Sturbridge, MA STR Market Report 2026: $28,174 on 22 Listings
Sturbridge, Massachusetts carried 22 active short-term rental listings on the extract window this report uses, and typical listings on that count earned about $28,174 over the trailing year. The window is August 2025 through July 2026, pulled from a single AirROI extract rather than stitched together from several sources, and that single-source discipline matters more than it sounds like it should. Hosts underwriting a Sturbridge stay need one number they can trust, not three numbers from three tools that quietly disagree with each other.
This report stays inside that one extract on purpose. It does not blend in a second town's calendar, a different platform's occupancy definition, or a listing scrape pulled at a different moment in the season. Every figure below traces back to the same 22-listing Sturbridge sample, the same August 2025 through July 2026 window, and the same methodology throughout. When a number changes context, this report says so instead of letting the reader assume continuity that is not there.
Two things get confused constantly in Sturbridge STR planning, and this report exists to keep them apart. The first is the extract's trailing year versus the calendar year most hosts think in when they say '2026' out loud. The second is Sturbridge itself versus Worcester, a much larger neighboring market that shows up in the same regional searches and gets pasted into Sturbridge pitches more often than it should. Both mix-ups cost hosts money, and both are avoidable with a little discipline about which number belongs on which line.
What follows walks through the headline revenue figure, the calendar-year distinction, the Sturbridge-versus-Worcester distinction, seasonal timing, who is booking and running these listings, and finally what a host should do with all of it. Each section stays inside the extract's own facts, and where the extract is silent, this report says that plainly instead of filling the silence with an assumption dressed up as a statistic. This is not legal advice.
What Typical Listings Earned Last Year
The headline number is straightforward: typical listings in Sturbridge earned about $28,174 last year, drawn from 22 active rentals on the same AirROI extract filed for August 2025 through July 2026. That figure sits on top of an average daily rate of about $272 and occupancy of about 34.4 percent, which together produce RevPAR of roughly $112. Those three figures, ADR, occupancy, and RevPAR, are the load-bearing numbers for any Sturbridge underwriting conversation, and they should travel together rather than getting quoted one at a time out of context.
An occupancy rate near a third of the year is not unusual for a small four-season New England market built around named attractions and weekend travel rather than a beach or ski-resort calendar that fills every night. What it does mean is that a Sturbridge host's revenue story is concentrated: a smaller number of well-booked nights at a real average rate, not a nightly-rate-times-365 spreadsheet fantasy. Anyone pricing a Sturbridge listing off assumed year-round occupancy is building a budget on a number this sample does not support.
Twenty-two active listings is also a meaningfully small sample. That size cuts both ways for a host trying to plan a year: it means the market has not been flooded with supply, but it also means the 'typical' figure carries more noise than a market with hundreds of listings would. Treat $28,174 as a directional anchor for what a competently run Sturbridge listing can earn, not as a guaranteed outcome for any specific property, bedroom count, or location within town, and pair it with the ADR, occupancy, and RevPAR figures rather than repeating it in isolation.
Two Years Sit Next to Each Other, Not Inside Each Other
The extract's trailing year runs August 2025 through July 2026. That is not the same thing as calendar year 2026, and treating them as interchangeable is one of the most common ways Sturbridge host copy goes wrong. A listing description that says '2026 revenue' without specifying the window is making a claim this sample cannot back up on its own, because five of those twelve months belong to 2025.
The practical fix is simple: stay with the August 2025 through July 2026 window whenever this report's figures are cited, and label it that way in listing copy, pitch decks, or investor conversations. If remaining 2026 calendar-year figures are needed for a specific claim, those should be confirmed separately rather than assumed to match this trailing-year extract. The two years sit next to each other on the timeline; they do not sit inside each other on the page.
This is not a nitpick over labeling. A lender, co-host, or prospective buyer reading '2026 revenue: $28,174' without the window attached is being handed a claim that sounds more current and more forward-looking than the underlying data actually supports. Attaching the August 2025 through July 2026 label costs nothing and closes that gap immediately, which is why it belongs in every version of this figure that leaves this report.
Sturbridge and Worcester, Kept on Separate Lines
Sturbridge sits in Worcester County, and that shared county name is exactly why Worcester numbers keep drifting into Sturbridge pitches. Worcester listings earned about $14,315 last year from 289 active rentals on the same August 2025 through July 2026 extract, a materially different figure sitting on top of a vastly larger and differently structured supply base. Twenty-two listings and 289 listings are not comparable markets, and averaging them or swapping one figure for the other in copy misrepresents both towns.
