A monthly discount is the easiest setting to get wrong on Airbnb. Set it once in a quiet month, forget it, and the same percentage quietly cuts your best summer weeks a year later. Set it too small, and the guests who book 28 nights or more never see your listing at all.
Toronto makes this setting more important, not less. A stay of 28 nights or more sits outside the City’s short-term rental rules. It uses none of your 180 capped nights and carries no Municipal Accommodation Tax. In a winter month, one discounted monthly booking can earn more than the short stays it replaces, with one cleaning instead of four or five. This guide shows how much to offer, season by season, with the math done at Toronto’s median rate.
Quick facts
- What it is: A percentage off the nightly rate that Airbnb applies automatically to stays of 28 nights or more. The weekly discount is the same idea for stays of 7 nights or more.
- Toronto’s line: A short-term rental in Toronto is a stay of less than 28 consecutive nights (Municipal Code Chapter 547). At 28 nights or more, a stay is not a short-term rental: no 180-night cap count and no 6% Municipal Accommodation Tax.
- Common range: Published 2026 host guides put a typical weekly discount at 10% to 15% and a typical monthly discount at 20% to 35%, with lower discounts where a calendar already fills easily.
- Search display: Airbnb gives weekly, monthly, and last-minute discounts of 10% or more a special callout in search results, with the original price crossed out (Airbnb Resource Centre, October 20, 2026).
- Market baseline: AirROI’s Toronto data for the 12 months to October 2026 (10,945 listings) puts the median nightly rate at $160, the average at $250, and average occupancy at 47%.
- Registration: Short stays still need City registration at $390 a year, in your principal residence only. A monthly discount does not change that.
TL;DR
- Start at 20% to 30% for winter, 10% to 20% for summer. That is the range that fits most Toronto condos. Go deeper only when the math in this guide says the month would otherwise sit partly empty.
- A discounted month can beat short stays. At the $160 median rate, a 28-night stay at 30% off brings $3,136 in nightly revenue before fees. A typical winter month of short stays at the same rate books about 13 nights, or $2,080.
- The 28-night stay protects your cap. It uses zero of your 180 capped entire-unit nights, and no 6% MAT applies. Save capped nights for June to September, when they earn the most.
- Check the floor before the percentage. Toronto’s average asking rent for a one-bedroom was $2,220 in September 2026 (Rentals.ca and Urbanation). A furnished monthly stay with utilities and flexibility should not price below unfurnished long-term rent.
- Review the setting every season. One year-round monthly discount is the common mistake. The right discount in February is the wrong discount in August.
On this page:
- What a Monthly Discount Is
- Why Toronto Is Different: The 28-Night Line
- How Much Hosts Usually Offer
- The Math at Toronto’s Median Rate
- Worked Example: One Winter Month, Two Ways
- What You Save on Turnovers
- Winter Settings vs Summer Settings
- The Long-Term Rent Floor Check
- When a Big Discount Hurts
- How to Set It, Step by Step
- Stacking, Promotions, and Other Discounts
- Who Books 28 Nights or More in Toronto
- How Home Again Helps Toronto Owners
- Frequently Asked Questions
What a Monthly Discount Is
A monthly discount is a percentage you set once, in your listing’s pricing settings. Airbnb applies it automatically when a guest books 28 nights or more. You do not negotiate it booking by booking, and you do not set a separate monthly price by hand unless you use custom pricing tools.
Three platform facts shape how it works:
- It comes off the nightly rate only. The discount does not cut your cleaning fee. A guest on a monthly stay still pays the cleaning fee you set, once, for the stay.
- It replaces the weekly discount on that stay. A 28-night booking gets the monthly percentage, not the weekly and monthly percentages added together. Check any separate promotion or special offer on top, because those are set in different places.
- At 10% or more, guests see it in search. Airbnb’s own host guidance (October 20, 2026) confirms that weekly, monthly, and last-minute discounts of 10% or more get a special callout in search results and on the listing page, with the original price crossed out. A 5% monthly discount earns no callout. It lowers your price without buying you visibility.
