The most honest four-way comparison of property management software on the internet — because I paid for all four of them myself before building Tenantory. No strawmen, no cherry-picked screenshots. Here's what each one actually does, what it actually costs, and which one you should pick.
If you have 5–50 units and want tenants to see your brand when they pay rent, pick Tenantory. The $99 flat price beats every other option at that size, and you get a branded subdomain without needing a Scale plan.
If you run 250+ doors with a leasing team and need deep GL accounting, bank reconciliation, or corporate AP approvals, AppFolio or Buildium are still the right answer. Buildium wins if you care about accounting depth; AppFolio wins if you need enterprise tooling (Plus plan).
If you like DoorLoop's UI (it's genuinely the prettiest of the legacy tools), you don't care about branded tenant portals, and you're okay signing an annual contract — DoorLoop is a fine pick. Pricing is similar to Tenantory at comparable unit counts.
Everyone else — which is most landlords under 50 units — should save the $180–$400/mo and switch to Tenantory.
If a vendor partially does something, we say "partial" instead of a green checkmark. If I haven't personally verified a number in the last 60 days, it isn't on this table.
| Feature | Tenantory$99/mo flat | AppFolio$280/mo + /unit | Buildium$58–$479/mo | DoorLoop$69–$229/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||||
| Starting price | $39/mo | $280/mo base | $58/mo | $69/mo |
| Minimum units required | 1 | 50 | 1 | 1 |
| Per-unit fees | None | $1.40/unit | $0.50–$1.50 | Tiered cap |
| Annual discount | 2 months off | None | ~10% | ~20% |
| Tenant experience | ||||
| Branded tenant portal | Enterprise only | Logo only | Logo only | |
| Custom domain (rentyourname.com) | — | — | — | |
| Tenant iOS/Android app | PWA (web) | |||
| SMS notifications included | 2,000/mo | Add-on | Add-on | Included |
| Leasing | ||||
| Lease e-signature | ||||
| State-specific lease templates | All 50 | All 50 | All 50 | All 50 |
| AI application scoring | Beta | — | — | |
| Cosigner / guarantor support | Manual | |||
| Payments | ||||
| ACH fee | $0 | $1.00/txn | $0 (Premium) | $0 |
| Card fee | 2.95% | 2.99% | 2.95% | 2.95% |
| Tenant autopay | ||||
| Split-rent between roommates | — | Workaround | Workaround | |
| Accounting | ||||
| Income/expense ledger | ||||
| True double-entry GL | Simplified | |||
| 1099 generation | ||||
| Schedule E tax pack export | CSV only | CSV only | ||
| QuickBooks sync | Export only | |||
| Operations | ||||
| Maintenance ticketing | ||||
| Vendor portal | Growth plan | |||
| Listing syndication (Zillow, Trulia, etc.) | ||||
| Support & trust | ||||
| Support response SLA | Same-day | 1–2 business days | 24 hr | Same-day chat |
| SOC 2 Type II | In progress | |||
| Money-back guarantee | $100 + refund | — | 30-day | 30-day |
| Setup & migration | ||||
| Typical onboarding time | 3 days | 4–6 weeks | 1–2 weeks | 5–10 days |
| Free data migration help | — | Paid tier | ||
| Required implementation call | Optional | Mandatory | Optional | Mandatory |
Annual plan where available. Base software only — card processing is roughly equal across all four, so it's excluded.
AppFolio requires 50 units minimum, so at 25 units you'd either be ineligible or pay the 50-unit floor ($280 + $70 = $350/mo). Numbers assume you meet the floor. Includes one-time $1,500 implementation fee amortized into Year 1.
We migrate your data for free. Pick your current tool — the deeper guide covers CSV exports, what transfers cleanly, and what doesn't.
Export the Tenant Directory, Rent Roll, and Owner Statements from AppFolio's Reports tab. Everything except internal chat threads and appraisal docs transfers. Typical cutover: 72 hours.
Full AppFolio migration guideBuildium's CSV export is the cleanest of the four — they give you a zip with properties, units, tenants, leases, and transactions as separate files. We re-map columns and you're live in 3 days.
Full Buildium migration guideDoorLoop exports cleanly from Settings → Data Export. The only thing that doesn't transfer is their internal Task list — but those map neatly into Tenantory's Maintenance module as open tickets.
Full DoorLoop migration guideNo credit card, no contract, no onboarding fee. If it doesn't save you 10 hours in the first 30 paid days, we refund every dollar and wire you $100 for your time.