File $28,174 on 22 listings for Sturbridge, and file Worcester's $14,315 on 289 listings as a neighbor figure on its own separate line. Hosts who underwrite a Sturbridge stay should keep that number pinned to the Sturbridge sample, confirm remaining local registration details with the town rather than the county, and leave Worcester's figures out of the Sturbridge pitch entirely. A listing tile that names Worcester when the parcel is actually Sturbridge is already wrong before pricing even enters the conversation, and it is an easy mistake to catch simply by checking that every dollar figure on the page is labeled with the correct town.
Peak Months, the Revenue Hole, and Named Demand
in this sample, July, June, and August are the peak months for Sturbridge STR revenue, consistent with a New England leisure-travel calendar built around summer weekends. February is the extract's clear revenue hole, the month where a Sturbridge host should expect the thinnest booking calendar of the year and should plan cash flow, maintenance projects, or off-season pricing strategy accordingly rather than being surprised by it every winter.
Named local draws such as Old Sturbridge Village and named event weekends function as demand signals in this sample, not as occupancy figures in their own right. They explain why guests want to visit; they do not replace the booked-night data above. A listing that leans on Old Sturbridge Village in its marketing copy is doing legitimate work naming the draw for guests, but that draw should never get quoted as if it were the $28,174 revenue figure or the 34.4 percent occupancy rate. Demand and occupancy are two different lines on two different parts of the page.
February deserves a specific plan rather than a shrug. A revenue hole month is the natural window for scheduled maintenance, a deep clean, a refresh of listing photos ahead of the spring booking push, or a deliberate discount test to see whether price sensitivity in that slow window differs from what the July, June, and August peak months show. Treating February as dead time to simply wait out, instead of a planning window this sample predicts every year, is a missed opportunity most Sturbridge hosts can fix without spending anything beyond a little foresight.
Who's Booking and Who's Running the Listings
Guests in this sample most often arrive from Boston, then from New York, and they stay a typical 3.7 nights per booking. That origin and length-of-stay pattern points to a drive-market and short-getaway guest rather than a fly-in, week-long vacationer, and pricing and photo strategy should be built around that shorter, closer-to-home trip rather than borrowed from a destination market with a different guest profile.
On the operating side, independent hosts still write most of this 22-listing desk, meaning the market is not dominated by large professional management companies the way some larger Massachusetts markets are. About 29.1 percent of listings set a 30-night minimum stay, which is a booking-strategy and ordinance-adjacent operating decision, not a measure of occupancy, and remaining registration requirements tied to that kind of minimum-stay choice are ordinance details rather than performance data and should not be read as evidence of how full a calendar actually is.
What This Means for New and Existing Hosts
For a host underwriting a new Sturbridge purchase or an existing owner reviewing performance, the working numbers are $28,174 in typical annual revenue, $272 ADR, 34.4 percent occupancy, and $112 RevPAR, all built on the 22-listing, August 2025 through July 2026 extract. A sibling report, Sturbridge STR Investment: This Town Year, Honest Case, carries the matching purchase-underwriting version of this same stay for a host who needs the investment framing rather than the market-report framing.
This report deliberately does not guess a Sturbridge STR permit dollar figure, a registration fee, or a renewal date, because none of those appear in the underlying extract with enough confidence to publish as fact. It does note that the remaining state room occupancy excise runs about 5.7 percent, a tax-layer detail worth confirming rather than a revenue figure, and any host acting on this data should pair it with a direct confirmation of remaining registration, zoning, and tax requirements from the town before listing a Sturbridge property.
Why the Small Sample Deserves Discipline, Not a Bigger-Sounding Number
It would be easy to make Sturbridge sound bigger than it is by borrowing Worcester's 289-listing supply figure, or by rounding $28,174 up toward a friendlier headline, or by quoting an occupancy percentage from a stronger month as if it applied to the whole year. Every one of those moves would make the market report read more impressively for a moment, and every one of them would set a host or investor up to be disappointed when the actual 22-listing, 34.4-percent-occupancy reality shows up on the books instead.
The discipline this report holds to, one extract, one window, one town at a time, is not a stylistic choice. It is the only way a small market like Sturbridge can be described honestly without either inflating it into something it is not or quietly folding it into a larger neighboring market's story. Twenty-two listings is a real, usable number. $28,174 is a real, usable number. Both are more valuable to a host planning next year's calendar than a rounder, vaguer figure borrowed from somewhere else would ever be.
Turning this sample Into a Working Plan
A market report is only useful if it changes what a host actually does next: how a calendar gets priced into July, June, and August, how February gets budgeted for rather than dreaded, and how a listing description names Old Sturbridge Village and local events as the reason a Boston or New York guest books a 3.7-night stay without ever confusing that story with the $28,174 revenue line it is supposed to support.
