· Independent
At ten doors you are buying every vendor's minimum, not a per-unit rate. TenantCloud Starter runs $180 a year, Rentec Starter $300, Buildium Essential $744 — and the rent-collection fees can double the cheapest one.
Loistrofi Editorial — Aug 24, 2026 — 8 min read
For ten doors, plan on $180 to $750 a year. TenantCloud Starter is $180 billed annually. Rentec Direct Starter is a flat $25 a month — $300 a year — and caps at ten properties and tenants. Buildium Essential starts at $62 a month, or $744 a year, before transaction fees. At this size, none of the three charges you per unit.
The subscription is only half the bill. Ten occupied units generate about 120 rent payments a year, and each vendor prices those differently: Rentec Starter charges $2.00 per incoming ACH, Buildium Essential charges $2.35 per incoming EFT, and TenantCloud passes a $1.95 ACH fee to the tenant. That single line moves the cheapest option around, so run it before you sign anything.
"Ten units" is your word, not theirs. Rentec Direct's Starter edition is sold as "Up to 10 Properties & Tenants" — properties, and tenants, not doors. If your ten doors are a triplex, a duplex and five single-family houses, that could read as seven properties or as ten, and the page we read does not resolve it. It also counts tenants, so a house with two named leaseholders may consume two of your ten.
Buildium's published page states "starting at" for all three tiers and, in the text we could read, never says how many units the starting price includes or what each unit above that costs. TenantCloud's page names no unit cap on Starter, Growth or Pro at all. So you cannot compare these three on a per-unit rate, because two of them do not publish one.
Before you open any pricing page, write down three numbers:
- Doors: the number of separately rentable spaces you collect rent on (ten, in this case).
- Properties: the number of distinct addresses or parcels — this is what Rentec's Starter cap appears to count.
- Active leases and named tenants: this drives screening volume, eSignature volume, and Rentec's tenant half of the Starter cap.
| Plan | Published price | Software cost, year one | Rent collection at ten units |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rentec Starter | $25/mo flat, up to 10 properties & tenants | $300 | Incoming ACH $2.00 each |
| Rentec Pro | $50/mo, save $60 billed annually | $600, or $540 annual | One free incoming ACH per active property per month; $0.50 over |
| Rentec PM | $50/mo, save $60 billed annually | $600, or $540 annual | Same fair-usage terms as Pro |
| TenantCloud Starter | $15/mo billed annually | $180 | ACH $1.95, paid by the tenant |
| TenantCloud Growth | $29.17/mo billed annually | $350 | ACH $1.75, paid by the tenant |
| TenantCloud Pro | $50/mo billed annually | $600 | ACH $1.50, paid by the tenant |
| TenantCloud Business | Starting at $100/mo | From $1,200 | Custom |
| Buildium Essential | Starting at $62/mo | $744, plus $99 bank account setup | Incoming EFT $2.35 → $282/yr |
| Buildium Growth | Starting at $192/mo | $2,304 | Incoming EFT $1.35 → $162/yr |
| Buildium Premium | Starting at $400/mo | $4,800 | Incoming EFT free for 12 months, then $0.60 |
The rent-collection column assumes one payment per unit per month, twelve months, ten units — 120 transactions. Multiply and Buildium Essential's electronic rent costs 120 × $2.35 = $282 a year on top of the $744 subscription. Add the $99 business bank account setup fee and Essential's first year is $1,125 before a single screening report. On Growth, the same 120 payments cost 120 × $1.35 = $162, and ten business bank accounts are included.
Starter is a flat $25 a month with no unit-based increase, which is the lowest published subscription with a real accounting product behind it. But at ten doors you are sitting exactly on the cap, and the plan charges $2.00 per incoming ACH. Ten tenants paying online all year is 120 × $2.00 = $240. Your $300 subscription becomes $540 all-in — which is the same as Rentec Pro billed annually, where incoming ACH is free under a fair-usage allowance of one free payment per active property per month.
That allowance is sized for exactly your situation: one rent payment per property per month, with excess payments at $0.50 each. Pro also adds API access, Zapier and bank sync, and the page says card payments run at a lower rate than Starter's. One warning worth taking seriously: Rentec states that once an account is upgraded to Pro or PM, it cannot be downgraded back to Starter. Going up is a one-way door.
Starter at $180 billed annually is the lowest number on this page, and ACH is listed at $1.95 paid by the tenant — so your 120 rent payments cost you nothing and cost each tenant about $23 a year. Whether you want to hand your tenants a fee is a business decision, not a software one, but it is the reason TenantCloud's total stays at $180 while Rentec Starter's climbs to $540.
