Frequently asked questions

With the host of the property, not with Clavanza. The rental contract is between you and that person; we provide the website, the booking process and the payment connection.

You'll find who that is in the legal notice on the website of the property - every property has its own address.

Many houses are let by the week, usually Saturday to Saturday. If your dates fit that pattern, you can book and pay directly.

If they don't, it becomes a request: the host checks whether it can be arranged and then sends you a payment link. The booking is only binding once you've paid.

Payment is handled by Stripe. Your card details are entered there only - they reach neither our servers nor the host's.

Every host sets their own cancellation terms; they're in the terms and conditions of the property and are shown to you before you book. Common is a sliding scale that gets stricter as arrival approaches.

You can cancel yourself via the link in your booking confirmation. The refund is calculated automatically and returned to the same payment method.

Via the link in the confirmation email. If you no longer have it, you can have a new access link sent to your email address on the property's website under “My booking”.

No. Request, confirmation, payment and cancellation calculation run without artificial intelligence - they are fixed rules, and the host decides on a request personally. Your booking details, your messages and your payment data are not passed to any language model.

Where we use AI, it concerns texts: property descriptions are translated into other languages with it, and photos get an image description for screen readers at the host's request. If you write a review, it is automatically translated into the website's other languages once it is published. Only its text goes to the language model, without your name, your booking details or your ratings, and your original remains available next to the translation.

Our legal texts also appear in several languages and are partly machine-translated. A translated text may therefore differ from the original in tone or nuance - in case of doubt, the German version always prevails.

There's no subscription fee and no setup cost. We keep a commission of 9.9 % on each booking - so only when you've actually rented out.

When guests pay through Clavanza, the commission is deducted directly from the payment; nothing is invoiced to you afterwards. With cash payment, our claim to the commission arises when you confirm the cash payment. It is either offset against the next booking through Clavanza or, if there is no transaction through Clavanza for 3 months, invoiced. The rate that applies is always the one in force at the time of the booking concerned.

Payment processing fees are included: whether your guest pays by card, TWINT or Klarna makes no difference to your amount - we cover the difference.

VAT is not included but would be added: we are currently not registered for VAT and therefore don't charge any. Should that change, it will be added at the statutory rate, and you'll be told beforehand. VAT would only be charged on the commission and, at the current rate of 8.1 %, would add 0.8 % (so 10.7 % instead of 9.9 %). If you are registered for VAT yourself, you deduct it as input tax.

Every property that is live on Clavanza by 31.03.2027 pays only 7.9 % commission instead of 9.9 % for all its bookings up to 31.12.2027, also all-in. A property that only goes live after the deadline pays the standard rate. It is our thank-you to everyone who is with us from the start.

The booking date counts: a booking received by 31.12.2027 runs at the early-bird rate, even if the stay is later.

You do not need to apply. As soon as your listing is approved, the rate applies automatically, and your overview in the admin area shows until when. If you pause your listing later, you keep it.

From 01.01.2028, the standard rate of 9.9 % applies to everyone.

For two reasons. First, your guests' money goes to your own account, not ours - you enter your bank details directly with Stripe, we never see them.

Second, Stripe verifies your identity. Only then do we make a listing public - without this check, nobody would know who is behind an offer, and that is the most common form of fraud on booking platforms.

The amount is in your own Stripe account from the moment the payment arrives and belongs to you - you can see it there straight away. Only the transfer to your bank account is delayed, and it comes in two steps.

We pay out the accommodation share minus commission as soon as your own cancellation scale no longer provides for a refund of the accommodation price. With the standard scale, that's 13 days before arrival. The cleaning fee remains refundable until the end and follows on the day of arrival.

The reason isn't mistrust but the time span: in seasonal business, months lie between payment and stay, and a cancellation or chargeback can occur in the meantime. Both are debited to your Stripe account, because that's where the payment was made. If the balance is already in your bank account, a negative balance arises - which is exactly what the staggering prevents.

If you set a more generous cancellation period, the first step moves back accordingly. So you control the timing yourself, through your cancellation terms.

A chargeback is not the same as a cancellation: the guest disputes the charge not with you but with their card issuer - for example by claiming they never booked. The card network takes the amount back before the case is examined, and both sides then submit evidence. This can happen even months after the stay.

Because the payment was made on your Stripe account, the amount is debited there, and you decide whether to accept or dispute the case. We provide you with what we have: booking confirmation, correspondence with the guest, your cancellation terms as worded at the time. Stripe adds the payment data on its own - name, address, the guest's IP address, card check results and the payment receipt.

Get in touch immediately when Stripe notifies you: the deadline to respond is short and can't be extended. By the way, TWINT has no chargebacks - the more guests pay with it, the less often the question arises.

Yes. Periods you don't let through the website are entered in the calendar as a block - either free of charge (friends, own use, renovation) or as cash payment on site.

The commission also applies to a paid rental in that case. It is offset against your next payment through Clavanza; if none comes for more than 90 days, we invoice it. Nothing changes for your guests.

After registration, it's visible only to you at first. So you can enter texts, prices and photos in peace, without anyone seeing a half-finished offer.

We check the listing and approve it if it meets all requirements. Listings that are already approved are also checked automatically on a regular basis and blocked in case of violations.

Yes. From the start, your property runs at its own address in the form “your-identifier.clavanza.ch” - with its own home page, its own photos and its own booking calendar.

Clavanza offers German, French, English, Italian and Spanish. You decide which languages your property offers.

The admin area has a translation helper that suggests missing texts. Anything you've written yourself is never overwritten.

For texts and for checks, and in no case does it decide anything. It suggests translations of your listing texts and your arrival information, writes an image description for your photos on request, translates published reviews and your reply into the languages of your website, checks published listings for prompts to bypass Clavanza, and helps us analyse our own operational logs.

Translations and image descriptions for your listing only run when you click and land in an input field. Only your “Save” makes them your text. Anything you correct by hand is never automatically overwritten again. Reviews and your replies, by contrast, are translated automatically when they are published and when you save your reply; guests see a note about the translation and can show the original.

Everything involving money runs without AI: prices, availability, cancellation calculation and payouts are pure calculation rules. The approval of your listing is also decided by a person, and no model can withdraw your listing or block your account.

We transmit your listing texts, the texts of the arrival information without access code, Wi-Fi and address, the photos you request a description for and, of published reviews, only the text and your reply, without names, booking details or ratings. From our operational logs only pseudonymised technical data is sent; your identifier and booking numbers are first replaced by pseudonyms. Payment, account, contact and contract data are not sent to any model. According to the provider's terms, your texts are not used for training there.

You set the house rules and cancellation terms yourself, and the rental contract is between you and your guest. We don't interfere with the stay.

Reviews are double-blind: neither you nor your guest sees the other side's review until both have been submitted or the deadline has passed. So a review can't be used as leverage.

Yes, at any time at the end of the current month. You still handle bookings that are already confirmed; after that, we take your listing offline. Details are in the terms and conditions.