Search “best software for property managers” and most of the results are written by the software companies themselves, ranking their own product first. None of them mention clearly that several of these tools charge a flat monthly fee that applies no matter how few units you own — which means the per-door cost for a landlord with three properties can be three to four times higher than for one with twenty, on the exact same plan. We checked six tools’ own pricing pages directly to find out which ones do this and which ones don’t.
The short version: Hemlane is the clearest example of the trap: a $28/month platform fee applies to every paid tier before any per-unit charge is added, so a 3-unit landlord on its cheapest paid plan pays about $11.33/unit while a 20-unit landlord on the same plan pays about $3.40/unit. Baselane, Avail, and Stessa all have free tiers with no unit minimum, and TenantCloud prices by lease count with unlimited units included, so a small landlord isn’t punished for being small.
Quick Comparison: Pricing Structure and the Small-Landlord Math
| Tool | Free Tier? | Pricing Model | Flat Minimum Fee? | Cost at 3–5 Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DoorLoop | No | Flat tiers ($69/$149/$209 per mo, annual billing), Starter capped at 10 units | Yes — Starter’s $69/mo floor applies from 1 unit up to its 10-unit cap | $69/mo at 3 units → $23/unit, despite the page advertising “$3/unit” |
| Hemlane | Yes (Starter) | $28/mo platform fee + per-unit rate | Yes — $28/mo on every paid tier | Basic: $34–38/mo → $7.60–11.33/unit |
| TenantCloud | No (14-day trial only) | Flat tiers by lease count, unlimited units | Low ($15/mo annual Starter) | $15–18/mo flat → $3–6/unit |
| Baselane | Yes, full-featured | Flat $0 or $20/mo, no per-unit charge | No | $0, or $20/mo regardless of unit count |
| Avail | Yes (Unlimited) | Pure per-unit, no platform fee | No | $0, or $9/unit flat at any scale |
| Stessa | Yes (Essentials) | Flat tiers, unlimited properties | No | $0, or $12–15/mo flat regardless of units |
All six companies’ own pricing pages checked directly on August 26, 2026.
Hemlane: The Clearest Case of the Unit-Pricing Trap
Hemlane’s own pricing page lays out the math plainly, which is what makes the trap easy to see: Basic is listed as “$30/mo (incl. $28 platform fee), then $2/unit.” For one unit, that’s $28 + $2 = $30. For three units, it’s $28 + $6 = $34/mo, or $11.33 per unit. For five units, $28 + $10 = $38/mo, or $7.60 per unit. Only once you reach 20 units does the per-unit cost drop to a more reasonable $3.40 ($28 + $40 = $68/mo ÷ 20).
The flat $28 platform fee doesn’t buy anything extra at low unit counts. It’s the same fee whether you have one door or fifty, so it dominates the bill precisely when you can least afford it. Hemlane’s free Starter tier (full accounting, listings, and screening at $0/mo) exists for exactly this reason: the pricing structure makes the paid tiers a poor fit for a very small portfolio.
- Who should NOT use Hemlane’s paid tiers: anyone with 1–5 units, where the $28 platform fee makes the effective per-unit cost higher than nearly every competitor on this list. The free Starter tier is the better fit until the portfolio grows.
- Who it’s right for: landlords in the 15–20+ unit range, where the flat fee stops dominating and the per-unit rate becomes competitive.
DoorLoop: A “$3/Unit” Headline That Isn’t What You Actually Pay
DoorLoop’s pricing page lists three flat annual-billed tiers — Starter at $69/mo, Pro at $149/mo, Premium at $209/mo (monthly billing runs $99/$189/$239) — and prints “Only $3/unit” as a headline on every tier, including Starter. The page also states Starter is capped at a maximum of 10 units; above that you need Pro, which lists no stated cap beyond a general note that portfolios over 300 units should book a custom demo.