Monthly stays also change how the money moves. The guest is charged a first month payment, then pays the rest in monthly instalments. You are paid monthly, not in one payout after check-in. Airbnb’s long-term cancellation policy applies automatically to reservations of 28 nights or more, and it generally requires a 30-day notice for changes. Price a monthly stay knowing the cash arrives in parts, and that a guest who leaves early is handled under that policy, not your short-stay policy. Our Toronto cancellation policy guide sets the two side by side.
Why Toronto Is Different: The 28-Night Line
In most cities, a monthly discount is only a pricing choice. In Toronto, it is also a licensing choice, because the City’s line and Airbnb’s line meet at the same number.
Toronto’s short-term rental bylaw, Municipal Code Chapter 547, defines a short-term rental as a stay of less than 28 consecutive nights. That one definition drives three results for a stay of 28 nights or more:
- It does not count toward the 180-night cap. The cap limits entire-unit short-term rental nights in a calendar year. A 28-night stay is not a short-term rental night, so it uses none of the 180. Our 180-night rule guide explains the count in full.
- No Municipal Accommodation Tax applies. The 6% MAT, in place since August 1, 2026, is charged on short-term stays. A stay of 28 nights or more carries no MAT.
- It can be hosted in a home that cannot take short stays at all. Short stays need City registration ($390 a year) and must be in your principal residence. A genuine 28-night-or-longer rental sits outside Chapter 547, which is why mid-term stays are the fallback for investment units and for condos whose board bans short stays.
That is the strategic point of this whole guide. Toronto gives an entire-unit host only 180 short-stay nights a year. AirROI’s citywide occupancy of 47% is about 172 nights a year, right against that cap. Every winter night you sell as part of a 28-night stay is a night that does not consume cap, in the season when a capped night earns least. You then spend the capped nights in June to September, when the same night earns most. Our hybrid short-term and mid-term strategy guide covers that seasonal switch in full. The monthly discount is the price tool that makes the winter half of the switch happen.
One caution belongs here. Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act has no simple day-count safe harbour. Whether a long stay becomes a tenancy turns on the substance and purpose of the arrangement, not only its length. A 28-night Airbnb stay is a different legal product from a weekend booking. Owners who run monthly stays often should use a proper agreement for longer stays and take advice on their setup, rather than treating the discount setting as the whole plan.
How Much Hosts Usually Offer
Start with what the market actually does, then adjust for your own calendar.
Published 2026 host guidance, checked this month, lands in a consistent band. A weekly discount of 10% to 15% and a monthly discount of 20% to 35% are the common starting points. Where a calendar already fills easily with short stays, the same guidance drops to 5% to 10% weekly and 15% to 20% monthly. Where a market has empty weeks to fill, it rises to 10% to 15% weekly and 20% to 30% monthly.
Realised prices tell the same story from the guest side. AirDNA data for March 2025 to February 2026, reported in a 2026 length-of-stay study, found that a seven-night stay cost about 18% less per night than a one-night stay, and a 30-night stay cost about 43% less per night. Read that carefully: across the market, guests already pay far less per night on long stays, because hosts discount, because monthly guests compare against rent, and because a long stay is a different product. An owner who offers no monthly discount is not holding the full rate. In most cases, that owner is simply not appearing in monthly searches at a price those guests will book.
For a Toronto condo, we frame the choice like this:
| Your situation | Weekly (7+ nights) | Monthly (28+ nights) |
|---|---|---|
| Peak season, calendar filling with short stays | 5% to 10% | 10% to 20% |
| Normal demand, some empty weeks | 10% to 15% | 20% to 30% |
| Winter, or a new listing building reviews | 10% to 15% | 25% to 35% |
| Above 35% | Only with a clear reason: a long gap you cannot fill any other way, priced against the rent floor in the section below, never as a year-round default | |
These are starting ranges, not rules. The next two sections replace the range with your own numbers.
