Best Landlord Software: Compare Costs & Features

There is no universal best landlord software. For most self-managing owners, the right platform is the least expensive one that reliably completes the five jobs you repeat every tenancy: marketing and applications, a consistent screening workflow, leases and documents, rent collection, and maintenance records. What deserves attention now is total annual cost, who pays each transaction and screening fee, support access, export formats, and cancellation terms — not feature count. What no platform does at any price is make your screening criteria, leases, or notices lawful. That stays with you, and where it matters, with a landlord-tenant attorney.

Advanced accounting, team roles, and automation can wait until a missing workflow has a measurable monthly cost, and they matter mainly for portfolios of roughly ten units or more or for owners whose bottleneck is bookkeeping or screening volume. Your first action: before opening any trial, write down the workflows you actually repeat, then test each finalist against that list with sample data. Bring in a landlord-tenant attorney or another qualified professional before you rely on any platform's screening recommendations, lease templates, or state-specific notices. Below you will find the selection method, a verified comparison table, six fit-based profiles, portfolio and situation routing, a worked annual-cost example, and a trial-and-exit checklist.

Prices and features checked August 10, 2026 against each provider's own pricing, help, or feature documentation. Every figure states its plan and billing basis; verify current terms on the provider's own pricing page before you pay. Next scheduled review: November 8, 2026.

Best for	Pick	Base price and basis	Decisive caveat
Free-first starting point	TurboTenant	$0 Free; Essentials $149/year at 1–10 units, billed annually	Free-plan costs move to the renter: $55 per screening and $2 per ACH rent payment
No-subscription all-in-one	Innago	$0; no monthly fee, setup fee, or contract	Tenant pays $2 per ACH and 2.99% on cards; no state-specific lease library
One or a few rentals	Avail	Unlimited $0 per unit; Unlimited Plus $9 per unit per month, billed monthly	Per-unit pricing: a growing portfolio overtakes it within a few doors
Flat-rate at any unit count	RentRedi	$12/month on an annual term; $29.95/month on a monthly term	Same software, 2.5× the price, depending only on the term you choose
Growing portfolio	DoorLoop	Starter $69/month billed yearly, promotional against a $99 list price; max 10 units	Onboarding fee "based on portfolio size" is not published; Starter exports financials as PDF only
Accounting and professional-management depth	Buildium	Essential from $62/month	All three prices are "starting at" and no unit allowance is published; Growth and Premium require paid onboarding

Best-for labels are Rental Income HQ's editorial synthesis from the criteria published below — not provider claims, awards, or rankings.

Where to start

• A free-first platform if you self-manage one or a few units and your must-have list stops at listings, applications, a screening workflow, rent collection, and maintenance records.
• A flat-rate or automation-oriented platform if you run several units or a small team and manual collections, bookkeeping, or maintenance intake now cost you hours you can count.
• Accounting-and-reporting depth if bank reconciliation, owner statements, and tax-ready exports are the bottleneck and a higher subscription is cheaper than the bookkeeping time it replaces — and confirm with your CPA or bookkeeper which reports they actually need before you pay for accounting depth, because export format matters more here than feature count.
• No platform yet if your current spreadsheet-and-bank-records system completes every recurring workflow and exports cleanly, because switching carries real migration cost.
• Get a landlord-tenant attorney or another qualified professional involved before you rely on any platform's screening recommendations, lease templates, or state-specific notices. No software makes those choices lawful on its own.

On this page

• What landlord software can and cannot do
• How we selected and excluded these options
• Landlord software comparison table
• Best landlord software by fit
• Choose landlord software by portfolio size and situation
• Calculate the real annual cost
• Trial, contract, migration, and exit checklist
• When no all-in-one platform is the better answer
• Frequently asked questions
• What to do next
• About this comparison
• Sources and last verified date

What landlord software can and cannot do

All six shortlisted platforms serve U.S. long-term rental (LTR) owners; confirm state availability and your property type with the provider before committing. What no platform can do is make your operating decisions lawful. When software delivers a screening report or score, that is a consumer report under federal law — a report a reporting agency assembles about a person, which you then use to decide on their tenancy. You need a permissible purpose — which an applicant's own application generally supplies — and, in practice, the applicant's written authorization, which screening providers and some state laws require. You also need written rental criteria applied the same way to every applicant, human review of the result, and an adverse-action notice — written notice that identifies the reporting agency and states the applicant's rights — whenever a report contributes to a denial or to different terms, as the FTC's guidance for landlords using consumer reports sets out. The federal Fair Housing Act's protected classes — race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability — are the federal baseline HUD enforces; state and local rules can add protections beyond it, including source-of-income rules and application-fee limits, and the routing table below shows where to check yours. Report accuracy and disputes are governed processes with their own obligations, described in the CFPB's guidance on reviewing a rental background check, and applicant information you collect has to be handled securely and disposed of properly when it is no longer needed. Federal requirements as described by FTC, HUD, and CFPB guidance were checked August 10, 2026.

Two fee decisions on this page carry local legal exposure, and neither is a software question. Some states and cities cap what you may charge an applicant, and some restrict passing payment-processing fees to tenants — TurboTenant's own pricing FAQ notes that landlords sometimes absorb the screening fee because "fee restrictions apply to the property," and DoorLoop tells subscribers on higher tiers they can mark up the screening cost and keep the difference. Whether you may do either where your property sits is set by state statute and often by city ordinance. Check with your city or county housing department and your state attorney general's landlord-tenant guidance before you set an application fee or enable a tenant-paid payment fee; HUD's state resource directory is a starting point for locating the right office. This page publishes no per-state figures on either subject.

The same boundary applies to money records: an in-app payment ledger does not satisfy your state's security deposit rules on holding, interest, or return deadlines. For provider-level screening decisions — which report, at what fee, with what consent and adverse-action workflow — use the dedicated tenant screening services comparison.

Where to check your state's application-fee and payment-fee rules

This page publishes no per-state figures. It routes every U.S. state and the District of Columbia through the authorities below, because these rules are set by statute and ordinance rather than by any platform, and they move on a legislative calendar this page does not track.

