When does an apartment pay off?

From roughly four nights, or whenever a family would otherwise need two hotel rooms. The cleaning fee is a one-off, so it matters less the longer you stay.

What do people forget to count?

The cleaning fee, the first grocery shop, and the fact that apartments sit further from the centre more often than hotels do, which pushes transport costs up.

Hotel or apartment: which one pays off?

Compare a hotel and a rental apartment on real cost: nightly rate, breakfast, cleaning fee and what you save by cooking.

By the Hotella editors · Updated 7 September 2026

Apartments usually win from about four nights, or as soon as you are more than two people, because the cleaning fee spreads across more nights and you stop paying per head for breakfast. For a two-night city break the hotel almost always comes out ahead.

Number of nightsNumber of guestsHotel: price per night$Hotel: number of roomsHotel: breakfast per person$Apartment: price per night$Apartment: cleaning fee$Apartment: groceries per day$

Hotel totalUS$1,960

Apartment totalUS$1,250

Apartment is cheaper byUS$710

How we calculate

The hotel side is nightly rate × rooms × nights, plus breakfast per person per night. The apartment side is nightly rate × nights, plus a one-off cleaning fee and groceries per day for the whole party.

Transport is left out, because it depends so heavily on location. If the apartment sits outside the centre, add the travel cost in the total cost calculator instead.

More about our assumptions in the method behind the calculators.

Frequently asked questions

When does an apartment pay off?: From roughly four nights, or whenever a family would otherwise need two hotel rooms. The cleaning fee is a one-off, so it matters less the longer you stay.
What do people forget to count?: The cleaning fee, the first grocery shop, and the fact that apartments sit further from the centre more often than hotels do, which pushes transport costs up.