Read the monthly price carefully. The page shows Starter's monthly rate as $18.00 in one place and $25/mo in another, both against the same $180 annual figure. That is a live discrepancy on the vendor's own page, and the only number stated consistently is $180 a year. Growth is $350 a year ($35 monthly), Pro is $600 a year ($60 monthly), and the Business tier starts at $100 a month with the final price depending on unit count and features — meaning ten units should never need it.
Buildium's Essential tier starts at $62 a month, but the add-on sheet is where a ten-unit landlord gets hit. eSignature is $5 per document on Essential and $1 on Growth: ten lease renewals plus a couple of addenda is $60 on Essential versus $12 on Growth. Property inspections carry a $99 setup fee and a $40–$95 monthly fee on Essential, included on Growth and Premium. Tenant screening is $17 per report, or $35 if the applicant pays it, and $20 for the enhanced version — which is only sold on Growth and Premium.
Adding inspections at the low end of the range makes Essential $744 + $99 setup + $480 inspections + $282 EFT + $99 bank setup = $1,704 for the year. Growth would include the inspections but costs $2,304 in subscription alone. Neither is a sensible answer for ten doors unless you specifically need Buildium's owner-facing tooling, 1099 e-filing at $50 per batch plus $4.50 per form, or the resident portal experience.
Divide the floor by your doors. TenantCloud Starter is $15 a month across ten units — $1.50 per door. Rentec Starter is $2.50 per door. Buildium Essential's published minimum is $6.20 per door at ten units; if that same $62 minimum still applied at thirty units it would be $2.07, and at sixty units $1.03. That is the whole shape of the problem: you are paying the same floor as a landlord three times your size, and the only way to stop feeling it is to buy more doors or buy a smaller product.
- If your ten doors sit at ten or fewer distinct addresses and you are happy for tenants to cover the payment fee, pick TenantCloud Starter at $180 a year, because it is the only option where 120 rent payments add nothing to your side of the bill.
- If you want rent collection free to both sides and expect to grow past ten, pick Rentec Pro at $50 a month ($60 off billed annually), because its fair-usage allowance of one free incoming ACH per active property per month covers exactly your twelve payments per unit per year, and Starter's $2.00 ACH would cost you $240 anyway.
- If you are certain you will stay at ten doors, your tenants pay by cheque or bank transfer outside the software, and you just want books and reports, pick Rentec Starter at $300 a year — but only after confirming the platform counts your ten doors as ten or fewer "properties and tenants".
- If you manage any of these units on behalf of someone else and need trust accounting, owner statements and an owner portal, pick Rentec PM at $50 a month, because it is the cheapest plan in this comparison that names those features outright; Buildium's equivalent starts at $192 a month on Growth.
- Ask Rentec's price calculator on the pricing page what your exact unit count costs on Pro — the page advertises an instant quote, and $50 is described as a starting price that "grows with you".
- Confirm in writing how Rentec's Starter cap counts a multi-unit building: ten doors at one address, or one property.
- Confirm what Buildium's $62 Essential minimum includes in units, and what each unit above that costs, because the published page states only "starting at".
- Confirm which TenantCloud monthly price is correct — the page shows both $18 and $25 for Starter against the same $180 annual rate — before you agree to month-to-month billing.
- Check whether your tenants can be charged the ACH fee on the platform you pick, and whether they will actually use online payment if they are.
- Ask whether the Rentec upgrade from Starter to Pro is genuinely permanent, since the page says a Pro or PM account cannot be downgraded back to Starter.
Buy Rentec Pro and pay annually. At $50 a month with $60 off for annual billing, you are at $540 for the year with free incoming ACH under the one-payment-per-property allowance, bank sync, API access and the ability to add unit eleven without a plan change or a fee argument. Rentec Starter looks $240 cheaper and is not, the moment your tenants pay online.
If your tenants will accept a $1.95 ACH fee and you genuinely do not need bank sync or API access, TenantCloud Starter at $180 a year is the better deal and it is not close — $360 a year saved is a month's rent on one unit. Buildium is a fine product priced for a portfolio you do not have: $744 minimum plus $282 in EFT fees plus a $99 bank setup is $1,125 to do what $540 does, and Growth at $2,304 is not a ten-unit purchase.
Loistrofi does not take vendor briefings or speak to sales teams. Every figure here comes from a page the vendor publishes itself, checked on Aug 24, 2026. Where a number could not be confirmed at source, it is marked rather than smoothed over.