Rule to check	Who sets it	Where to check it	What it changes about your software choice
Application and screening fee limits	State statute, sometimes a city ordinance	Your state's housing and consumer offices through HUD's state directory, then your state attorney general's office for landlord-tenant and consumer-protection guidance	Whether an applicant-paid screening fee of $30 to $55 can be charged at all, or whether you have to absorb it
Passing payment-processing fees to tenants	State statute and consumer-protection law, sometimes a city ordinance	The same two offices; ask specifically about convenience fees or surcharges on rent	Whether the tenant-paid ACH and card fees in the tables above can be switched on, or must be set to landlord-paid
Late-fee limits and grace periods	State statute, often a city ordinance	The same two offices, plus your county court's landlord-tenant or self-help page for local practice	Whether a platform's automatic late-fee rules can be configured to your jurisdiction, or have to stay off
Reusable or applicant-supplied screening reports	State statute	The same two offices	Whether you must accept a report the applicant already paid for instead of charging for the one your platform sells
Criminal- and eviction-record screening limits	State statute, often a city ordinance — look-back periods, sequencing, individualized assessment	The same two offices, plus your city or county housing department	Whether the screening package your platform sells can be used as configured, and what you may consider once you have it
Rental registration, licensing, and inspection	City or county housing or code-enforcement department	Your city or county housing department, listed through HUD's state directory	Nothing in the software — but an unregistered rental can be unrentable, and no platform on this page checks it for you

Two of these interact directly with the choice on this page. You can usually decide who pays a screening fee; you generally cannot decide what it costs. TurboTenant states that landlords cannot set custom rental application fees because the platform charges a fixed non-refundable fee per applicant, while Innago and Avail document a landlord-absorb option and RentRedi's convenience-fee settings let the landlord take over the tenant's ACH or card fee. A platform whose applicant fee you cannot change is a platform you may not be able to configure to a local cap — which makes this a question to settle before you choose, not after your first application.

Consumer report, landlord reference, or first-party information?

Category	What it is	Who holds the obligation or relationship	What it changes for your decision
Consumer report	A screening report or score assembled by a consumer reporting agency and delivered through the platform	The landlord (permissible purpose, authorization, adverse action) and the reporting agency (accuracy, disputes)	Compare consent capture, adverse-action support, and dispute information — not just the fee
Landlord reference	Verification you collect directly from a prior landlord or employer	You collect, document, and apply it under your written criteria	No reporting agency is involved, but fair-housing rules still govern how you use it
First-party applicant information	Application answers, pay stubs, and identification the applicant gives you directly	You store and secure it; the platform is a document tool	Compare secure storage, retention, and deletion — not compliance promises

Where a platform's consent, adverse-action, or dispute workflow is not documented, treat that field as not verified and ask before you pay.

How we selected and excluded these options

An option qualified for this page only if it serves U.S. long-term-rental owners with no short-term-rental-only focus, publishes current official pricing or enough of an official price basis to compare honestly, covers at least two core operating workflows while filling a distinct best-for role, documents its material features and limitations on official pages, and can be presented without an unverified performance, legality, or security conclusion. No option entered the list because an affiliate program exists.

The evidence rules are as strict as the gates. Every material price, fee, feature, and terms claim on this page traces to a current official provider page accessed on August 10, 2026, and carries a verification status. Where an official page does not disclose a fee, unit allowance, export format, or retention window, the field is marked and the missing fact is named — a missing fee is never assumed to be zero. Provider-stated claims about support, speed, or scale are attributed as provider statements, not independent findings. We claim no hands-on testing: no documented test accounts or standardized task protocol exists for this page, so no usability or reliability verdicts appear here.

We do not score or rank. There are no numeric ratings, no weighted rubric, and no ordered winner list; options are organized by best-for category, and the order changes only if a pre-publication check shows a provider no longer meets an inclusion gate. Facts were checked on August 10, 2026 and are refreshed at least every 90 days; the next scheduled review is November 8, 2026. How this page is funded: Rental Income HQ is supported by advertising and, on some pages, disclosed referral links. No provider has paid for placement, ordering, or inclusion on this page, and compensation never determines what is included or how it is ranked — which is why the inclusion gates above are published rather than described. If a compensated link is added to this page, it will be disclosed here.

Considered but not included

Option	Inclusion gate not met (as of July 23, 2026)
TenantCloud	Current official pricing and a distinct best-for role were not verified
Landlord Studio	A distinct accounting-focused role was not verified from current official documentation
Baselane and Stessa	Category boundary: banking- and bookkeeping-led products belong to the separate rental-banking comparison, not this operating-software shortlist
Apartments.com Rental Manager	Current feature and fee scope was not verified
AppFolio and Yardi	Scope mismatch: built for professional and enterprise management beyond this page's self-managing reader
Rentec Direct and Hemlane	A current official evidence set and a distinct role were not compiled

Each entry states only the gate that was not met; none is a negative judgment about the product. These exclusion assessments carry their original July 23, 2026 date because they were not re-opened in the August 10 refresh.

Landlord software comparison table

Prices and features checked August 10, 2026. Every price states its plan and billing basis. A named gap is a real absence in the provider's public documentation; no blank or missing field means zero, availability, or permission.

