The Best Silverware For Airbnb (Hint: Stainless Steel)

After hosting 4 different Airbnbs over the last 5 years, my wife and I have never had to replace any of our silverware. I’ve never put much thought into it, but we must have made some decent purchasing decisions.

The common denominator for silverware across all our listings has been stainless steel.

In all honesty, it’s hard to find a set of silverware that’s NOT stainless steel, so maybe we weren’t as smart as we thought. But either way, I’m sharing the three sets we’ve bought that have stood up to years of guests and have emerged without a scratch.

What Exactly Should You Stock In Your Kitchen?

In our Airbnb market, kitchens are an important selling point. We live in a college town, and the University is without a doubt the biggest draw to our listings.

I’d say around half our guests are either parents visiting their kids who are in school, or people coming for some event happening on campus.

While most of our guests don’t use the kitchen at all, questions about kitchen amenities are extremely common for people looking to book our places. In fact, I think the only thing we get asked more is “how close is you place to xyz?” (so clearly location is very important)

Because our guests care about kitchens, we keep ours pretty well stocked. Here is a list of things we keep in all our listings:

Dishes and dinnerware
Silverware
Coffee maker with coffee
Mugs and glasses
Breakfast items for guests to consume
A microwave
A refrigerator (or mini-fridge)
A toaster

And here are things we stock in most of our Airbnbs (but not all):

Oven and stove top
Dishwasher
Pots and pans
Cooking utensils

I might be missing a thing or two, but that should be 90% of it. We don’t stock food or condiments other than the breakfast items (oatmeal, muffins, granola bars).

Although sometimes we have guests leave food behind, and depending on what it is we either throw it away, take it home, or leave it for the next guests. Things like a bottle of ketchup we leave for the next guests, but a box of half eaten pizza gets thrown out.

Silverware We Put In Our Airbnbs

It’s hard for me to imagine a scenario where you wouldn’t want to stock silverware in your listing. Even if you have nothing to cook with, guests may still order out and need silverware to eat with.

Anyways, here are three sets that we’ve successfully used in at least one of our Airbnbs for more than 2 years.

1. LIANYU 20-Piece Silverware Set

Used in one of our Airbnbs for more than 4 years with minimal wear
Stainless steel
Serves 4 (8 forks, 8 spoons and 4 knives)
Comes in several colors

View on Amazon

We bought this set to put in the first Airbnb we listed outside of our own house. It’s been open for close to 5 years now and we still have the same set. Never had to replace anything and no noticeable wear and tear (no rusting, chipping, scratches, etc.).

We typically opt for the 20 piece sets that serve four because

We don’t allow parties in our listings, so this makes it slightly harder to throw a party
They come with 8 total spoons and forks (4 big and 4 little)

This encourages guests to keep the silverware clean throughout their stay. It would be annoying to come in to 25-30 dirty silverwares (is it silverwares or just silverware?) just because your guests decided not to clean/reuse during their stay.

We always stick with the traditional stainless steel look, but if you want gold or copper or black or something then this set has those options.

Overall, just a simple set that has stood the test of time for us.

2. Amazon Basics 20-Piece Silverware Set

Used in one of our Airbnbs for more than 2 years with no noticeable wear
Stainless steel
Serves 4 (8 forks, 8 spoons and 4 knives)
Comes with several finishes

View on Amazon

Amazon sells their own version of just about everything these days (branded as Amazon Basics), and we’ve had good luck with the products.

We bought this set almost 3 years ago now for another listing and it’s the same story. I honestly think this set looks as good as it did the day it arrived.

I will say this is the set we decided to put in our more luxury listing, and that’s just because this one comes with several finishes. A lot of the very affordable sets are just smooth finishes, but you can get this one with several different designs on the handles. We felt like this gave the silverware a more luxury feel than the smooth finish.

Overall, another affordable, stainless steel set that has served us well for many years.

3. MASSUGAR 20-Piece Silverware Set

Used in one of our Airbnbs for more than 3 years with no noticeable wear
Stainless steel
Serves 4 (8 forks, 8 spoons and 4 knives)

View on Amazon

We opened our very first Airbnb in our own basement more than 5 years ago now. We were able to do this for less than $2,500. At the time we stocked the kitchen with old things we had brought with us from our college days.

That meant we had a bunch of mismatched silverware down there.

Honestly, the mismatched silverware was just fine, but at the end of the day we felt like we wanted to present our space better. So we went out and bought this MASSUGAR set to put out (we still kept the mismatched set down there just in case, but it was hidden away).

It’s like the most basic set we could find, but all the silverware matched, so that was enough for us.

We don’t have a full kitchen down there, so this set doesn’t get used all that often. But still, 3-4 years later and its’ all in great working order.

Conclusion

You can get away with a very basic set of silverware in your Airbnb. We stick with affordable, stainless steel sets and that has served us incredibly well.

Between our 4 Airbnb listings we have over 12 years of silverware usage and we’ve never had to replace a fork, knife or spoon.

If you go stainless steel, you shouldn’t have any issues.

Happy investing.