Do the math on Starter and the “$3/unit” figure falls apart fast: 10 units × $3 would be $30, but the plan costs $69/mo minimum, a floor price that applies whether you’re using 1 unit or all 10. For a landlord with 3 units, that $69/mo floor works out to $23/unit, nearly eight times the advertised per-unit rate. Only a landlord using all 10 units included in Starter gets close to the headline number ($6.90/unit), and even that is more than double $3. Pro and Premium carry the same “$3/unit” tag with no stated unit cap, so the same floor-price logic likely applies there too, though DoorLoop’s page doesn’t break out an exact included-unit count for those tiers.
- Who should NOT use DoorLoop: a landlord with 1–5 units who takes the “$3/unit” headline at face value. The real per-unit cost on Starter is $14–23/unit at that range, closer to the pricier end of this list than the cheap end the marketing implies.
- Who it’s right for: landlords using close to the full 10-unit Starter allowance, or larger portfolios on Pro/Premium who value DoorLoop’s broader feature set and aren’t counting per-unit costs closely.
TenantCloud: Priced by Lease Count, Not Unit Count
TenantCloud doesn’t currently offer a free tier, only a 14-day trial, but its pricing model works differently from DoorLoop or Hemlane in a way that favors small landlords. Its pricing page lists Starter at $15/mo billed annually ($18/mo monthly) for up to 10 leases, with “Properties & Units: Unlimited” applying on every tier. Growth runs $29/mo annual (up to 30 leases) and Pro runs $50/mo annual (up to 60 leases).
Because units are unlimited within the lease cap, a landlord with 3–5 units on the Starter plan pays the same $15–18/mo flat, working out to roughly $3–6 per unit, and that per-unit cost only improves as more units get added under the same 10-lease ceiling. There’s no platform fee stacked on top, unlike Hemlane.
- Who should NOT use TenantCloud: anyone who needs more than 10 active leases without upgrading, or who wants a $0 tier — TenantCloud’s cheapest option always carries a small monthly charge.
- Who it’s right for: a small landlord who wants predictable flat pricing without a Hemlane-style platform fee eating into the math at low unit counts.
Baselane: Free, With Real Bookkeeping Built In
Baselane’s Core tier is free at $0/month, not a stripped-down trial: it includes unlimited banking accounts with no minimum balance fee, full bookkeeping, automated rent collection and invoicing, a tenant portal, debit cards, QuickBooks/Xero sync, and a Schedule E tax package. The paid Smart tier is a flat $20/month (not per-unit) and adds AI auto-tagging, automated low-balance transfers, balance sheet reporting, team access, and faster 2-day rent deposits instead of the standard 5-day.
Baselane doesn’t charge per unit on either tier. Instead it makes money on banking and transaction fees: $2 for ACH transfers (waived for Baselane-to-Baselane deposits), $15 for wires (waived above a $50k combined balance), and a 3.49% fee when tenants pay by card. For a landlord with a handful of units and manageable transaction volume, that structure can end up cheaper than a per-unit competitor even accounting for those fees.
- Who should NOT use Baselane: anyone who doesn’t want property banking and property management bundled into one account, or who processes enough tenant card payments that the 3.49% fee adds up.
- Who it’s right for: a small landlord who wants real bookkeeping and rent collection at no subscription cost.
Avail: No Trap, But No Small-Portfolio Discount Either
Avail (now under Realtor.com, at avail.com) has the cleanest per-unit pricing on this list: the free Unlimited tier covers listings across 19+ sites, tenant screening, state-specific digital leases, online rent collection, and income/expense tracking at $0/unit. The paid Unlimited Plus tier is a flat $9 per unit per month, with no platform fee and no stated minimum, so the per-unit cost is identical whether you have 1 unit or 100.
That’s the honest version of per-unit pricing: it doesn’t punish a small landlord the way Hemlane’s platform fee does, but it also doesn’t reward scale the way TenantCloud’s flat lease pricing does. What you pay per door stays constant.
- Who should NOT use Avail’s paid tier: anyone who’d do just as well on the free Unlimited tier. The paid features (faster deposits, waived tenant ACH fees, custom application questions) are conveniences, not necessities, for most small landlords.
- Who it’s right for: a landlord who wants predictable, linear per-unit pricing with no surprises as the portfolio grows or shrinks.