Pricing, unit basis, and state coverage

Provider	Editorial best for	Base subscription, unit basis, and billing basis	State availability and lease documents	Status
TurboTenant	Free-first starting point	Free $0. Paid tiers billed annually only, priced by unit band. Essentials: $149 (1–10 units), $199 (11–30), $299 (31–60), $349 (61+). Pro: $199, $399, $699, $999 across the same bands	Platform availability not published. Unlimited state-specific leases on Essentials and Pro; the Landlord Forms Pack costs $199 on Free	Verified with limitation
Innago	No-subscription all-in-one	$0. No monthly fee, setup fee, or contract; no unit tiers and no minimum unit count	Provider states availability in all 50 U.S. states, U.S. market only. No state-specific lease library: on-platform templates or your own upload, with the provider recommending a licensed attorney for state-specific guidance	Verified with limitation
Avail	One or a few rentals	Unlimited $0 per unit; Unlimited Plus $9 per unit per month, billed monthly, unlimited units on both	Platform state availability not published. State-specific, lawyer-reviewed lease templates on both plans, plus locally generated clauses and disclosures	Verified with limitation
RentRedi	Flat-rate at any unit count	One plan, three terms: $29.95/month billed monthly, $20/month billed semi-annually, $12/month billed annually. Unlimited properties, tenants, teammates, and connected bank accounts; no per-unit fees	Platform state availability not published. Lease signing and document storage documented; a state-specific lease library is not published	Verified with limitation
DoorLoop	Growing portfolio	Billed yearly, each price shown against a higher list price under a promotional banner: Starter $69 against $99, max 10 units; Pro $149 against $189; Premium $209 against $239. Monthly pay-as-you-go also offered. Onboarding fee "based on portfolio size" is not published	Platform availability not published. Upload-your-own eSignature templates; no state-specific lease library published	Verified with limitation
Buildium	Accounting and professional-management depth	Essential "starting at" $62/month; Growth $192; Premium $400. No unit allowance is published for any tier and the page carries no unit calculator. 14-day trial, no card	Platform availability not published. Online leasing and eSignature documented; no state-specific lease library published	Partial

Screening, fees, support, and exit

Provider	Screening fee and payer	Payment and transaction fees	Support and onboarding	Cancellation, export, retention
TurboTenant	$55 per screening under a Free-plan landlord, $45 under a paid-plan landlord; renters pay by default and the landlord may opt to pay	Card 3.49% on all plans. ACH $2 under a Free-plan landlord. On Essentials the two published sources disagree — see the conflict note below	Chat and email on all plans; phone support on Essentials and Pro. No onboarding fee published	No contracts on any plan, cancel any time. Export format and retention window not published
Innago	$30–$35 per applicant, plus $10 for income verification; charged to the applicant by default, landlord may absorb	Tenant pays $2 per ACH and 2.99% on cards; landlord may absorb either from account settings. No landlord-side transaction fee published	Phone weekdays 9am–5pm ET, email, and live chat; provider states replies within a couple of hours. No onboarding fee published	No contract, no minimum, no cancellation fee; provider states there is nothing to cancel and that records remain available for export. Retention window after account closure not published
Avail	Cost varies by location because of state law; tenant-paid most commonly, landlord may cover	Tenant pays $2.50 per bank transfer on the free plan and nothing on Unlimited Plus; card 3.5% on both plans, tenant-paid	Standard support on Unlimited; Plus adds priority support the provider describes as twice as fast. No onboarding fee published	Cancellation, export, and retention not published
RentRedi	$39.99 per screening, or $49.99 with income verification; applicant-paid. Rent credit reporting $5.99/month, landlord- or tenant-paid	Tenant pays $1.00 per ACH, bank transfer, or eCheck and 3.1% + $0.30 on cards, published in the help center; the landlord may take over either from Convenience Fees settings. The pricing page states the only optional costs are tenant-paid screening and credit reporting — see the conflict note below	Provider states live phone 9am–5pm ET, 24/7 chat, and onboarding help, for tenants as well as landlords. No onboarding fee published	No contract, cancel any time, 30-day money-back guarantee. Export formats and retention window not published
DoorLoop	TransUnion screening paid by the prospective tenant: $45 Starter, $35 Pro, $25 Premium. Provider states higher tiers may mark the cost up	Tenant ACH $2.49 Starter, $0.99 Pro, free Premium; card 3.25% tenant-paid on all plans. Merchant setup $49/$25/free. eSignature $3/$1/free per document. Outgoing EFT $0.99; mailed check $1.79	Email and chat on Starter; phone and Zoom added on Pro; VIP priority on Premium. Onboarding is provided but the fee is not published	Cancel any time and export your data. Financial export is PDF only on Starter, PDF and Excel on Pro and Premium. Storage 50MB per unit on Starter. Provider states deletion is permanent with no recovery
Buildium	TransUnion screening $17, or $35 when applicant-paid; enhanced screening $20 on Growth and Premium only	Incoming EFT $2.35 Essential, $1.35 Growth, free for 12 months then $0.60 Premium. Outgoing EFT $0.99 and cards 2.99% on all plans. Bank account setup $99 each on Essential. eSignature $5/$1/included	Ticket support on all plans; live phone support on Growth and Premium only. Onboarding is mandatory on Growth and Premium and its cost is not published	Cancellation, export, and retention not published

Screening consent and adverse-action support

Every option here delivers consumer reports, and the duties that come with them stay with you. What differs is how much of the workflow each provider documents.

Provider	Applicant consent capture	Adverse-action and dispute support	Status
TurboTenant	Collected in the online application; provider states a check cannot run without the applicant's written consent	Publishes a free FCRA adverse-action letter template; sending the notice remains the landlord's job	Verified with limitation
Innago	Requested inside the rental application; the provider's own setup guidance tells landlords to include written permission for a credit check	No adverse-action template or in-product notice workflow published	Partial
Avail	Captured in the TransUnion screening request the applicant completes	Consent and notice duties described in the provider's education material as the landlord's; no in-product notice tool published	Verified with limitation
RentRedi	Applicant authorizes and pays for the TransUnion screening directly	Adverse-action or dispute support not published	Partial
DoorLoop	Prospective tenant completes and pays for the TransUnion screening	Adverse-action or dispute support not published on the product or help pages	Partial
Buildium	Collected in the online application	Help center states that rejecting an applicant sends no automatic notification and supplies an adverse-action template directing the applicant to TransUnion	Verified

The duty is the landlord's in every row. What varies is how much help you get with it.

Verification status key. Verified: a current official source supports the field without material limitation. Verified with limitation: the core claim is supported, but a plan threshold, promotion, geography, fee, or implementation detail limits it. Partial: some required fields are public; the missing field is named and must be confirmed. Blocked: a consequential fact cannot be verified, so the claim is not published. Not applicable: the field does not apply, with the reason stated. Superseded: an earlier published fact has been replaced — RentRedi's former Start, Grow, and Pro tiers are superseded on its pricing page by the single plan above, with the limitation in the conflict note below.

