· Independent
Buildium's cheapest published plan is $62 a month. DoorLoop's is $69 a month for up to ten units, billed yearly. Below fifteen doors you're paying the floor, not per unit — and the per-transaction fees decide the rest.
Loistrofi Editorial — Sep 1, 2026 — 8 min read
Buildium's lowest published price is $62 a month (Essential). DoorLoop's is $69 a month on Starter, billed yearly, capped at ten units. At ten doors that's $6.20 versus $6.90 per door — the floor, not a per-unit rate. The real difference is the transaction fees underneath, and which side of the table they land on.
The unit both vendors count is a rentable door, not a building and not a tenant. A twelve-unit building is twelve units. A single-family rental is one. Count vacant doors too — you're still administering them. This matters unevenly: DoorLoop's page has a field where you type your unit count, and Starter is explicitly capped at ten units, so your number changes the price you see. Buildium's page publishes no unit count at all. Its three tiers are "starting at" figures, with no per-unit rate and no ceiling shown, which means you cannot price Buildium from the page alone.
Write down four more numbers before you open either pricing page, because both vendors charge separately for all of them. First, how many incoming rent payments you process a month. Second, how many leases, renewals and addenda you sign in a year. Third, how many business bank accounts you'd connect. Fourth, whether you want property inspections in the software. On Buildium those are $2.35 to $0.60 per incoming EFT, $5 to $1 per eSignature, $99 per bank account, and $99 setup plus $40–$95 a month for inspections on Essential. Those line items move the total more than the plan choice does.
| What you pay | Buildium | DoorLoop |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest published plan | Essential, starting at $62/mo | Starter, $69/mo billed yearly |
| Units at that price | Not published | First 10 units, max 10 |
| Middle plan | Growth, starting at $192/mo | Pro, $149/mo billed yearly |
| Top published plan | Premium, starting at $400/mo | Premium, $209/mo billed yearly |
| Twelve months, middle plan | $2,304 | $1,788 |
| Incoming rent (EFT/ACH) | $2.35 Essential, $1.35 Growth, free 12 months then $0.60 Premium | Tenant pays $2.49 Starter, $1 Pro, free Premium |
| Credit card | 2.99% per transaction | Tenant pays 3.25% platform fee |
| eSignature | $5 / $1 / unlimited | $3 / $1 / free |
| Screening | $17, or $35 applicant-paid, or $20 enhanced (Growth & Premium) | $45 / $35 / $25, paid by applicant |
| Bank account setup | $99 each; 10 free on Growth, 100 free on Premium | $49 Starter, $25 Pro, free Premium, per bank account |
| Marketing website | Not separately priced on the page | $99/mo + $199 setup Starter; $49/mo + $199 setup Pro; free Premium |
Take twenty doors on Essential, all paying by bank transfer. That's $62 plus 20 × $2.35 = $47, so $109 a month before you send an owner draw ($0.99 each outgoing EFT). Add inspections and Essential wants $99 setup plus $40–$95 a month, so at the low end you're at $149 a month recurring. Your first month also carries $99 per business bank account. One bank account, twenty incoming EFTs, five outgoing, inspections at $40: $62 + $47 + $4.95 + $40 + $99 + $99 = $351.95 in month one, $153.95 a month after that. Sign forty documents a year at $5 and add another $200.
Growth is $192, a $130 step up from Essential. On payment fees alone the saving is $1 per incoming EFT ($2.35 down to $1.35), so pure transaction volume needs 130 rent payments a month to justify it. That's rarely the real math. Inspections are included on Growth, which removes a $40–$95 monthly fee, so at the $95 end you only need about $35 of transaction savings — roughly 35 incoming EFTs — to break even, plus eSignatures drop from $5 to $1 and you get ten free bank accounts. Premium at $400 is $208 above Growth: free incoming EFT for twelve months saves $1.35 each, needing 154 payments a month in year one, then 277 a month once the rate becomes $0.60.
Starter is $69 a month billed yearly for a maximum of ten units — $6.90 per door, or $828 across twelve months at the page's own $69 × 12. The structural difference is who pays to move rent: DoorLoop's page states the tenant pays $2.49 for ACH or a 3.25% platform fee for cards, and that screening is $45 to the prospective tenant. So ten doors collecting by ACH still cost you $69, not $85.50. What you do pay on Starter: $49 per bank account to set up Stripe, $3 per eSigned document, $49 per merchant application, and $99 a month plus $199 setup if you want the listings website — which would put your true monthly at $168.
