Earn-Back is how hosting on Hostshare pays you back in travel. When you share nights on your listing, you earn travel nights you can spend on stays at other homes in the network — no nightly rate to pay, anywhere you go.
The short version
You share nights on your listing — opening them up for other members to book.
Each night someone books earns you travel nights, based on your listing's earn rate.
Those travel nights become available to spend on your own trips. On Starter and Starter+, they land in your Wallet incrementally as bookings check out. On Pro and Pro+ (Share Agreement), your full allotment is granted upfront when your contract starts, and bookings instead pay down your earned-back progress toward that allotment.
When you book a stay, you pay no nightly rate — just the cleaning fee and service fee (and even those can be covered by Credits).
What is the "earn rate"?
Your earn rate decides how many travel nights you get for each night you share.
Travel nights earned = Nights shared × Your earn rate
The earn rate reflects how your listing's nightly price compares to the average home on Hostshare:
A higher-priced home earns at a higher rate (up to 4×).
A lower-priced home earns at a lower rate (down to 0.5×).
A roughly average-priced home earns close to 1×.
Example: If your earn rate is 2.0 and you share 10 nights that get booked, you earn 20 travel nights. On Starter/Starter+ those 20 nights land in your Wallet as bookings complete; on a Pro/Pro+ Share Agreement, that same math is what moves your earned-back progress indicator, since your travel-nights allotment was already granted upfront.
You'll see your own earn rate, along with your progress, on your listing's Share Settings page — alongside your Share Summary (bookings, nights shared, and nights earned, all-time) and a Share History showing what each booking earned you.
One label to watch: "nights earned" means your Wallet Nights balance if you're on Starter/Starter+, and your earned-back progress toward your granted allotment if you're on Pro/Pro+ — same page, different meaning depending on your plan.
A couple of things worth knowing:
Your rate can change over time. We recalculate it periodically as prices across the network shift, so it may drift up or down.
What you've already earned is locked in. The moment a booking is made, the earn rate at that time is saved to it. If your rate changes later, it won't change nights (or progress) you already earned — past earnings stay exactly as they were, on every plan.
How things roll over year to year
Expiry:
Starter (free): travel nights expire 6 months after you earn them. Upgrading to a paid plan clears that clock and locks your nights in.
Starter+, Pro, Pro+: travel nights never expire.
How nights accumulate:
Starter+ : same as Starter — nights land in your Wallet incrementally as bookings check out — just without the 6-month expiry. Nothing to sign up for beyond the plan itself; you choose how many nights to share, on your own terms.
Pro and Pro+ (Share Agreement): these plans carry a share contract, and the contract itself is what rolls over — not a Wallet balance. Your committed share allotment carries forward and grows with the contract at each renewal, and any of your currently-granted nights you haven't yet spent on travel carry forward too. Nothing resets and nothing is forfeited, but this rollover is a property of the contract and your unspent allotment — it isn't the same "nights land in a Wallet after each checkout" mechanic that Starter and Starter+ use. Hosting bookings during the contract period pay down your earned-back progress; they don't add new nights to a Wallet balance.
Sharing commitment:
Starter and Starter+: there's no share contract on these plans. You choose how many nights you want to share, on your own terms, on either plan.
Pro and Pro+: these plans have a share contract that renews and grows over time, as described above.
In short: on Starter, use your travel nights within 6 months or upgrade to keep them. On every paid plan, travel nights never expire. Starter+ keeps earning the same Wallet-incremental way Starter does, just without the clock. Pro and Pro+ work differently start to finish: your night allotment is granted upfront by the contract, that contract (and any unspent nights) rolls forward at renewal, and hosting pays down earned-back progress rather than adding to a Wallet.
Where your travel nights live
To restate the split from above, now in terms of where you'll actually see the number:
Starter and Starter+ (no share contract): everything you earn goes into your Wallet, which holds two kinds of balance. Your earned travel nights show up as the Nights balance, added incrementally after each completed checkout on a stay you've hosted. On Starter this balance expires 6 months after each addition; on Starter+ it doesn't expire.
Pro and Pro+ (Share Agreement): you pay the agreed annual fee upfront and are granted your full night allotment right away — for example, 21 nights. That allotment doesn't build up gradually in a Wallet. Instead, each hosting checkout afterward pays down an earned-back progress indicator toward the nights you were already granted (e.g., "4.2 of 21 nights earned back").
Either way, nights are applied whole — one earned (or granted) night covers one night of a stay. If you're on a Share Agreement and your Wallet Nights balance looks low or unchanged, that's expected — that balance isn't how this contract type tracks earning. The number to check instead is the earned-back progress indicator: it should move to reflect each completed hosted stay. If a stay checked out and that number didn't move, that's the bug to report — not a missing Wallet credit.
Putting it all together
Starter or Starter+ example: you share 10 nights on your listing. Your earn rate is 2.0, so you bank 20 travel nights in your Wallet as those bookings check out. Later, you book a 5-night getaway at another Hostshare home — you spend 5 of your travel nights, pay no nightly rate (just the cleaning fee), and cover the service fees (partly or fully with Wallet credits). On Starter, use those nights within 6 months; on Starter+, there's no rush.
Pro/Pro+ Share Agreement example: your contract grants you 21 nights upfront. You host a stay that checks out, and your earned-back progress moves from, say, 0 to 4.2 of 21 — your Wallet Nights balance doesn't change, because that balance isn't how this contract tracks earning. You can still book a getaway using nights from your granted allotment, paying only the cleaning fee and service fee (with Wallet credits applied automatically, if you have any). At renewal, your contract and any unspent nights carry forward — nothing resets.
That's Earn-Back: the more you share, the more you travel — whether your nights build up in a Wallet over time or were granted upfront under a Share Agreement and are being earned back with each stay you host.
Questions about your earn rate or your Wallet? Reach out anytime at [email protected].