What property managers actually need from PM software
Before you compare pricing pages, get clear on the six things your software has to handle well. Everything else is secondary.
Tenant screening that runs credit checks, criminal background, and eviction history from inside the platform. If you're copying applicant info into a separate screening site, that's wasted time and a data entry error waiting to happen. Buildium and AppFolio both include integrated screening. TenantCloud offers it through TransUnion.
Online rent collection with ACH and credit card options. Tenants should be able to set up autopay without calling your office. You need to see who paid, who's late, and what's outstanding in one view. Late fees should post automatically based on the lease terms you set.
Maintenance request tracking from submission to completion. Tenants submit through a portal or app, your team assigns a vendor or in-house tech, and the owner can see what was done and what it cost. The best platforms let tenants attach photos and track status without calling you.
Owner reporting that generates monthly statements, annual tax packages, and cash flow summaries without manual spreadsheet work. If you manage for third-party owners, this is the feature that keeps or loses clients. Owners want a portal where they can pull their own reports.
Lease management with digital signatures, renewal tracking, and rent escalation schedules. You should know which leases expire in the next 90 days without running a manual check. The system should flag upcoming renewals and let you send renewal offers from inside the platform.
Accounting integration that handles trust accounting, bank reconciliation, and general ledger without needing QuickBooks on top. Property management accounting is different from general business accounting because of trust fund requirements. Most PM platforms have this built in. If yours doesn't, that's a red flag.
The biggest mistake we see: picking software based on the tenant-facing features and ignoring the accounting. If your PM software can't handle trust accounting and owner disbursements natively, you'll end up maintaining a parallel system in QuickBooks. That defeats the purpose.
The 5 platforms worth evaluating
These five cover everything from a landlord with 10 doors to a company running 5,000 units. Your portfolio type and size narrow the list fast.
| Feature | Buildium | AppFolio | Propertyware | Rent Manager | TenantCloud |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $58/mo | $298/mo min | $1/unit/mo ($250 min) | Custom quote | Free (75 units) |
| Portfolio type | Residential / community assoc. | Residential, commercial, mixed | Single-family | Mixed-use, flexible | Small residential |
| Tenant screening | Built-in | Built-in | Built-in | Built-in | TransUnion |
| Online payments | ACH + CC | ACH + CC | ACH + CC | ACH + CC | ACH + CC |
| Maintenance portal | Yes | Yes + AI triage | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Accounting | Full GL + trust | Full GL + trust | Full GL + trust | Full GL + trust | Basic income/expense |
| Best for | Residential <500 units | Growing cos. 200-5000 | Single-family portfolios | Mixed-use, custom reporting | Small landlords, free start |
Buildium
Pricing: $58/mo (Essential, up to 150 units), $183/mo (Growth), $375/mo (Premium). Per-unit pricing on larger portfolios.
Buildium is the default pick for residential property management companies and community associations. It covers the full workflow: listings, applications, screening, leasing, rent collection, maintenance, accounting, and owner reporting. The interface is straightforward. Most teams are operational within a week.
The accounting is where Buildium really pulls ahead. Full general ledger, trust accounting, 1099 generation, and owner statements that don't look like they were exported from a spreadsheet. For companies managing 50 to 500 residential units, it handles the day-to-day without you needing to bolt on extra tools.
What it does well:
- Strong accounting with trust fund tracking and bank reconciliation
- Built-in tenant screening through TransUnion
- Owner portal with real-time access to statements and reports
- Community association management features on higher tiers
- Transparent pricing with no sales call required
Where it falls short:
- Reporting customization is limited compared to Rent Manager
- No commercial property features. Residential and associations only.
- Mobile app is functional but not as polished as AppFolio's
- Maintenance workflow lacks vendor bid management
Read the full breakdown: Buildium vs Propertyware
AppFolio
Pricing: $0.80/unit/mo minimum, with a $298/mo floor. Plus tier adds AI features and starts at $3/unit/mo.
AppFolio is built for management companies that are past the startup phase and growing. It handles residential, commercial, student housing, and community associations in one platform. The thing worth paying attention to in 2026 is their AI leasing assistant. It answers prospect inquiries, schedules tours, and follows up on its own.
The platform also has the best mobile experience of the five. Field teams, maintenance coordinators, and property managers can run most of their day from the app. Inspections, work orders, and tenant communication all work on mobile without feeling like a shrunken desktop site.
What it does well:
- AI leasing assistant that handles inquiries and schedules showings
- Best mobile app of the five, for both field and office teams
- Handles residential, commercial, and student housing in one platform
- Maintenance triage that auto-routes requests by category and urgency
- Vacancy posting syndication to Zillow, Apartments.com, and 20+ sites
Where it falls short:
- $298/mo minimum makes it expensive for small portfolios
- No month-to-month option. Annual contracts only.
- Custom reporting requires the Plus tier
- Onboarding takes 2-4 weeks with a dedicated rep
Propertyware
Pricing: $1/unit/mo (Basic), $1.50/unit/mo (Plus), $2/unit/mo (Premium). $250/mo minimum.
Propertyware is the only platform on this list built specifically for single-family rental portfolios. Managing 200 scattered-site houses is a different problem than managing a 200-unit apartment complex. Properties are spread across towns. Each has its own owner, its own maintenance needs, and its own P&L. Propertyware handles that scattered-site reality better than tools designed for multifamily buildings.
The platform gives you property-level profit and loss reporting, which is what single-family owners care about. Each property has its own financial picture. Buildium and AppFolio can do this, but it's not their default workflow. In Propertyware, it is.