The honest starting point for that plan is the 22-listing, August 2025 through July 2026 extract itself, not a folk number passed between hosts at a local meetup or scraped from a listing that may no longer even be active. Treat $28,174, $272 ADR, 34.4 percent occupancy, and $112 RevPAR as the numbers to beat, confirm remaining registration and tax details separately, and build pricing and marketing decisions on that foundation rather than on assumption.
That is also the underlying point of keeping this report narrow rather than sprawling across every adjacent topic a Sturbridge host might eventually need. Tourism-specific guest messaging, town ordinance detail, and a Worcester-versus-Sturbridge comparison each get their own dedicated treatment elsewhere so this market report can stay focused on the single question it actually answers well: what did a typical Sturbridge listing earn, and on what basis. Everything else belongs on its own page, sourced to its own extract, held to the same discipline as the numbers above.
How This Report Was Built, and What It Deliberately Leaves Out
This report is sourced from a single AirROI extract, not a live listing scrape taken at a moment in time and generalized into a permanent claim. That distinction matters because a scrape captures whatever is publicly showing on a booking platform right now, including listings that may be seasonally paused, mispriced, or simply new and unproven, while an extract built for a defined trailing window is trying to describe typical performance across an entire year rather than a single snapshot moment.
It also deliberately leaves gaps open rather than filling them with a plausible-sounding guess. There is no guessed Sturbridge STR permit dollar figure anywhere in this report, no fabricated renewal date, and no assumed occupancy for months this sample does not itemize beyond the peak-and-hole pattern already described above. Where a number is not in the underlying data, this report says so and points the reader toward the town or state source that can confirm it, rather than quietly smoothing over the gap the way a less careful market summary might do instead.
What ADR, Occupancy, and RevPAR Mean Together
Average daily rate, or ADR, is the typical nightly price a booked stay actually collected across the sample, which in this sample comes out to about $272. That number describes what a booked night is worth, not how many nights get booked, which is why it has to be read alongside occupancy rather than on its own. A listing could post a very high ADR and still underperform if its calendar sits empty most of the year, and Sturbridge's 34.4 percent occupancy figure is the piece that keeps the $272 ADR honest.
RevPAR, revenue per available night, multiplies those two figures together into a single blended figure, about $112 in this sample, and it is the closest single number to a per-night productivity score for a typical Sturbridge listing. None of these three figures, ADR, occupancy, or RevPAR, replaces the $28,174 typical annual revenue figure; they are the components that explain how that annual number gets built up night by night across the extract's August 2025 through July 2026 window, and a host who understands all three has a far better sense of where a listing's revenue is coming from than a host who only knows the annual total.
Common Mistakes When This Data Gets Reused in Listing Copy
The single most common mistake in Sturbridge host copy is treating the $28,174 trailing-year figure as if it were guaranteed calendar-year 2026 income, which overstates confidence the extract does not support and can mislead a co-host, lender, or buyer reading the pitch. The second most common mistake is letting Worcester's larger, differently structured numbers bleed into a Sturbridge property description, whether through a copy-paste error, a lazily reused template, or a genuine misunderstanding of the county-versus-town distinction.
A third mistake worth naming directly: quoting Old Sturbridge Village, a named event weekend, or another local draw as if it were itself a revenue or occupancy statistic. These attractions are legitimate reasons a guest chooses Sturbridge over another town, and they belong in the guest-facing story a listing tells, but they are demand signals, not booked-night data, and swapping one for the other in a pitch deck or listing description is the kind of error that erodes trust with a sophisticated reader the moment it is noticed.
Finally, hosts sometimes quote a 30-night minimum stay figure, an ordinance detail, or a registration requirement as though it were evidence of how full a calendar actually runs. About 29.1 percent of Sturbridge listings in this sample use a 30-night minimum, but that is an operating choice a subset of hosts made, not a measurement of occupancy across the market. Keeping operating-policy facts and performance facts on clearly separate lines is a small discipline that prevents a surprising number of avoidable, credibility-damaging errors in host-facing copy.
Related Reading
More Sturbridge, MA STR Market Report 2026 host reading on desks, calendars, and listing clarity.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did typical Sturbridge listings earn last year?
Typical listings in Sturbridge earned about $28,174 over the trailing year, based on 22 active rentals on a single AirROI extract filed for August 2025 through July 2026. That figure sits alongside an average daily rate near $272, occupancy near 34.4 percent, and RevPAR near $112. Because the sample is only 22 listings, treat the number as a directional market anchor rather than a guarantee for any specific property, bedroom count, or exact location within Sturbridge.
