RevPAN

RevPAN divides all the revenue from a period by the number of nights the listing was available during that period. It is the short-term rental version of RevPAR, the metric hotels have used for decades, and it exists because neither of the two obvious measures holds up on its own.

RevPAN = Total revenue ÷ Available nights = ADR × Occupancy rate

ADR (average daily rate) is revenue per booked night, and occupancy rate is booked nights ÷ available nights. Say a listing earns $6,000 in June from 20 booked nights and was open for 25 nights: ADR is $300, occupancy is 80%, and RevPAN is $240.

Nightly rate ignores whether anyone booked. A host who raises their rate 30% and loses half their bookings ends up with a higher average rate and less money. Occupancy fails the opposite way: it rewards underpricing, because the fastest way to fill a calendar is to be the cheapest listing in the market. RevPAN only moves when revenue moves, which is what makes it worth tracking week to week.

The denominator is where most people go wrong. Available nights are the nights the listing was actually open, not the nights in the month. In the example above, the other 5 nights of June were blocked for maintenance; divide by all 30 and RevPAN drops to $200, so a normal month looks 17% worse. Block off two weeks for your own use and the same mistake cuts RevPAN nearly in half for a month where nothing went wrong. Most channel managers report both, and the two numbers diverge sharply for anyone who uses their own property.

RevPAN is a comparison metric, not a profitability one. It says nothing about what a booking costs to service, so two listings with the same RevPAN can end up thousands of dollars a year apart once turnover frequency is factored in. For that question, look at contribution per night instead.