I run this site to help landlords and small operators avoid buying the wrong software, so when I rebuilt this guide I didn’t just refresh the prices. I created live trial accounts on all nine platforms, pushed through the same test scenario on each one — a two-unit portfolio with one vacancy — and wrote down exactly where each tool made me stop and think “wait, that’s not what I expected.” A few things had genuinely changed since my last pass: TenantCloud’s free plan is gone, Stessa now gates several features behind a paid tier, and RentalBux has quietly repositioned itself as accounting-first rather than a general management tool. More on all of that below.

The category isn’t slowing down, either. Fortune Business Insights puts the global property management software market at roughly $29.2 billion in 2026, heading toward $61.4 billion by 2034, and AI adoption among property managers reportedly jumped from 21% to 34% in a single year. Translation: the tools are getting smarter, the free tiers are getting thinner, and the gap between “good enough” and “actually good” software is widening.

How I Tested These Tools

For every platform, I signed up with a real card and account where a card was required, added two sample units, ran a mock applicant through screening where available, and tried to break the mobile experience on purpose — bad network, mid-flow app switching, the stuff that actually happens when you’re managing a leaking faucet from a parking lot. I cross-checked every price against the vendor’s own pricing page rather than trusting aggregator listings, because — as you’ll see below — several of those listings are out of date by months.

2026 Pricing at a Glance

Prices verified against each vendor’s live pricing page. Software pricing changes often — confirm current rates before you buy.

The 9 Platforms, Tested

1. Avail (by Realtor.com)

Avail is owned by Move, Inc. (Realtor.com’s parent), and the syndication is genuinely the best reason to use it — one listing pushes out to Realtor.com, Apartments.com, and Redfin without extra work. The free Unlimited plan covers screening, leases, and rent collection. The paid tier, Unlimited Plus, has climbed from $7 to $9 per unit per month over the past couple of years, with no volume discount, so a 50-unit portfolio runs $450/month flat. My biggest complaint during testing matched what I found in dozens of reviews: the applicant dashboard doesn’t clearly show where a prospect is stuck in the funnel — did they abandon the form, or are they sitting on an unpaid screening report? You end up guessing.

Best for: Landlords who care most about tenant acquisition and are fine paying per unit once they scale past a couple of doors.

2. Innago

Innago is still the one platform on this list with zero landlord-side fees, full stop — no monthly plan, no per-unit charge, nothing. It makes money on tenant-paid ACH fees (around $2 per payment) and card processing (about 2.99%), plus applicant-paid screening reports. During my test, the rent-collection and screening flow worked exactly as advertised, but lease template editing was genuinely clunky — reordering clauses and re-sending a multi-document lease for signature took more clicks than it should have. If you have one or two units and want to avoid subscription fatigue entirely, this is still the easiest sell on the list.

Best for: Budget-first landlords with 1–10 units who’d rather pass small fees to tenants than pay a subscription. If you’re weighing this against general-purpose accounting software instead, Innago still wins on the rental-specific workflow.

3. Landlord Studio

Landlord Studio’s free GO plan covers three units with manual bookkeeping, a GPS mileage tracker, and screening. PRO starts at $12/month (3 units, $1 per extra unit, billed annually — it’s $18/month if you pay monthly) and adds AI-assisted bank-feed categorization, Xero integration, and Schedule E-ready reports. PRO Plus jumps to $28/month with up to 10 users and unlimited recurring reminders. The receipt-scanning feature genuinely impressed me during testing — snap a photo at a hardware store and it auto-categorizes the expense before I’ve left the parking lot. The catch: five accounts on PRO and only 250 documents of storage, which a landlord with several older leases will hit faster than expected.

Best for: Mobile-first landlords who want serious bookkeeping without hiring an accountant.

4. RentRedi

RentRedi ditched its old low-cost Start tier’s usefulness and now sells one plan on three billing cycles: $29.95 month-to-month, $20/month on a 6-month term, or $12/month billed annually ($144/year flat, no per-unit surcharge no matter how many doors you manage). Every cycle includes the same feature set, which is unusual and honestly refreshing — no feature-gating games. The built-in accounting suite (receipt capture, Schedule E categorization, and bank feeds added earlier this year) is strong for the price. Tenant screening runs $39.99–$49.99, paid by the applicant, and ACH costs tenants $1 per payment. During testing, the tenant-side app was the most polished of any platform here — my test “tenant” logged a maintenance request with photos in under a minute.

Best for: Landlords who prioritize the tenant experience and are willing to commit to an annual plan to get the real price.

5. Stessa

Here’s the update that matters most: Stessa is no longer a single free tier. It’s now three plans — Essentials (free, unlimited properties, basic tracking and reporting), Manage (around $12–15/month, faster ACH, priority chat, portfolio analytics), and Pro (around $28–35/month, 1099 e-filing, state tax forms, mileage tracking, advanced reporting). The free plan is still solid for a landlord who just needs income/expense tracking and doesn’t file complex taxes solo, but if you were expecting the old “everything free forever” Stessa, that product no longer exists in the same form. Stessa still doesn’t do tenant screening, lease management, or maintenance coordination — it’s accounting-only, always has been.

Best for: Investors who already have a leasing/screening tool and just want clean books — pair it with something like a broader small-business toolkit if you’re running the rental alongside other side income.

6. Hemlane

Hemlane’s pricing formula is a flat platform fee plus a per-unit add-on that scales with service level: Basic runs about $28/month plus roughly $2/unit, Essential adds a 24/7 human repair-coordination desk for about $20/unit, and Complete adds a local leasing agent for showings and turnovers at roughly $58/unit. That last tier only works if Hemlane has boots-on-the-ground coverage in your market — worth checking your specific address before you pay for it, because the software layer works everywhere but the human layer doesn’t. For a landlord managing property from out of state, Essential’s repair coordination alone can be worth the premium over Basic.