The Math at Toronto’s Median Rate
Use Toronto’s median, not the best listing you have seen. AirROI’s data for the 12 months to October 2026, across 10,945 Toronto listings, puts the median nightly rate at $160 and average occupancy at 47%. Here is what each monthly discount does to that rate over a 28-night stay:
| Monthly discount | Nightly rate | 28 nights | What it competes with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | $160.00 | $4,480 | A full month of short stays at full occupancy, which almost never happens |
| 10% | $144.00 | $4,032 | Peak-season setting; earns the search callout |
| 20% | $128.00 | $3,584 | A normal-demand month |
| 25% | $120.00 | $3,360 | A quiet month, filled in one booking |
| 30% | $112.00 | $3,136 | A winter month; still well above one-bedroom asking rent |
| 35% | $104.00 | $2,912 | A hard winter month or a new listing |
| 40% | $96.00 | $2,688 | Near the floor for most one-bedrooms; check the rent test below first |
Now compare those figures with what the same 28 days usually earn from short stays. At 47% average occupancy, 28 calendar days produce about 13 booked nights. In AirROI’s low season, November to April, the typical listing runs at about 45% occupancy and earns about $3,070 a month across a full calendar month, as our winter slow season guide sets out. Thirteen short-stay nights at $160 is $2,080 in nightly revenue, split across four or five bookings, with gaps you cannot sell on either side of most of them.
That is the core trade. The monthly discount gives up rate on nights you would have sold, in exchange for nights you would not have sold at all. In a month at 45% occupancy, more than half the nights were going to sit empty. Discounting those nights costs nothing. They had no buyer at $160.
If you want a personalised version of this table for your own building and unit type, start with our Toronto condo Airbnb income estimate, then apply the discount tiers above to the result.
Worked Example: One Winter Month, Two Ways
Here is one January, run two ways, for a one-bedroom condo at the $160 median rate. The figures are labelled arithmetic on the verified rates above, not a promise for any one unit.
Path A: short stays only, no monthly discount.
- 12 nights booked at $160 = $1,920, plus 4 cleaning fees at $115 = $460. Subtotal $2,380.
- Less Airbnb’s 15.5% host-only fee on the subtotal: $368.90.
- Less cleaning costs: 4 turnovers at $115 = $460.
- Less management at 15% of the $1,920 nightly revenue = $288, registration share $32.50 (the $390 fee spread over 12 months), and supplies $50.
- Left before ownership costs: $1,180.60. The month also uses 12 of your 180 capped nights.
Path B: one 28-night stay at a 30% monthly discount.
- 28 nights at $112 = $3,136, plus one cleaning fee of $115. Subtotal $3,251.
- Less Airbnb’s 15.5% host-only fee on the subtotal: $503.91.
- Less cleaning costs: one turnover at $115.
- Less management at 15% of the $3,136 nightly revenue = $470.40, registration share $32.50, and supplies $50.
- Left before ownership costs: $2,079.19. The month uses zero capped nights, and no MAT applies to the stay.
The discounted month leaves about $899 more, with one guest, one clean, and no cap spent. That gap is why the discount exists. It is also why the season matters: run the same test in August, when AirROI’s typical listing earns about $5,760 in the month, and Path A wins, which is why the summer discount in the table above is smaller. Our Toronto condo earnings guide shows the full-year shape of those months, and our dynamic pricing guide covers the nightly-rate side of the same decision.
What You Save on Turnovers
The discount is not the only number that changes on a long stay. The cost side changes too, and owners who only compare nightly rates miss it.
A Toronto core one-bedroom turnover costs about $115 in 2026, including linens, restocking, and a photo report, as our Toronto cleaning fees guide sets out. A month of short stays at normal occupancy means four or five turnovers: $460 to $575 in cleaning costs, four or five laundry cycles, four or five rounds of supplies, and four or five chances for something to go wrong between guests. A 28-night stay means one turnover at the start and one at the end.
Put a price on the saving before you set the percentage. If a monthly booking saves you three turnovers, that is about $345 in cleaning costs alone, before supplies and your own time. On a $4,480 full-rate month, $345 is about 8% of the nightly revenue. In plain terms: the first 8 or so points of a monthly discount are not a giveaway. They are paid for by the cleans that never happen. The discount only starts costing you real money beyond the savings in turnovers, gaps, and cap nights, and in a winter month those savings are large.