Four disclosed conflicts in the providers' own documentation. We publish these rather than resolve them, because each one changes a number you would budget.

First, DoorLoop's entry price. The pricing page displays $69 struck through against $99 under a "Welcome Offer" banner promising 30% off for three months, so $69 is a promotional rate and $99 is the list price the page itself shows. The banner also advertises up to 25% off yearly billing while the page's own FAQ says up to 20%. And the FAQ's worked annual example reads "$708 upfront for the entire year ($69 x 12 months)" — twelve payments of $69 is $828, not $708. Ask for the price at your unit count, the post-promotional rate, and the onboarding fee in writing before you sign.

Second, TurboTenant's ACH fee on the Essentials tier. The pricing page's renter table groups all Premium landlords together and shows bank transfers as free; the support center lists waived ACH fees among the features exclusive to Pro and expressly not available on Essentials. Across forty-eight rent payments a year that is a $96 difference on the tenant's side. Confirm which applies to your plan before you tell a tenant what a bank transfer costs.

Third, RentRedi's plan structure. The pricing page now presents one plan on three billing terms with identical features, but its own feature list still refers to priority phone support "for advanced plans," language from the superseded tier structure — and the rest of RentRedi's own site has not caught up either. Its help center pricing article still describes a Grow plan alongside a call-us Pro plan, and a June 2026 post on its own blog still quotes a $5-a-month Start plan. A $5 plan, if purchasable, would undercut every paid rate in the crossover table below. Ask which plans you can actually buy today and which support tier your term includes.

Fourth, RentRedi's fee disclosure. The pricing page's FAQ says the only optional costs are tenant-paid screening and credit reporting, with no hidden fees. The help center documents a $1.00 convenience fee on every ACH, bank transfer, or eCheck rent payment and 3.1% plus $0.30 on cards, charged to the tenant unless the landlord elects to cover it. Both statements are the provider's own. Across forty-eight rent payments a year the difference between "no other costs" and $1.00 a payment is $48 on the tenant's side — the lowest per-payment fee on this page, and still not zero.

Two further readings matter more than any single cell. The lowest sticker price is rarely the lowest total cost: a $0 plan whose costs sit in per-screening and per-payment fees can cost the transaction more than a paid plan that removes them. And an annual-term price, a monthly-term price, and a per-unit price are three different numbers, which is why the crossover table normalizes all three at four unit counts before comparing anything — on this shortlist the billing term alone can move the figure further than the plan does.

Choosing between the leading options. Two pairs dominate real shortlists. Choose Avail if you have one or two units and want state-specific leases inside the platform; choose TurboTenant Essentials or RentRedi's annual term the moment you reach two, because per-unit pricing overtakes both there. Choose DoorLoop if you want a published fee schedule and can live with the ten-unit Starter cap; choose Buildium if owner reporting and accounting depth are the reason you are buying — and get its unit allowance in writing first, because until you have it the two entry prices are not comparable.

Best landlord software by fit

TurboTenant — best free-first starting point

The $0 core covers the whole first-tenancy cycle — listing syndication, applications with screening, rent collection, and maintenance records — which makes it the natural starting point when your software budget is zero. The paid threshold arrives when state-specific lease tools, phone support, or accounting depth start mattering; both paid tiers are billed annually only, with no month-to-month option, and price by unit band, not per door. That unit basis is worth checking against anything else you read: several widely republished comparisons still describe TurboTenant's paid tiers as unlimited-unit, while the provider's own pricing page published four unit bands as of August 10, 2026. The plan and fee explanation shows where free-plan costs actually sit: in the $55 screening fee and $2 ACH fee the renter pays, not in a subscription. Not ideal for: owners who want a monthly billing option, or who need the lowest tenant-facing fees without buying the top tier. Confirm before you pay: whether waived ACH fees apply to your tier, given the conflict between the two published sources; the annual price at your exact unit band; export format and data retention, which are not published; and, if a local cap applies, whether the fixed applicant fee can be changed at all. Revisit when: your unit band changes, or you need a monthly billing option. Verified with limitation.

Innago — best no-subscription all-in-one

Innago is the only option here that publishes a straight answer to nearly every cost question: no monthly fee, no setup fee, no contract, no unit tiers, and a fee schedule stated in its own pricing and support documentation — $2 per tenant ACH, 2.99% on cards, $30–$35 per applicant screening, all of which the landlord may absorb from account settings. It also publishes the availability answer nobody else does: all fifty states. The trade sits in the documents. Innago gives you on-platform templates and your own uploads instead of a state-specific lease library, and tells you plainly to consult a licensed attorney for state-specific guidance — which is honest, and which means the lease work stays yours. Not ideal for: owners who want a state-specific lease library built into the platform, or who need same-day rent payouts. Confirm before you pay: how long records remain available after you stop using the account, which is not published; the export file formats for payment ledgers and documents; the payout hold that applies to a tenant's first payment on a new funding source; and what adverse-action and dispute support comes with the screening report, which is not published. Revisit when: your record-retention needs change, or a state-specific lease library becomes a requirement. Verified with limitation.

Avail — best for one or a few rentals

Avail's logic is per-unit: a $0 base with a Plus tier at $9 per unit per month, billed monthly, on top of an already complete small-portfolio workflow including state-specific lawyer-reviewed leases, locally generated clauses, and income and expense tracking. The per-unit basis is the whole decision — $9 at one door, $36 at four, $90 at ten — which is why the crossover table below matters more here than any feature. On the tenant's side, the free plan charges $2.50 per bank transfer and Plus removes it, while cards cost 3.5% on both. Avail is also the one option that says openly that screening cost varies by location because of state law, which is a useful signal about how much of this decision is local. Not ideal for: growing portfolios, where flat-rate pricing overtakes per-unit simplicity within a few doors. Confirm before you pay: cancellation, export formats, and retention, none of which are published; the screening fee that applies in your state; any account requirements tied to the Realtor.com network; and whether the notice and dispute steps its education material describes are supported anywhere in the product. Revisit when: you cross four units, where per-unit pricing stops being the cheaper basis. Verified with limitation.

