Holiday home, hotel or apartment: what the holiday really costs
21 August 2026
Most people choose their type of accommodation out of habit. The family has always rented a holiday home, the couple has always stayed in hotels, the group of friends finds an apartment because it is easiest to split. There is nothing wrong with that, but it also means few people ever put the three options side by side and do the sums. And when you do, the numbers often look different from what habit says.
This comparison puts holiday home, hotel and holiday apartment next to each other on the points that actually move the budget: the price of the stay itself, what you pay on top, what food and transport do to the total, and how much space and freedom you get for the money. At the end you get a short verdict for four typical travel parties.
Three types of stay, three different logics
A hotel sells rooms per night, per person or per room, often with breakfast and always with service. The price is easy to compare, but it scales badly: two rooms cost twice as much as one, and a family room for four is rarely cheap.
A holiday home is sold per week or per stay for the whole house, whether you are two or eight. That means the price per person drops sharply the more of you there are. On the other hand, utilities, final cleaning and sometimes linen typically come on top, and you need to include that in the sums from the start.
A holiday apartment sits somewhere in between. It is sold for the whole unit per night, is often in a city or close to the coast, and has a kitchen and living room like a holiday home, but on a smaller scale. It suits two to five people who want to stay centrally without paying hotel prices for two rooms.
The price of the stay itself
Let us take a week in July for a family of two adults and two children as the shared starting point. The figures here are rounded examples, not a price list, and prices vary a lot by location, standard and how early you book.
A mid-range hotel on a Danish coast or in a larger city typically costs between DKK 1,200 and 2,000 per night for a family room or two connecting rooms. Seven nights come to DKK 8,400 to 14,000, often with breakfast.
An ordinary holiday home for six people in a popular week typically costs DKK 6,000 to 12,000 for the week, plus utilities and final cleaning. In a less sought-after week or a less well-known area it can be quite a bit cheaper.
A holiday apartment for four in a city or coastal area typically costs DKK 900 to 1,600 per night for the whole apartment, so DKK 6,300 to 11,200 for the week, with or without cleaning on top.
Already here the three options are closer than many think. The difference appears when you add what is not in the headline.
What comes on top
This is where the types of stay really part ways, and where most bad holiday budgets are made.
| Item | Hotel | Holiday home | Holiday apartment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | Often included | You make it yourself | You make it yourself |
| Other meals | Restaurant or takeaway | Your own kitchen | Your own kitchen |
| Utilities (electricity, water, heating) | Included | Typically extra, metered | Usually included |
| Final cleaning | Included | Often extra or do it yourself | Varies |
| Linen and towels | Included | Often extra or bring your own | Varies |
| Parking | Often paid in cities | Free at the house | Varies, often street parking |
| Platform guest fee | Rarely | 14-16 % on large platforms | 14-16 % on large platforms |
| Agency commission built into the price | No | Often, typically 25-45 % of the rent | Sometimes |
The last row is worth dwelling on. When a holiday home is rented out through an agency, the agency typically takes 25 to 45 % of the rent. The host pays that amount, but it is baked into the price you see, so in reality you pay it yourself. And if you book through one of the large international platforms, a guest fee of typically 14 to 16 % is added on top at checkout. Together those two items can amount to several thousand kroner on a week’s rent, without the house getting a single square metre bigger.
Food moves the total more than the rent
If you only compare the accommodation price, the hotel sometimes wins. But a holiday is also food, and for a family of four, food is often the item that ultimately decides whether the holiday turned out expensive or cheap.
At a hotel most people eat out at least once a day. Expect DKK 500 to 900 for dinner for four at an ordinary restaurant, and add lunch and ice cream on top. Over seven days, DKK 5,000 to 8,000 on food is not unusual, even with breakfast included.
In a holiday home or an apartment you shop and cook as you do at home, with a couple of restaurant visits across the week. A realistic food cost for four people for a week is then DKK 2,500 to 4,000. That difference of DKK 2,500 to 4,000 is larger than the difference between the types of accommodation in many cases.
That does not make the hotel wrong. It means the hotel price is only comparable once you have added the restaurant budget.
Space and freedom
Money is only one side. A holiday home gives you a kitchen, a living room, usually a garden and somewhere to hang wet swimwear where it bothers nobody. Children can come and go, and adults can stay up after the kids are asleep without whispering. It is hard to put a price on, but it is often the reason families choose a holiday home again and again.
The hotel gives service, cleanliness without any effort of your own, and a central location a holiday home can rarely match. For a short city break for two it is often the right choice, because you are hardly in the room anyway.
The holiday apartment is the type of stay most often overlooked. It gives you a kitchen and living room, so food stays cheap, and at the same time it sits in the city or close to the beach, where the hotels are. For a couple or a small family on a three to four day trip it is often the best compromise between price, space and location.
Four travel parties, four verdicts
Couple, two to three nights in a city
Hotel or holiday apartment. The hotel wins on convenience, the apartment wins on price, especially if you like to have breakfast at home and want room to sit down in the evening. At three nights or more the sums usually tip in the apartment’s favour.
Family with two children, a week on the coast
Holiday home, almost without exception. The price per person is lowest, food stays cheap, and the children get space. Keep an eye on utilities and final cleaning, and book directly from the owner where possible, so neither agency commission nor guest fees eat up the saving.
Two families together
A large holiday home for eight to ten people. Here the difference to a hotel becomes enormous, because you would otherwise need three or four rooms. Split the price between two households, and the week often ends up cheaper per family than a long weekend in a hotel.
Friends in a city, four to five people
Holiday apartment. Three hotel rooms in a city is expensive, and you will want to gather somewhere in the evening anyway. An apartment with two to three bedrooms gives you the shared living room and a kitchen for breakfast and a drink before heading out.
How to do the comparison yourself
Take the total price for the stay, not the price per night. Add utilities, cleaning, linen and any fees, and look at the number shown just before you press pay. Then add a realistic food budget for the way you holiday. Divide by the number of people. Only now do you have three numbers that can be compared.
When comparing holiday homes and apartments, also look at who you are actually renting from. If you rent directly from the owner, you pay neither the agency’s share nor the platform’s guest fee, and you can ask questions of the person who actually knows the property. We have written more about the advantages and pitfalls of renting a holiday home directly from the owner, and about how to read a listing before you book.
Book directly, and keep the fee yourself
FlyMHD is a Danish platform where you rent holiday homes, apartments and summer houses directly from the host with no guest fee and no commission. The host pays a fixed subscription instead of a percentage of your rent, so the price you see is the price you pay, and payment goes directly to the host via Stripe. You can read how it works on how it works.
We are in the process of opening. Sign up on the front page, and you will hear from us when you can book without fees, whether your next holiday is a house on the coast, an apartment in the city or something else entirely.