Want to jump straight to the answer? The best free property management software for most people is Innago or Rentler.
Managing properties can be trickier than it looks. From collecting rent to handling maintenance and finding suitable tenants, there are so many elements to juggle.
Luckily, free property management software is here to help. It removes a great deal of the work—screening tenants, collecting rent online, and making quick maintenance requests is easy for anyone.
The Top 5 Best Free Property Management Software
- Innago — Best for rent collection
- Rentler — Best for detailed records
- Apartments.com — Best for listing multiple properties
- TenantCloud — Best for screening tenants
- Rentec Direct — Best for security
Those are our top picks. Let’s take a closer look at each.
Innago — The Best for Rent Collection
The days of knocking on doors and waiting for your rent are a thing of the past because property management software makes the process so simple. Innago, in particular, excels in the area.
With transparent payment tracking and safe and secure data transmission, collecting rent has never been easier. Innago offers a range of tools to ensure rent gets paid on time and somehow manages to offer it all to you for free.
With Innago, you’ll be able to automate late fees with custom settings. For example, repeating charges or flat fees every few days can be issued the longer you wait—the exact costs and how frequent are up to you.
You can even apply custom settings to different properties and units, giving you a great deal of flexibility.
Tenants get notified as the fees stack up, and they won’t be able to pay any future invoices until all past ones get sorted out first.
There are also exportable collection reports that are clean and simple to understand, and tenants can set up automated payments to you. The package includes automated invoices where you can charge your tenants monthly, weekly, or however else you want. Best of all, there are automatic payment reminder alerts to keep your tenants on track with their payments.
The total cost for all of this? $0. There’s no setup fee, monthly fee, or any contracts. What you see is what you get. Get started for free today.
Rentler — The Best for Detailed Records
Sometimes you need data to make the best decisions, especially in the competitive property market. Rentler understands this and goes that little bit further to give you everything you need to survive.
You’ll be able to receive a customized and detailed report that lists similar properties to yours, the local trends, and a recommended rental price for your property overall.
It doesn’t stop there, though: the reports offer insights into market saturation, vacancy rates, and trends for your area, allowing you to adapt your strategy as necessary and fill your properties with confidence.
On top of that, landlords will have access to internal and national data and the most up-to-date market analysis available—the level of detail is more than impressive.
The rentability reports serve as a complete analysis of how much your rental is worth based on a comparison of similar properties, and they’ll provide you with a recommended rent price and an estimated vacancy rate. The reports are also conducted for all rental types, whether it’s single-family homes, condos, apartments, or townhomes.
The vast majority of features are free, including 24/7 customer support, full tenant screenings, and free messaging on the platform. Landlords can add and manage properties at no cost, while tenants can search for places to rent and complete their applications using their free accounts.
That said, the rentability reports do cost $19.95 each, but the amount you’ll get from them more than makes up for the price.
Apartments.com — The Best for Listing Multiple Properties
Most landlords have more than one property to market, and some software out there will charge you every time you list a new one. Step in Apartments.com—it charges you nothing no matter how many properties you list.
You’ll be able to add your property quickly, whether it’s a condo or an apartment, and wait for the leads to come in.
For more exposure, should you need it, you can upgrade your ad to a premium listing. Premium listings offer up to ten times more exposure, higher placement results, a giant ad, and 30 days of higher visibility.
You’ll also be able to upload six videos to help fill your properties. The pricing varies depending on your state and market and will appear the moment you select your location.
Listing properties isn’t the only strength of the software, though. There’s also detailed expense tracking, automatic rent payments, tenant screening, and quick access to resident data.
It’s worth mentioning that documents shared between you and your tenants, like checklists, lease addendums, and quotes, can be uploaded and accessed in seconds too.
Sign up and add your properties today.
TenantCloud — The Best for Screening Tenants
Screening tenants before renting your property is essential to prevent problems and helps you get rent on time every month. It’s considered one of the most critical areas of the entire process.
Property managers need software that can screen tenants quickly yet thoroughly at the same time. TenantCloud strikes a great balance between these two and offers a range of tools to help you avoid problem tenants.