RentRedi — best flat-rate at any unit count

RentRedi now sells one plan on three billing terms — $29.95 a month billed monthly, $20 billed semi-annually, $12 billed annually — with the same full feature set on each and unlimited properties, tenants, teammates, and connected bank accounts. That structure makes it the cheapest paid flat rate here at any unit count above two, and the term you pick is the single largest cost decision: the same software costs 2.5× more if you pay monthly. Screening runs through TransUnion at $39.99, or $49.99 with income verification, paid by the applicant. Not ideal for: owners who want to try a paid tier month-to-month at the advertised price, or who need onboarding and export terms in public writing before subscribing. Confirm before you pay: whether your tenants will see the $1.00 ACH and 3.1% plus $0.30 card fees the help center documents, and whether you intend to absorb them; the export formats and retention window; which plans you can actually buy today and which support tier your billing term includes, given the residual tier language across the provider's own pages; and what adverse-action and dispute support the TransUnion report carries. Revisit when: your billing term comes up for renewal. Verified with limitation.

DoorLoop — best for a growing portfolio

DoorLoop is the operational step up: team roles, workflow automation, full accounting, reporting, and documented migration support. Its published fee schedule is unusually complete, and unusually plan-shaped — tenant ACH runs $2.49 on Starter and $0.99 on Pro, eSignatures $3 and $1 per document, merchant setup $49 and $25 — so the tier you choose moves your real cost more than the sticker does. Two limits deserve weight before the price does. Starter is capped at ten units, which makes it a plan you start on and outgrow. And financial export on Starter is PDF only, with Excel reserved for Pro and Premium, which matters if the reason you are leaving a spreadsheet is that you want your data back in one. The help center states data remains available for six months after cancellation. Not ideal for: a first single unit that a free platform already covers, and for anyone budgeting on the promotional price rather than the list price. Confirm before you pay: the onboarding fee, which is not published anywhere on the pricing page; the post-promotional rate and the price at your exact unit count; whether your plan exports financials in a spreadsheet format; and, since higher tiers may mark up the screening cost, what adverse-action and dispute support the report carries and whether a markup is lawful where your property sits. Revisit when: you approach ten units, or the promotional period ends. Verified with limitation.

Buildium — best accounting and professional-management depth

Buildium's draw is professional-grade accounting, leasing, maintenance, communications, and owner reporting, built for operations that resemble a small management business, with a 14-day trial that needs no card. Its fee schedule is fully published and material: incoming EFT alone runs $2.35 per transaction on Essential, which across forty-eight rent payments a year is $112.80 — roughly the entire annual cost of TurboTenant Essentials at $149 or RentRedi's annual term at $144, and that is before Buildium's own $62-a-month base. Two structural facts limit the comparison. Buildium publishes all three prices as "starting at" with no unit allowance and no calculator, so "$62" cannot be compared at face value against DoorLoop's "$69 for the first ten units" — one figure names the units it covers and the other does not. And onboarding is mandatory on Growth and Premium at a price the page does not state. Not ideal for: small portfolios that cannot justify the base subscription plus per-transaction fees plus implementation effort. Confirm before you pay: the unit allowance included at your quoted price; the required onboarding cost for your plan and unit count; cancellation and export terms, which are not published; and whether the adverse-action template in the help center is offered inside the rejection workflow or has to be sent separately. Revisit when: your quoted unit allowance changes, or onboarding becomes mandatory at your tier. Partial — the unit basis is the missing field, and it is the one the comparison turns on.

Choose landlord software by portfolio size and situation

One property, first tenant

Your workflow is one listing, a handful of applications, one lease, and twelve rent payments a year. A free core covers all of it, so resist paying for owner accounting, team permissions, or automation before those needs exist. The real test is completing one full cycle with sample data — listing to payment to maintenance ticket — then working through the first-time landlord checklist before the real tenant arrives. The broader ordered process, from pricing the rent to handing over keys, lives in how to rent out your house; software is one operating tool inside it.

Two to ten self-managed units

Here the pricing basis becomes the decision, and the crossover is early. Avail Plus at $9 per unit per month reaches $18 at two units and $36 at four, while RentRedi holds at $12 a month on an annual term and TurboTenant Essentials covers the whole 1–10 band for $149 a year. Both undercut Avail Plus from two units on — but only on their annual terms. Buy RentRedi month-to-month at $29.95 instead and Avail Plus stays cheaper up to three units. Run the arithmetic at your exact unit count on a matched billing basis before you weigh any feature.

Ten to fifty units or a small team

The bottleneck shifts from tasks to coordination: roles and permissions, batch communications, bank reconciliation, owner-grade reports, migration support, and reliable live support. Compare DoorLoop and Buildium on exactly those fields — noting that DoorLoop's Starter tier stops at ten units and Buildium's live phone support starts at Growth — and treat the higher subscription as justified only when it costs less than the bookkeeping and administrative time it replaces. Ask both for the unit allowance and the onboarding fee in writing, because neither publishes both.

When screening is the bottleneck

Do not choose an entire operating platform to optimize one screening fee. Choose the screening workflow first — consent capture, consistently applied written criteria, human review, adverse-action support, dispute information — using the tenant screening services comparison, then confirm your platform supports that workflow. The published applicant-paid fees on this page range from $30 to $55 for broadly similar credit, criminal, and eviction reports, and that spread reflects a pricing decision, not report quality.

Out-of-state owners

Distance turns two ordinary features into decisive ones: maintenance intake you can triage from a phone with photos or video attached, and e-signature you never have to be present for. Innago is the only option here that publishes state availability at all. None of this substitutes for a local contact, and the record that matters most is the one you can get out: confirm that inspection photos, dated communications, and maintenance history will export in a form you could hand to a contractor, an insurer, or a court without a login.