There are smaller gains in the same direction. One guest means one check-in, one set of messages, and one review at the end, and long-stay guests tend to treat a condo like a home for a month because it is one. There are also honest costs: wear concentrates in one stay, a problem guest stays longer, and a mid-stay clean, if you offer one, is an extra cost to price in rather than a surprise. None of that changes the setting. It changes the percentage you can defend, by a few points either way.
Winter Settings vs Summer Settings
The single most common monthly discount mistake in Toronto is leaving one percentage in place all year. Toronto’s seasons are too far apart for one number. AirROI’s typical year runs from about $5,760 in August to about $2,590 in February. A discount built for February, left running in August, gives away money on the nights that carry the year.
A workable seasonal pattern for a Toronto condo:
| Period | Monthly discount | Why |
|---|---|---|
| November to April | 25% to 35% | Low season. A 28-night stay uses no capped nights, fills the weakest weeks, and still clears the rent floor at the median rate. |
| May and October | 20% to 25% | Shoulder months. Short-stay demand is real but uneven; a monthly booking is worth taking at a moderate discount. |
| June to September | 10% to 20%, or monthly stays off | High season. Capped nights earn most here. Many owners raise the discount’s floor, lengthen the minimum stay on peak weeks, or pause monthly stays so a discounted month cannot lock up TIFF or the August peak at a winter price. |
Two habits make the pattern work. First, change the discount when you change your seasonal prices, not after the bookings arrive: a monthly guest books further ahead than a weekend guest, so a discount left in place in March can sell July before you notice. Second, protect known event dates before you widen any discount. Our minimum stay guide covers the date-specific settings that pair with this, including custom minimums and gap-night rules.
Toronto’s own winter rules reinforce the point. From November, our managed Toronto condos run a 28-night minimum in the monthly-only winter pattern, precisely because a discounted monthly stay beats chasing short stays that may not come, and because 28-night stays preserve the cap. The discount and the minimum stay are one decision, set together.
The Long-Term Rent Floor Check
Every monthly discount needs a floor, and Toronto gives you a public one: long-term asking rent.
Rentals.ca and Urbanation put Toronto’s average asking rent in September 2026 at $2,554 a month for apartments and condos, and $2,220 for a one-bedroom. That is for an unfurnished home, on a lease of a year or more, with the tenant paying for their own setup and carrying their own risk of leaving early.
A furnished monthly Airbnb stay is a better product than that lease in every way a guest can measure: furnished, equipped, utilities and internet in place, no lease, no first-and-last deposit structure, and the freedom to leave after a month. It should price above unfurnished rent, not below it. So run this check before you set any monthly percentage:
- Take your discounted 28-night total from the table above.
- Compare it with the asking rent for your unit type. For a one-bedroom at the $160 median, a 30% discount gives $3,136, comfortably above the $2,220 one-bedroom average. A 40% discount gives $2,688, still above it. A listing priced well below the median, at $110 a night, hits the floor much sooner: at 35% off, 28 nights is about $2,002, below one-bedroom asking rent, for a furnished home. That discount is too deep.
- If the discounted month is at or below unfurnished rent, cut the discount, not the comparison. Either the nightly rate is too low, or the percentage is too high. One of them has to move.
The same floor protects you in the other direction. If your discounted monthly total sits far above what a good long-term tenant would pay, and the listing still does not book monthly stays, the problem is usually not the percentage. It is the listing: photos, amenities for a month-long stay, or a maximum stay setting that quietly blocks 28-night searches. Fix those before you discount deeper. Our Toronto mid-term rentals guide covers what a monthly guest needs a condo to have.
When a Big Discount Hurts
A monthly discount is a tool for empty nights. Used on nights that would have sold, it only subtracts. Watch for these four cases:
- Peak dates locked early. A 35% discount left in place sells a discounted month across a festival or holiday period months ahead, at the exact moment those nights were worth the most. This is the expensive version of the seasonal mistake, and it is why the summer setting exists.
- A calendar that already fills. If your short stays run above 60% occupancy in a month, most nights already have a buyer at full rate. The discount then cuts revenue you would have kept. The published guidance agrees: calendars that fill easily belong at 15% to 20% monthly, or lower.