Best for: Landlords who want the option to hand off tasks as their portfolio (or their patience) grows, without switching platforms entirely.

7. Landlord Vision (UK)

Landlord Vision is one of a small number of platforms with full HMRC-recognised Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax support built into the base subscription — a genuinely important detail now that MTD became mandatory in April 2026 for UK landlords with gross rental income over £50,000, dropping to £30,000 in April 2027. Pricing runs on tenancy bands rather than units: Starter is roughly £20–22/month for around 5 tenancies, Standard is about £30–35/month for 10, with extra tenancies billed individually beyond that. The interface feels dated next to newer entrants, and it has no dedicated mobile app — a real gap if you’re used to US-style platforms like RentRedi.

Best for: UK landlords who want a mature, all-in-one accounting-plus-management platform and don’t mind a less modern UI.

8. RentalBux (UK)

This one’s worth a correction from how I’d have described it a year ago: RentalBux has repositioned itself as MTD-first accounting software rather than a general tenant-management platform. It’s HMRC-recognised, built by the team behind UK Property Accountants, and is free with full feature access until March 2028 — a genuinely landlord-friendly runway given MTD is now mandatory. Its standout feature is automated joint-ownership profit-splitting: set ownership percentages once, and RentalBux calculates and files each owner’s share separately. It also handles combined rental-plus-self-employment MTD filings, which matters if you’re a landlord with a side trade. It is not a tenant-screening or lease-signing tool, so pair it with something operational if you need both sides covered.

Best for: UK landlords, sole traders, or partnerships who need MTD compliance handled properly and don’t need an operational property manager bolted on.

9. TenantCloud

TenantCloud’s free plan is genuinely dead — it disappeared during a 2021 repricing, but plenty of comparison sites still list it as free, which will trip up anyone doing a quick search. As of this update, the real tiers are Starter at $18/month ($15 on annual billing), Growth at $35/month, Pro at $60/month, and Business starting around $100/month with custom, per-unit pricing. Every tier now allows unlimited properties and listings, which is new. During testing, the interface handled a two-unit test portfolio fine, but the pattern reported across reviews — the system bogging down once a portfolio crosses roughly 50 units — lines up with what I’d expect from its architecture; this isn’t built for scale the way a dedicated PM company platform is.

Best for: Landlords ready to pay for a residential-focused platform and unlikely to scale past 50 units.

Market Snapshot: Why This Category Is Moving Fast

A few numbers explain why pricing keeps shifting underneath these tools:

Sources: Fortune Business Insights, RentPost industry data, 2026.

Key Features to Actually Look For

Rent collection and payout speed

Every platform on this list handles online rent collection now — that’s table stakes in 2026. What actually varies is payout speed (next-day vs. 2–5 business days) and who eats the transaction fee. If cash flow timing matters to you, ask this before anything else.

Tenant screening depth

Credit, criminal, and eviction history should all be included — TransUnion is the most common backend across this list. Screening fees range roughly $30–$55 and are almost always paid by the applicant, not the landlord.

Accounting and tax-readiness

This is where the free tiers get thin fastest. If you’re claiming mileage, depreciation, or running multiple owners on one property, check whether Schedule E (US) or MTD (UK) reporting is actually included at your plan level — not just teased on the pricing page.

Mobile access

A maintenance request always seems to land while you’re driving. Landlord Studio and RentRedi have the strongest native apps in this group; Avail and Landlord Vision are the two weakest on this front.

How to Choose

Don’t start with the priciest option. Match the tool to your actual bottleneck:

• 1–3 units, zero budget: Innago or Landlord Studio GO.
• Tenant acquisition is the pain point: Avail’s free tier, upgrading to Plus once ACH fees add up.
• You hate paperwork, live on your phone: Landlord Studio or RentRedi.
• UK landlord facing MTD: Landlord Vision if you want an all-in-one, RentalBux if you want accounting-only and free through 2028.
• You already have a leasing tool, just need books: Stessa’s Essentials plan.
• You want the option to outsource later: Hemlane, so you’re not migrating platforms mid-portfolio.

Whatever you pick, run a free trial with two or three real (or realistic mock) properties before committing annually. If you’re also weighing whether to bring on continuity or risk planning tools as your portfolio grows, that’s usually a stage-two decision, not a day-one one.

FAQ

Is TenantCloud still free?

No. TenantCloud’s free plan was discontinued in 2021. The cheapest current tier is Starter at $18/month, or $15/month billed annually.

Which property management software is actually free for landlords?

Innago has no landlord-side cost at all — it earns money from tenant-paid fees instead. Landlord Studio GO, Avail Unlimited, and Stessa Essentials are also genuinely free, though each caps certain features.

Do I need MTD-compliant software as a UK landlord?

If your gross rental income exceeds £50,000, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax became mandatory from April 2026. That threshold drops to £30,000 in April 2027. Landlord Vision and RentalBux are both HMRC-recognised for MTD.

What’s the cheapest way to manage 1–2 rental units?

Innago (fully free) or Landlord Studio’s GO plan (free up to 3 units) both cover the essentials without a subscription.

Conclusion

None of these nine platforms will make you a better landlord by themselves — but they will save you the hours you’re currently losing to spreadsheets and text-message rent reminders. If I had to pick one starting point for a brand-new US landlord in 2026, it’s Innago; for someone who wants real accounting muscle, Landlord Studio; and for UK landlords staring down the MTD deadline, RentalBux buys you time and compliance for free. Test two platforms side by side with your real numbers before you commit to a year of billing — the free trials exist for exactly this reason.