When a tenant is behind on rent

Software is not the first step here, and choosing a new platform mid-dispute is close to the worst available move: it fragments the payment record you may need. Speak to a landlord-tenant attorney before taking any action, and export and preserve your complete payment and communication history from whatever system you are using now, before you change anything. What matters in a platform for this situation is the export, not the automation — a dated, complete, readable payment ledger and message log. Late-fee automation is set by state statute and often by city ordinance, and no platform's default settings are a substitute for knowing what your jurisdiction allows. And whatever the software offers, changing locks, shutting off utilities, or removing a tenant's belongings is criminal or civilly actionable in most states no matter how far behind the rent is — the lawful route runs through the court process in your county, which is the conversation to have with counsel.

Situation	Shortlist move	Not ideal when	Evidence still needed	Ask in the demo
One property, first tenant	Trial TurboTenant and Innago free cores side by side with the same sample data	Applicant- or tenant-paid fees make your listing uncompetitive locally	Who pays each fee at your plan; export format	What does my applicant pay at this plan? What export do I get if I leave? Which fees appear only at checkout?
Two to ten self-managed units	Price Avail Plus at your unit count against RentRedi and TurboTenant's paid tiers, on a matched billing basis	You are still on one unit, or already past ten	Each provider's monthly and annual price on the same basis	What is my all-in annual cost at my unit count? Who pays ACH and card fees? What changes at the next unit band?
Ten to fifty units or a small team	Demo DoorLoop and Buildium against a written must-have list	The higher subscription exceeds the administrative time it replaces	Included unit allowance; onboarding cost; per-plan fee schedule	What onboarding is required, at what cost? What unit allowance is included at this price? What are the cancellation steps, export scope, and file formats?
Screening-heavy workflow	Choose the screening workflow first through the tenant-screening comparison, then confirm your platform supports it	You would switch platforms to save a per-report fee	Application-fee limits where the property sits	How is applicant consent captured? What adverse-action support and dispute information comes with the report? Can I apply my written criteria consistently with human review?
Out-of-state owner	Compare Innago and RentRedi on mobile maintenance intake, e-signature, and export, then confirm state availability	You have a local contact already handling intake and documentation	Platform availability in your state; mobile intake and e-sign inclusion by plan	Is the platform available in my state? Can I get photo and video maintenance intake on my plan? Will inspection photos and message logs export?
A tenant is behind on rent	None yet — preserve and export your records, then speak to a landlord-tenant attorney	Never; the legal step precedes the tool step	Whether your current records export completely and in a readable format	Can I export the full payment ledger and message history right now, dated, without an active subscription?
Stable, well-documented small portfolio	None yet — keep your current system until a missing workflow has a measurable monthly cost	A specific missing workflow acquires a measurable monthly cost	What would have to break for a platform to pay for itself	What would I gain in year one that my spreadsheet and bank records do not already give me?

Score every finalist with the same card: reuse the trial-and-exit checklist below as your per-provider scorecard — identical sample data, identical tasks, identical fee and export questions for each — rather than inventing a new rubric per provider.

Calculate the real annual cost

Base subscription is the advertised platform fee before everything else. Your decision number is different — the year-one owner cash cost:

Year-one owner cost = annual subscription + unit-tier increases + onboarding and migration + bank or merchant setup + owner-paid payment fees + owner-paid screening fees + e-signature and document fees + add-ons + switching and exit costs.

The fee-incidence rule: a fee you do not pay is still a fee your listing charges. Track applicant-paid and tenant-paid fees on a separate line rather than folding them into "free," and value your own hours as a separate owner economic cost. Fees your applicants and tenants pay are not economically neutral: they shape who applies, how tenants choose to pay, and what your listing effectively costs the other side of the transaction.

Input	How to calculate it	Who bears it
Annual subscription	Monthly price × 12, or the stated annual price	Owner
Unit-tier increase	Price at your current unit count and at the next likely tier	Owner
Onboarding and migration	Required and optional setup costs	Owner
Payment costs	ACH or card fee × expected transactions; state who pays	Owner or tenant
Screening costs	Fee × expected applications; state who pays; check local application-fee rules	Owner or applicant
E-signatures and documents	Per-document fee × expected signatures	Owner
Bank or merchant setup	Per-account or merchant application fees	Owner
Add-ons	Accounting, inspections, website, communications, API, or premium support	Owner
Admin time	Estimated hours saved or added × your chosen hourly value	Owner economic cost
Switching and exit	Migration, parallel subscriptions, cleanup, and archiving	Owner
What this number is not	Not a quote, not a typical result, and not inclusive of applicant- or tenant-paid fees, which are tracked on their own line	—

Add one more comparison row at $0: your current spreadsheet-and-bank-records workflow, which costs nothing in subscriptions and everything in administrative time. The platform has to beat that baseline on incremental value, not just look complete. If separating rental money flows is part of the motive, the rental property bank account comparison covers the finance side so this decision can stay about operations.

Worked example: year-one cost at four units

Assumptions. Four long-term units in one state; forty-eight ACH rent payments a year; two turnovers producing four screened applicants; two leases e-signed; one bank account connected; no card payments; no premium add-ons; the landlord does not absorb applicant- or tenant-paid fees unless the plan removes them. All prices are the published rates checked August 10, 2026. These are modeled figures built on those stated inputs, not quotes.