- Below the rent floor. A discounted month priced under unfurnished asking rent gives away the furnished premium and still carries platform fees, cleaning, and management on top. The floor check above catches this.
- Stacked cuts you did not add up. A monthly discount on top of a lowered seasonal base rate, a promotion, and a special offer can land far below the price you thought you set. The next section covers how to check the stack.
There is also a quality point. Very deep discounts change who books. A monthly stay priced far under the area’s rent tends to attract guests shopping only on price, for a stay long enough that a poor fit costs you a month, not a weekend. Price for the guest you want to live in the home for 28 nights, with the long-term cancellation policy and a clear set of house rules in place before they arrive.
How to Set It, Step by Step
On Airbnb, the setting itself takes a minute. The work is the numbers before it.
- Step 1: Run your own occupancy first. Look at your last low season and your last high season separately. A single annual occupancy figure hides the only fact that matters here: how many nights in each season had no buyer.
- Step 2: Price the turnover saving. Count the cleans a monthly stay replaces, at your real turnover cost. In Toronto’s core, start at about $115 per one-bedroom turnover if you do not have your own figure.
- Step 3: Set the floor. Check the discounted 28-night total against asking rent for your unit type, using the Rentals.ca figures above as the public baseline.
- Step 4: Pick the seasonal percentages. Use the winter, shoulder, and summer bands in this guide as the starting point, adjusted by steps 1 to 3.
- Step 5: Enter it on Airbnb. Open your calendar, select the listing, open Pricing, then Discounts. Set the weekly discount (7 nights or more) and the monthly discount (28 nights or more), and save. Airbnb shows a preview of the weekly and monthly price as you adjust, and you can open the guest price breakdown to see fees and your earnings before you save.
- Step 6: Check the guest view. Search your own area for a 28-night stay and confirm the callout appears and the crossed-out price is the price you meant. A discount of 10% or more should show the special callout.
- Step 7: Set a review date. Put the seasonal change dates in the same calendar as your tax and registration dates. Our Toronto Airbnb key dates calendar is built for exactly that list.
If you use a pricing tool or a channel manager, set the discount in one place only. Two systems applying a length-of-stay discount to the same booking is a quiet way to sell a month at a price nobody chose.
Stacking, Promotions, and Other Discounts
Owners usually ask about stacking after a payout surprises them, not before. The order to check is simple.
The weekly and monthly discounts do not add together on one stay. A stay of 28 nights or more takes the monthly percentage. A stay of 7 to 27 nights takes the weekly percentage. That part is safe by design.
The risk sits around it. A seasonal base rate you already lowered, a custom promotion for a set of dates, an early-bird or last-minute discount, and a special offer sent in a message thread are separate tools, set in separate places. Airbnb’s own guidance lists weekly and monthly discounts alongside early-bird discounts (for bookings made well ahead) and last-minute discounts (for bookings made 1 to 28 days before check-in), each solving a different problem. None of them knows what the others are doing to the same night. Before any season starts, open one monthly date range and one weekly date range in the guest price breakdown and read the final nightly price, not the settings page. The breakdown is the truth. The settings page is four separate intentions.
The tax side has one stack of its own. A monthly discount lowers the nightly subtotal, which lowers the dollar amount of Airbnb’s 15.5% host-only fee, but it does not change the fee percentage, and discounted revenue still counts toward the $30,000 GST/HST small-supplier threshold. Our Ontario HST registration guide explains that threshold. A host who fills winter with monthly stays can cross $30,000 faster than the nightly rates suggest, because occupancy, not rate, is doing the work.
Who Books 28 Nights or More in Toronto
A monthly discount only works if monthly guests exist for your unit. In Toronto, they do, and they are not tourists.
- Relocating workers and new arrivals, who need a furnished month or two downtown while they find a lease, start a job, or wait for a home to close.
- Hospital and university stays: patients’ families near the downtown hospital cluster, visiting researchers, and professionals on term placements.
- Insurance-displacement families, placed for a month or more while a home is repaired after a fire or a flood. These bookings are often arranged through insurers and housing providers, and they value a clear monthly price over a nightly one.
- Remote workers and snowbirds in reverse: people working from Toronto for a season, and Canadians who spend the deep winter weeks somewhere warm and rent their own pattern in reverse in the shoulder months.