When your potential tenant submits their online application, you’ll be able to run a screening report directly from the software. It’s as easy as selecting the type of report you want and paying for it—you’ll be able to pay for this yourself or allow the tenant to pay.
The choice is yours, and this is something not all software offers, so it’s a welcome extra.
The screening reports themselves offer both an advanced background and credit check, in addition to a national eviction records search. They’ll focus on key areas such as criminal records, education, prior evictions, and employment history—the credit checks detail the applicant’s credit history in easy-to-read and digestible formats.
The software also grants users automatic invoicing, beautiful property listings, e-signatures to speed things up, and accessible online rent collection with multi-bank use. It’s a complete package.
While there used to be a free tier with limited features, it is no longer available. However, you can sign up for a free trial of the Starter or Growth plan to test out TenantCloud’s features. The Starter plan starts at $12 per month while the Growth plan starts at $40 per month.
You can get started with TenantCloud right here.
Rentec Direct — The Best for Security
Feeling safe online today is a crucial concern—you need to know that your transactions and data are protected, and this is particularly true for property managers.
Rentec Direct offers robust security protocols that provide that much-needed peace of mind. It uses advanced server technology to guarantee your data is transferred and stored securely at all times.
Your data gets stored on servers monitored 24/7 every day of the year, protecting it against botnets, phishing scams, and other hacks. It’s undoubtedly a substantial part of the package and a more valuable inclusion for those who worry about security.
Of course, Rentec Direct offers more than just great security, with features like detailed investment analytics, an entire tenant and owner portal, and intelligent tenant screening. On the latter, you’ll be able to import an approved applicant directly to the Rentec Direct portal, and applicants can upload and share their important documents, images, and more with ease.
Rentec Direct isn’t outright free forever, but it does come with a free trial with no initiation fee, and you can cancel at any time without fuss. It’s $45 per month based on ten units, but the advanced security features more than compensate for the price if you ask us.
How To Find the Best Free Property Management Software
Choosing the best property management software can feel like a longer process than it needs to be—free or not. Each can vary substantially on what it offers, but the core features remain the same.
For instance, some software will provide tenant portals and advanced screening, while others will focus on security features more than anything else. It’s important to understand that just because the software is free—most of the time—that doesn’t mean it’s identical. There are several defining features and other vital areas to consider.
Of course, personal circumstances will also heavily factor into your decision-making process. For example, a property manager with multiple properties will most likely need different software than those who want to list a single property on the market. Likewise, some users will prefer more advanced rent collection tools than others.
We’ve listed some of the key areas to consider to help make your decision that little bit easier.
Number of Units
The number of units you manage will significantly affect which software is the best for you. Those managing three units will not have the same needs as others who need to manage 3,000 units, of course.
Most free property software allows you to manage a number of properties, but there are limits to this and it does vary across the board. You’ll often find that the software will charge you to manage more after a certain number of units, usually around ten or so.
If you need to manage a vast number of units, it’s probably best you look for paid property management software from the start, as you’re unlikely to find free software that offers the capability you need. Think about what you require and go from there.
Tenant Portal
Tenant portals are important because they allow tenants to take ownership of things like paying rent and informing landlords of any maintenance issues. They also facilitate communication and enable tenants to update their contact details.
The thing is, not all property management software offers a tenant portal. Most of the software on our list does, but don’t expect it to be a standard feature.
Our advice is to stick to property management software with tenant portals where possible as they offer much more than those that don’t.
Accounting
Not everyone is going to need powerful accounting features, but it’s a key consideration. After all, the ability to keep your numbers accurate and measure your expenditure is often vital, even for those with a smaller property portfolio.
Some free property management software will offer accounting features such as general ledgers or the ability to centralize all forecasting in one place. Others will provide basic functionality that allows you to see rent collection and other simple invoices but won’t go further than that.
Your needs here will depend on your circumstances, but it’s a key area to consider for most users.
The Top Free Property Management Software in Summary
Free property management software handles tenant screening, rent collection, maintenance requests, and everything else you need to manage properties more effectively.
Innago and Rentler are our top two recommendations. While choosing the best tool for you, be sure to keep in mind the number of units it allows you to manage and whether there’s an online tenant portal.