Line	Low — Innago	Base — TurboTenant Essentials	High — DoorLoop Starter, annual
Annual subscription	$0	$149 (1–10 unit band)	$828 at the promotional $69/month; $1,188 at the $99 list price
Merchant or bank setup	None published	None published	$49
E-signatures (2)	Included	Included	$6
Owner-paid screening	$0 — applicant-paid	$0 — renter-paid	$0 — tenant-paid
Owner-paid payment fees	$0 — tenant-paid	$0 — renter-paid	$0 — tenant-paid
Onboarding	None published	None published	Not published
Year-one owner cash cost	$0	$149	$883 promotional, $1,243 at list, plus onboarding
Applicant- and tenant-paid, tracked separately	$120–$140 screening + $96 ACH = $216–$236	$180 screening + $0–$96 ACH (see the TurboTenant conflict) = $180–$276	$180 screening + $119.52 ACH = $299.52

The single line that drives the owner-side gap is the subscription. It accounts for $828 of the $883 spread — about ninety-four percent — and nothing else on the owner's line comes close. On the other side of the transaction the driver is different: the per-payment ACH fee, because forty-eight payments a year turn DoorLoop's $2.49 charge into $119.52, and turn the 49-cent gap between that and Innago's $2.00 into $23.52 a year. That asymmetry is the practical case for reading both lines separately. It is also why "free" is a claim about one line and not about the transaction. RentRedi's annual term is absent from the three columns, which show the spread rather than every option; on the same assumptions it costs the owner $144 and the other side $207.96 — $159.96 in applicant-paid screening at $39.99 each, plus $48.00 in tenant-paid ACH at $1.00 a payment, the lowest per-payment fee on this page.

The billing-basis crossover: what each option costs at 1, 4, 10, and 20 units

Subscription only, at the published rates, on the billing basis each provider actually offers:

Option and billing basis	1 unit	4 units	10 units	20 units	Annual owner cost at 4 units
Innago — no subscription	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
TurboTenant Free — no subscription	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
Avail Unlimited — no subscription	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
Avail Unlimited Plus — $9/unit, monthly	$9.00	$36.00	$90.00	$180.00	$432
RentRedi — annual term	$12.00	$12.00	$12.00	$12.00	$144
RentRedi — monthly term	$29.95	$29.95	$29.95	$29.95	$359.40
TurboTenant Essentials — annual only	$12.42	$12.42	$12.42	$16.58	$149
TurboTenant Pro — annual only	$16.58	$16.58	$16.58	$33.25	$199
DoorLoop Starter — yearly term, max 10 units	$69.00	$69.00	$69.00	Not available	$828
Buildium Essential — "starting at"	$62.00+	$62.00+	$62.00+	$62.00+	$744+

The first four columns are monthly equivalents; TurboTenant figures divide its annual price by twelve, and DoorLoop's is the monthly figure it publishes for a yearly term. The final column multiplies the four-unit monthly figure by twelve, so it is the owner's subscription line for a year and nothing else. Buildium publishes all prices as "starting at" with no unit allowance, so $62+ means the entry price applies at some unit count the page does not state — the only cells here that cannot be compared at face value.

Read three crossovers off that table. Against Avail's per-unit pricing, RentRedi's annual term and TurboTenant Essentials both come out cheaper from two units on, while RentRedi's monthly term does not overtake Avail Plus until four. DoorLoop's Starter tier simply stops at ten units, so the last column is not a comparison it enters. And every $0 row is a genuine $0 on the owner's line and a real cost on the other side, which the worked example above prices.

Then use the difference between your two finalists as the decision test. If option A costs $200 more per year than option B at your unit count, the question is concrete: does A remove a workflow gap worth more than $200 of your time or error risk this year? If the answer depends on a fee this page names as unpublished — Buildium's unit allowance, DoorLoop's onboarding, three providers' retention windows — get that figure in writing before deciding. These outputs are estimates built on your stated inputs, not quotes or typical results, and they change whenever a provider changes a price, fee, or tier.

Trial, contract, migration, and exit checklist

A demo proves a sales pitch; a structured trial proves your workflow. Run every finalist through the same test:

• Build one sample property, applicant, lease, payment schedule, and maintenance request using synthetic data only.
• Complete the full recurring workflow on desktop and on the device you actually use in the field.
• Confirm every fee, who pays it, and the exact screen where it is disclosed to you, the applicant, or the tenant.
• Export a sample rent roll, payment ledger, income and expense report, and document archive — and open the files.
• Ask how cancellation is submitted, when billing stops, and how long your data remains available afterward.
• Confirm migration scope, field mapping, duplicate handling, and who owns uploaded documents.
• Document support channels, hours, response expectations, and whether your plan actually includes them.
• Never upload live consumer reports or unnecessary applicant personal information during an evaluation.

Do not assume a demo proves data portability — only your own successful export does, in a file format you can actually open.

When no all-in-one platform is the better answer

For a very small, stable portfolio with reliable tenants, a disciplined ledger, consistent document templates, and monthly bank reconciliation can be entirely proportionate. The discipline is the system; the app is optional. If you became a landlord unexpectedly — an inheritance, a home that would not sell — the accidental landlord guide covers the decisions that come before any tool choice.

When the all-in-one premium is not justified but a spreadsheet is not enough either, a dedicated rent-collection method plus a standalone screening service can cover the two workflows that matter most, with the screening choice made through the dedicated comparison rather than bundled by default. And when you cannot reliably perform the operational and compliance work — collections, maintenance response, screening consistency, deposit handling — the honest answer is management, not more software. Selecting a manager is its own decision and sits outside this page.

Keeping your current system until a missing workflow justifies switching is a legitimate outcome of this comparison, not a failure of it.

Frequently asked questions

Is free landlord software really free?

Free to the landlord's subscription line, often — free to the whole transaction, rarely. That is the fee-incidence rule in one sentence: a $0 plan is not free if applicants pay $30 to $55 per screening and tenants pay $1 to $2.50 per rent payment, and those costs shape who applies and how rent gets paid. At four units, Innago's free core costs the landlord $0 and the other side of the transaction $216 to $236 a year, while TurboTenant's Free plan costs the landlord $0 and the other side about $316, because its screening fee is $55 rather than $30 to $35. Same $0 sticker, a $100 difference to the people paying it. Compare both lines using the worked example before treating any plan as free.

Can landlord software keep me compliant with screening and lease laws?

No. Software runs a workflow; it does not supply a permissible purpose, written criteria, human review, adverse-action notices, or a lease that satisfies your state and city. Federal fair-housing and consumer-report rules are the floor, and state and local law can add more — the federal screening rules on this page explain the duties, and criteria, leases, and notices need qualified professional review. Only two of the six options here publish a state-specific lease library at all, and one of them tells you outright to consult an attorney instead.

When should I switch from a spreadsheet to landlord software?