- Families between homes: a sale closed before a purchase, a renovation that ran long, a separation. A month in a furnished condo is the standard bridge, and it is booked on total monthly cost, compared directly against rent.
That last point is the pricing lesson. Monthly guests compare your discounted total against two things: other furnished monthly stays, and unfurnished rent plus the cost of furnishing. They rarely compare it against your nightly rate. That is why the rent floor check, not the nightly rate, is the right anchor for the percentage, and why a clear monthly figure in search, with the 10%-or-more callout, does more work than another $5 off a nightly rate in January.
How Home Again Helps Toronto Owners
Home Again manages Toronto condos for owners, and length-of-stay pricing is set per listing, per season, as part of that work. We set the weekly and monthly discounts against each unit’s own booking pace, protect peak and event dates before any discount widens, and run the winter switch to 28-night stays where the math favours it, so capped nights are spent in the months that pay for them. Our fee is 15% of booking revenue for full management, set out in our Toronto management fees guide, and the full service is described on our Toronto Airbnb management page.
If you are setting a monthly discount on your own condo today, do the three checks in this guide in order: your occupancy by season, your turnover saving, and your rent floor. Then set the percentage, check it in the guest view, and put the seasonal change date in your calendar. A monthly discount set that way is not a giveaway. In a Toronto winter, it is usually the difference between a month that earns and a month that waits.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is a typical Airbnb monthly discount in Toronto?
Published 2026 host guidance puts a typical monthly discount at 20% to 35%, with 15% to 20% where a calendar already fills easily. For most Toronto condos, 25% to 35% fits November to April, 20% to 25% fits the shoulder months, and 10% to 20% fits June to September. At Toronto’s $160 median nightly rate (AirROI, 12 months to October 2026), a 30% discount gives $112 a night, or $3,136 over 28 nights.
When does Airbnb apply the monthly discount?
Automatically, on stays of 28 nights or more, once you have set it under Pricing, then Discounts, in your calendar settings. The weekly discount applies to stays of 7 nights or more. Discounts of 10% or more get a special callout in search results, with the original price crossed out.
Does a 28-night stay count toward Toronto’s 180-night cap?
No. Toronto defines a short-term rental as a stay of less than 28 consecutive nights, and the 180-night cap counts entire-unit short-term rental nights in a calendar year. A stay of 28 nights or more is not a short-term rental, so it uses no capped nights, and the 6% Municipal Accommodation Tax does not apply to it either.
Do the weekly and monthly discounts stack?
No. A stay of 28 nights or more takes the monthly discount instead of the weekly one; they are not added together. Separate tools, such as a promotion, an early-bird or last-minute discount, or a special offer, are set in different places, so check the final price in the guest price breakdown before a season starts.
Does the monthly discount apply to the cleaning fee?
No. The discount comes off the nightly rate. Your cleaning fee is charged once for the stay, at the amount you set. That is part of why long stays save money: a 28-night stay needs one turnover clean, where a month of short stays needs four or five, at about $115 per core one-bedroom turnover in Toronto.
Is a monthly discount worth it in summer?
Usually a smaller one. In June to September, short stays fill more nights at full rate, and entire-unit nights count toward the 180-night cap, so a large monthly discount can lock your best weeks at a low price. Many Toronto owners use 10% to 20% in summer, protect event dates, or pause monthly stays for peak weeks, then widen the discount again in November.
How do payments work on a monthly stay?
The guest pays a first month payment, then the rest in monthly instalments, and the host is paid monthly rather than in one payout after check-in. Airbnb’s long-term cancellation policy applies automatically to reservations of 28 nights or more and generally requires a 30-day notice for changes.
Should a monthly Airbnb price ever be lower than long-term rent?
As a rule, no. Rentals.ca and Urbanation put Toronto’s average asking rent for a one-bedroom at $2,220 in September 2026, for an unfurnished home on a long lease. A furnished monthly stay includes furniture, utilities, and flexibility, so its 28-night total should sit above unfurnished rent. If your discount takes it below that line, reduce the discount or revisit the nightly rate.