What it does well:
- Property-level P&L reporting built for scattered-site portfolios
- Customizable fields and workflows for different property types
- Maintenance coordination with vendor assignment and bid tracking
- Marketing tools with individual property websites
- Owned by RealPage, which gives access to broader data and integrations
Where it falls short:
- Interface feels dated compared to AppFolio and Buildium
- Learning curve is steeper. Plan for more setup time.
- Not a good fit for multifamily buildings
- Customer support reviews are mixed
Read the full breakdown: Buildium vs Propertyware
Rent Manager
Pricing: Custom quotes only. Generally competitive with Buildium and AppFolio on a per-unit basis for mid-to-large portfolios.
Rent Manager is the power-user option. If your portfolio includes apartments, commercial spaces, storage units, and HOAs, Rent Manager handles all of them without forcing you into separate modules or workarounds. The reporting engine is the deepest of any platform here. You can build custom reports pulling from any field in the system.
The trade-off is complexity. Rent Manager requires more configuration up front, and the learning curve is real. This is not the tool for a landlord with 20 units who wants something simple. It's for management companies with diverse portfolios that need their software to flex with them.
What it does well:
- Handles any property type: residential, commercial, storage, HOA, mixed
- Most customizable reporting of any PM platform
- Open API for custom integrations
- Double-entry accounting with granular chart of accounts control
- Desktop and cloud versions available
Where it falls short:
- No published pricing. You have to talk to sales.
- Steepest learning curve of the five. Budget for training time.
- Tenant-facing portal is less polished than AppFolio or Buildium
- Overkill for simple residential portfolios
TenantCloud
Pricing: Free (up to 75 units), $15.60/mo (Starter, 150 units), $25.50/mo (Growth, 500 units).
TenantCloud is the entry point. If you own a few rental properties and manage them yourself, this is where you start. The free tier covers tenant screening, online payments, maintenance requests, and basic accounting for up to 75 units. That's a real free tier, not a 14-day trial.
The catch is that TenantCloud's accounting is basic. It tracks income and expenses, but it doesn't have the full general ledger, trust accounting, or bank reconciliation that Buildium and AppFolio offer. For a landlord with 10 single-family homes, that's fine. For a management company handling other people's money, it's not enough.
What it does well:
- Free tier for up to 75 units with real functionality
- Tenant screening through TransUnion
- Online rent payments with autopay
- Maintenance request portal with photo attachments
- Easy to figure out without training
Where it falls short:
- Accounting is basic. No trust accounting or full GL.
- Owner reporting is minimal compared to Buildium or AppFolio
- No commercial property support
- Limited customization and automation options
- Not built for third-party management companies
How to decide
The right tool depends on what you manage and how many doors you have.
Under 75 units, self-managed residential: Start with TenantCloud's free tier. You get screening, payments, and maintenance tracking at no cost. If you outgrow it, migrate to Buildium.
75-500 residential units or community associations: Buildium. Solid accounting, clean owner portal, transparent pricing. It handles mid-size residential without drama.
200+ units and growing, multiple property types: AppFolio. The AI leasing assistant and mobile experience justify the higher price point when you're scaling past a few hundred doors.
Single-family scattered-site portfolio: Propertyware. Built for the specific challenges of managing individual homes spread across multiple locations. Property-level P&L out of the box.
Mixed-use portfolio with complex reporting needs: Rent Manager. If you have apartments, retail, storage, and HOAs in one portfolio, Rent Manager is the only tool that handles all of them without workarounds.
The most common setup we see: Self-managing landlords start with TenantCloud, then switch to Buildium around 75-100 units. Management companies running 200+ doors land on AppFolio or Rent Manager depending on portfolio mix.
Automating your property management workflow
Your PM software handles the core operations. But property managers still spend hours on manual tasks that sit between systems: following up on late rent, coordinating lease renewals, routing maintenance requests to the right vendor. Automation handles those.
Common automations we build for property management companies:
- Late rent reminders: Tenant's payment is 3 days overdue. The system sends an SMS reminder with a payment link. If still unpaid at day 5, an email follows with late fee notice. At day 10, a task gets created for your team to start the formal process.
- Lease renewal sequences: 90 days before expiration, the tenant gets a renewal offer with updated terms. If no response in 14 days, a follow-up goes out. At 60 days, your team gets alerted if the tenant still hasn't responded so you can start marketing the unit.
- Maintenance routing: Tenant submits a request tagged "plumbing." The system checks your vendor list, sends the work order to your preferred plumber, and notifies the tenant with an expected response time. Emergency requests (flooding, no heat) skip the queue and trigger an immediate call to your on-call vendor.
- Owner reporting: Monthly statements compile automatically on the 5th. Owner gets an email with a PDF and a link to their portal. No manual export-and-email required.
- Vacancy marketing: Unit marked as upcoming vacancy in your PM software triggers a listing push to Zillow, Apartments.com, and your website. Photos and descriptions pull from the property record.
The connectors for this are typically n8n, Make, or Zapier. AppFolio and Buildium both have APIs that support these workflows. Propertyware and Rent Manager have open APIs as well. TenantCloud's integration options are more limited.
Running manual processes that your PM software should handle? We'll map your workflow and show you what to automate first.
Get a Free Automation Audit →Buildium vs Propertyware — the full head-to-head for residential vs single-family portfolios.
n8n vs Make vs Zapier — for connecting your PM software to the rest of your stack.
Not sure which PM software fits your portfolio?
We'll look at your current tools, portfolio size, and the manual work eating your hours. Then we'll tell you which setup makes sense and what to automate first. See how we help property managers.
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