When a specific missing workflow has a measurable monthly cost — chased payments, lost maintenance records, reconciliation hours, inconsistent applications — and a platform's year-one owner cost is lower than that cost. Until then, a disciplined spreadsheet with bank records and consistent templates is a legitimate system, and switching too early buys subscription and migration expense without an operating gain.

What data should I export before canceling landlord software?

At minimum: the rent roll, the full payment ledger, income and expense reports, signed leases and addenda, and your document archive — then open every file to confirm it is usable outside the platform. Check the format as well as the fact of export; DoorLoop's Starter tier, for instance, exports financials as PDF only, with spreadsheet formats reserved for higher plans. Retention windows after cancellation vary and are mostly unpublished, so confirm yours in writing and complete exports before you submit the cancellation, not after.

Does the billing term really change what I pay?

More than the plan choice does, on some platforms. RentRedi publishes the same software at $29.95 a month on a monthly term and $12 a month on an annual term — a 2.5× spread that depends on nothing but how far ahead you pay. TurboTenant's paid tiers have no monthly option at all. DoorLoop's headline rate is a promotional price displayed against a higher list price. Before comparing any two options, convert both to the same basis and ask what the price becomes after any promotional period ends.

How much does landlord software cost?

Across this shortlist as of August 10, 2026, the landlord subscription runs from $0 to $69 a month for a ten-unit-capped entry plan, with flat rates of $12 to $29.95 a month and per-unit pricing at $9 per unit per month between them; accounting-depth tiers start at $62 and reach $400. List price is not total cost. Payment, screening, e-signature, onboarding, bank-setup, and add-on fees — and who pays each — set the real number.

What to do next

Pick the two finalists whose best-for condition matches your situation, and put both through the same two tests: the annual-cost worksheet at your exact unit count on a matched billing basis, and the trial-and-exit checklist with identical sample data. Decide on the year-one owner number and the export test — the platform that hands your records back cleanly, in a format you can open, is the one you can safely commit to. If neither clears your bar, keep the system you have and re-run the comparison when a missing workflow starts costing you real money.

About this comparison

Rental Income HQ is an independent educational publication, and this comparison is maintained by its editorial team on the refresh schedule stated in the methodology above. This page is written for U.S. landlords who self-manage long-term rentals, from a first unit to roughly fifty. It is not legal, tax, or insurance advice, and Rental Income HQ is not a law firm, a tax adviser, an insurer, a broker, or a property manager. What this page is not: a ranking, a review based on hands-on testing, a source of per-state legal figures, or a substitute for a provider's current terms.

Sources and last verified date

Last verified: August 10, 2026 Next review: November 8, 2026; facts are refreshed at least every 90 days.

• TurboTenant pricing — TurboTenant — Free, Essentials, and Pro prices, annual-only billing, unit-band pricing table, and the renter fee table for screening, ACH, and card payments.
• Is there a cost to sign up for TurboTenant? — TurboTenant Support — unit-band pricing, plan feature boundaries including the Pro-only ACH waiver, no-contract terms, and default screening-fee payer.
• Innago pricing — Innago — no monthly fee, setup fee, or contract.
• Innago FAQs — Innago — tenant ACH and card fees, screening cost and payer, fifty-state availability, cancellation and export, support hours, security posture, and lease-template scope.
• Avail pricing — Avail — $0 Unlimited and $9 per unit per month Unlimited Plus, tenant bank-transfer and card fees, state-specific lease templates, and the state-law note on screening cost.
• RentRedi pricing — RentRedi — single plan on monthly, semi-annual, and annual terms; unlimited units; screening and credit-reporting fees; money-back guarantee and cancellation terms.
• How tenant screening works — RentRedi Help Center — TransUnion screening workflow and applicant-paid fees.
• DoorLoop pricing — DoorLoop — Starter, Pro, and Premium prices and list prices, the ten-unit Starter cap, promotional banner terms, per-plan fee schedule, export formats, storage limits, and the unpublished onboarding fee.
• DoorLoop rentals frequently asked questions — DoorLoop Support — cancellation process, export, and the stated six-month post-cancellation retention window.
• Buildium pricing — Buildium — Essential, Growth, and Premium starting prices, absence of a published unit allowance, trial terms, per-use fee schedule, support tiers, and mandatory onboarding on higher plans.
• Buildium features — Buildium — accounting, leasing, maintenance, communications, reporting, and integration coverage.
• How do I reject a rental applicant? — Buildium Support — that rejecting an applicant sends no automatic notification, and the adverse-action notice template Buildium supplies.
• Convenience fees for rent payments — RentRedi Help Center — the $1.00 ACH and 3.1% plus $0.30 card convenience fees and the landlord-absorb setting.
• RentRedi pricing and perks — RentRedi Help Center — the Grow and call-us Pro plan descriptions still published alongside the single-plan pricing page.
• RentRedi vs. DoorLoop — RentRedi (published June 30, 2026) — the $5 Start plan still quoted in the provider's own current content.
• FCRA adverse action letter for tenant screening — TurboTenant — the adverse-action letter template TurboTenant publishes for landlords.
• Tenant screening and application processing — TurboTenant — that landlords cannot set custom rental application fees because the platform charges a fixed fee per applicant.
• Getting started with applications and tenant screening — Innago — applicant written-consent capture inside the rental application.
• Online tenant screening — Avail — TransUnion report scope and the choice of who pays the screening fee.
• Housing discrimination under the Fair Housing Act — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — the seven federal protected classes in rental housing.
• Fair housing rights and obligations — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — the federal fair-housing obligations HUD enforces in rental housing.
• Find state resources — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — routing to state and local housing offices for application-fee and payment-fee rules.
• Find my AG — National Association of Attorneys General — directory of the attorney general's office for every state and the District of Columbia, for landlord-tenant and consumer-protection guidance.
• Using consumer reports: what landlords need to know — Federal Trade Commission (current edition dated July 2023) — permissible purpose, adverse-action, and dispute obligations when screening with consumer reports.
• Review your rental background check — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — adverse-action disclosure to applicants, report accuracy, and dispute rights.