Is $28,174 the same as calendar year 2026 revenue?
No. The extract's window runs August 2025 through July 2026, a trailing twelve months, not the January through December 2026 calendar year. Five of those twelve months fall in 2025. Listing copy or pitch decks that cite this figure should label it as the August 2025 through July 2026 window rather than simply '2026,' and any remaining calendar-year 2026 figures should be confirmed separately rather than assumed to match this sample.
How does Sturbridge compare to Worcester for STR revenue?
Worcester listings earned about $14,315 last year from 289 active rentals on the same extract window, compared with Sturbridge's $28,174 from 22 listings. The two markets differ sharply in both supply size and typical revenue and should be kept on separate lines in any pitch or listing description. Sturbridge sits in Worcester County, but that shared county name does not make the two towns' STR markets interchangeable for pricing or marketing purposes.
Which months should a Sturbridge host expect to be strongest?
in this sample, July, June, and August are the peak revenue months, matching a typical New England summer leisure-travel pattern. February is the clear revenue hole, the weakest month in the sample, and hosts should plan off-season pricing, maintenance timing, and cash flow around that expected dip rather than treating it as an unusual surprise each winter when bookings thin out.
Do named attractions like Old Sturbridge Village show up in the revenue numbers?
Old Sturbridge Village and named event weekends function as demand signals in this sample, meaning they help explain why guests want to visit, but they are not occupancy or revenue figures themselves. A listing can and should name these draws in its marketing copy, but that mention should never be substituted for the actual $28,174 revenue figure or the 34.4 percent occupancy rate when making a financial claim to a guest or investor.
Who is booking Sturbridge rentals?
Most guests in this sample arrive from Boston, then from New York, and the typical stay runs about 3.7 nights. That pattern points to a drive-market, short-getaway guest rather than a fly-in vacationer, and pricing and photo strategy should be built around that shorter, closer-to-home trip rather than borrowed from a longer-stay destination market with a different guest profile entirely.
Are Sturbridge listings mostly run by independent hosts or management companies?
Independent hosts still write most of this 22-listing desk, meaning the market is not dominated by large professional management companies the way some bigger Massachusetts markets are. That matters for a new host weighing whether to self-manage: the competitive set is largely other independent operators, not a wall of professionally managed listings running the same optimization playbook across dozens of properties.
Should a Sturbridge host use a 30-night minimum stay?
About 29.1 percent of listings in the sample set a 30-night minimum, which is a booking-strategy and operating choice, not a measure of how occupied the market actually is. Typical stay length across the broader market is about 3.7 nights, so a 30-night minimum is a deliberate departure from how most guests are actually booking Sturbridge, and it should be evaluated on its own operating tradeoffs rather than treated as evidence of demand.
Does this report include a Sturbridge STR permit fee or registration cost?
No, and that is intentional. This report does not guess a Sturbridge STR permit dollar figure, registration fee, or renewal date, because the underlying extract does not contain that data with enough confidence to publish as fact. Hosts should confirm remaining registration, zoning, and tax requirements directly with the Town of Sturbridge before listing a property, treating the revenue figures here as a starting point rather than a substitute for that confirmation.
How reliable is a 22-listing sample for underwriting a purchase?
A 22-listing sample is small enough that individual outlier properties can move the typical figure more than a larger market's average would, so $28,174 should be treated as a directional anchor rather than a precise guarantee for any single property. A sibling report, Sturbridge STR Investment: This Town Year, Honest Case, walks through the same extract with a purchase-underwriting lens for a host who wants that framing instead of the market-report framing used here.
Does this report mention any Sturbridge tax rate?
It notes that the remaining state room occupancy excise runs about 5.7 percent in this sample, which is a tax-layer detail worth confirming directly with the state and town rather than a revenue or occupancy figure. That rate is separate from the $28,174 typical-earnings figure, the ADR, and the occupancy numbers, and it should be verified against current state and Town of Sturbridge guidance before it is used in any pricing or budgeting decision.
Work with Crest & Cove Creative
Twenty-two listings, one trailing-year extract, and a $28,174 figure most Sturbridge pitches quote without the window attached. Crest & Cove Creative builds marketing plans on that number the way it was actually measured, not the way it gets repeated.
Crest & Cove Creative turns this sample into Sturbridge-specific listing copy, seasonal pricing calendars, and photo strategy instead of guesswork borrowed from a neighboring town's numbers. Reach out for a walkthrough of what a marketing plan looks like when every figure in it is built on your parcel's actual August 2025 through July 2026 data.
Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.
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