Starter's ten-unit cap is the cliff to plan for. Add an eleventh door and the next published plan is Pro at $149 — an $80 jump, 116% more, for one extra unit. When we read the page its unit field carried 48 units, so treat $149 and $209 as 48-unit figures: $3.10 and $4.35 per door, consistent with the "$3/unit" label above each plan. Pro drops the tenant's ACH to $1, screening to $35, merchant applications to $25, eSignatures to $1, and the website to $49 a month. Premium at $209 is $60 more than Pro, and the free website alone is $49 of that, plus $25 screening and the ability to charge ACH fees back.
Under ten doors, both floors dominate and the sticker gap is $84 over a year ($744 versus $828), so let the fees decide: if rent runs through the software, DoorLoop's tenant-paid ACH wins; if it doesn't, Buildium's $62 is the cheapest published number on either page. Between roughly 10 and 50 doors it gets close — 40 doors on Buildium Essential with 40 incoming EFTs is $62 + $94 = $156 a month, against $149 for DoorLoop Pro at the 48-unit setting. Above 100 doors, if the $3-per-unit label holds, DoorLoop lands near $300 a month while Buildium Growth stays at $192 with inspections included. Past 300 units DoorLoop sends you to a demo, and Buildium's tiers were never priced publicly anyway.
- **If you manage ten doors or fewer and collect rent in the software, pick DoorLoop Starter.** $69 a month with the $2.49 ACH fee on the tenant beats $62 + 10 × $2.35 = $85.50 on Buildium Essential, and you avoid the $99-per-bank-account setup ($49 on Starter instead).
- **If you manage ten doors or fewer and collect rent outside the software, pick Buildium Essential.** $62 a month, $744 over twelve months, is the lowest published figure on either page, and none of Buildium's per-transaction line items fire if no money moves through it.
- **If you're between roughly 40 and 150 doors and want inspections in the tool, pick Buildium Growth.** The $130 step from Essential is mostly covered by dropping the $40–$95 monthly inspection fee, and eSignatures fall from $5 to $1 — forty documents a year goes from $200 to $40.
- **If you're at ten units on DoorLoop Starter and growing, budget the eleventh door now.** Starter is capped at ten, so unit eleven moves you to the next published plan at $149 — an $80 monthly increase. Decide whether Pro's tenant-paid $1 ACH and $35 screening earn it before you sign the annual term.
- **If you run 300 units or more, treat every number here as a starting point.** DoorLoop routes portfolios above 300 units to a demo, and Buildium publishes only "starting at" prices with no per-unit rate. Ask for the per-unit rate and the monthly minimum in writing before you compare anything.
- Type your real unit count into DoorLoop's pricing field and screenshot all three plan prices at that count. The $149 and $209 we saw sat alongside a 48-unit entry, and DoorLoop does not publish a minimum monthly charge for Pro or Premium.
- Ask Buildium for the per-unit rate, the included unit count and the unit ceiling on Essential, Growth and Premium. The page says only "starting at" — you cannot work out what 40 or 400 doors costs from it.
- Ask Buildium in writing whether the incoming EFT fee ($2.35 Essential, $1.35 Growth, $0.60 Premium after twelve months) is billed to you or passed to the resident. The page lists the fee but not who pays it, and at 100 payments a month that's the difference between $135 and $0.
- Get DoorLoop's annual figure confirmed. The FAQ says ten units on the basic plan is "$708 upfront for the entire year ($69 x 12 months)", but $69 × 12 is $828. Also pin down the 30%-off-three-months welcome offer: which plans qualify, what the waived onboarding fee would otherwise cost, and the price on month four.
At ten doors or fewer with rent running through the software, we'd take DoorLoop Starter at $69 a month and let tenants carry the $2.49 ACH — the annual commitment is the price of that structure, and $828 a year is predictable. From roughly 40 doors up, we'd take Buildium Growth at $192 a month: inspections included, eSignatures at $1, ten free bank accounts, and incoming EFT at $1.35 instead of $2.35. We would not buy Buildium Essential above about 30 doors that pay through the platform; the $2.35 per payment quietly makes it the more expensive plan.
Loistrofi does not take vendor briefings or speak to sales teams. Every figure here comes from a page the vendor publishes itself, checked on Sep 1, 2026. Where a number could not be confirmed at source, it is marked rather than smoothed over.
