill states, Kerala — our guides stay with the method rather than guess.

One tax line that affects pricing

Since 22 September 2025, GST on accommodation is 5% (without input tax credit) up to ₹7,500 per night and 18% above it. If your peak rate is just over that line, the jump matters to guests; confirm your own position with your chartered accountant.