Stessa: Free, Unlimited Properties, No Per-Unit Pricing at All
Stessa’s free Essentials tier includes unlimited properties, automatic bank feeds, basic financial reporting, tenant screening, and online rent collection, at $0/month with no unit cap. The paid tiers are flat, not per-unit: Manage at $12/mo billed annually ($15/mo monthly) adds Schedule E tax reporting and one eSignature a month, and Pro at $28/mo annually ($35/mo monthly) adds unlimited receipt scanning, budgeting, and up to seven eSignatures a month.
Every tier lists “unlimited properties,” so a landlord scaling from 3 units to 30 stays on the same flat price. Stessa is owned by Roofstock and leans toward financial tracking and reporting rather than the tenant-communication or maintenance-request features DoorLoop and Hemlane emphasize.
- Who should NOT use Stessa: a landlord who needs built-in maintenance request tracking or tenant messaging as a core feature. Stessa’s strength is financial tracking and tax prep, not day-to-day property operations.
- Who it’s right for: a landlord who mainly wants free, unlimited-property bookkeeping and doesn’t want per-unit costs creeping in as the portfolio grows.
Who Should NOT Buy Any of These Six
If you own one or two units and just need to collect rent and track a handful of expenses, the free tiers here (Baselane, Avail, Stessa, or Hemlane’s Starter) will cover it. Paying $30–99/month for DoorLoop or a paid Hemlane tier at that scale means paying for capacity built for a much larger portfolio. If you’re managing 25+ units with staff who need role-based access and heavier automation, the free tiers will start to feel limiting, and DoorLoop’s or Hemlane’s higher tiers are built for that scale specifically. The mismatch to avoid is a small landlord signing up for a tool priced, explicitly or effectively, for a mid-size portfolio.
FAQ
Which of these has a flat fee that hurts small landlords the most? Hemlane. Its $28/month platform fee applies to every paid tier regardless of unit count, so a 3-unit landlord pays roughly $11.33 per unit on the Basic plan versus about $3.40 per unit for a 20-unit landlord on the identical plan. Hemlane’s own free Starter tier exists as the workaround for small portfolios.
Is DoorLoop actually free for a small number of units? No. DoorLoop has no free tier, and its cheapest plan (Starter) starts at $69/month (annual billing), capped at 10 units. DoorLoop advertises “$3/unit” on every tier, but that figure doesn’t reflect what a small landlord actually pays: a 3-unit landlord on Starter still owes the full $69/mo floor, working out to about $23/unit, not $3.
Which of these tools are genuinely free, not just a trial? Baselane Core, Avail’s Unlimited tier, Stessa’s Essentials tier, and Hemlane’s Starter tier are all permanently free plans, not time-limited trials, as of this pricing check. TenantCloud only offers a 14-day trial before billing starts.
Do any of these charge the same regardless of how many units I have? Baselane’s $20/month Smart tier and Stessa’s paid tiers ($12–35/month) are flat fees not tied to unit count at all — you pay the same whether you have 3 units or 30. TenantCloud is flat within a lease-count cap (10, 30, or 60 leases) with unlimited units inside that cap.
Bottom Line: Which Should You Choose?
- If you own 1–5 units and want to spend nothing: Baselane (real bookkeeping + banking) or Stessa (unlimited free properties, stronger on reporting) are the strongest free options.
- If you want free plus the widest tenant-facing features (listings, screening, leases): Avail’s Unlimited tier at $0/unit.
- If you’re growing past a handful of units and want flat, predictable pricing: TenantCloud, which prices by lease count rather than punishing you per unit.
- If you’re already running close to 10 units: DoorLoop’s Starter plan gets closer to its advertised “$3/unit” rate as you approach the 10-unit cap, and Hemlane improves past 15–20 units, but both are a poor fit well below those thresholds.
- Whichever tool you land on, it won’t replace your invoicing software for other parts of the business: see our FreshBooks vs Wave vs Zoho Invoice comparison if you’re managing rental income alongside separate consulting or contracting work.
If you manage a homeowners association rather than rental units, see our HOA management software comparison.