As a rental property owner, you know a lot of work goes into keeping your tenants happy and your property in good condition. From marketing your units to maintaining them, it’s essential to have a solid system in place to manage everything. 

There are a lot of different software options out there that can help you with this, but it can be tough to decide which one is right for you. In this post, we’ll compare 2 popular options—TurboTenant and RentRedi—to help you decide. 

We’ll also take a look at Stessa, a free rental property management software that over 200,000 investors already use to track their properties.

TurboTenant overview

The rental property management software from TurboTenant offers online advertising, tenant applications, screening, and rent payments. 

TurboTenant may be a good choice for landlords looking to easily manage an unlimited number of rental properties. With 24/7 customer service available online or by phone, TurboTenant makes it easy to get started without any upfront costs. 

Optional services like lease agreements, landlord forms, and digital signatures for signing leases online are also available for an additional charge.

Pricing

TurboTenant offers three pricing plans: Free, Pro, and Premium. Pro costs $119 per year, and the Premium plan costs $149 per year. 

Software features

• Property information, features, and photos can be placed on a professional listing page.
• Advertise vacancies on numerous rental listing websites, including Zumper, RentPath, and Realtor.com.
• Automatically track leads and prospect contact information.
• Create and customize rental applications to allow prospective tenants to apply using any computing device.
• TransUnion tenant screening includes a credit report, criminal history background check, and past eviction report.
• State-specific leases and addendums are available.
• Legally sign lease documents with digital signatures and documents online.
• Tenants can pay the rent online.
• Tenants and landlords can create and monitor maintenance and repair requests.
• Manually enter expenses in TurboTenant and assign them to the correct property and Schedule E category.
• Attach and store invoices and expense receipts to create a record.
• Download a CSV file with transactions, upload it to accounting software, or send it to a certified public accountant (CPA).

RentRedi overview

RentRedi offers an all-in-one property management software solution that is easy to use and can be accessed on computers and mobile devices. The company believes its technology is easy to adopt and is affordable for self-managing landlords who own residential real estate.

Pricing

RentRedi has 3 different pricing options based on the billing cycle. All billing cycles include unlimited rentals, tenants, team members, rental listings, and customer service. As of July 2022, the pricing options include:

• Monthly: $29.95
• 6 Months: $20 a month paid every 6 months
• Annual: $12 a month paid once a year

Software features

• Vacant property listings on RentRedi are automatically syndicated to partner sites Realtor.com and Zillow.
• Use a single dashboard to upload photos, create virtual tours, and manage listings, marketing, and showings.
• TransUnion provides access to comprehensive credit, criminal, and eviction history reports for every applicant.
• Landlords can prepare their own lease documents and upload them to RentRedi to be signed with digital signatures.
• The landlord dashboard manages rent, late fees, and evictions and sends rent reminders.
• Rent payments can be made online using an ACH transfer, credit or debit card, or cash at over 90,000 retail locations.
• Send in-app push notifications to renters, receive maintenance requests, and send rent reminders.

TurboTenant vs. RentRedi

Here’s a closer look at the main features landlords should consider when choosing between TurboTenant and RentRedi.

Listings

TurboTenant makes it simple to advertise your vacancies on well-known websites. A few clicks are all it takes to get your listing live on websites such as Realtor.com, Apartment List, Rent.com, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist. Plus, every rental property you have will receive its own individual listing page on the TurboTenant website.

RentRedi listings are immediately syndicated to Realtor.com and Doorsteps.com, where they may be seen by millions of people looking for rental properties in their area. In addition, landlords may use professional marketing pages on social media to advertise their properties and limit access to qualified renters only.

Tenant screening

TurboTenant and RentRedi use TransUnion to provide tenant screening reports, including credit, criminal, and eviction history reports to give landlords a complete picture of prospective tenants. Both companies charge tenants a fee for screening.

With TurboTenant, the tenant application and screening fee is currently $45 to $55 (can be paid for by the tenant), while RentRedi collects a $39.99 processing fee from the applicant.

Leasing

TurboTenant provides a platform for landlords to create and manage their rental agreements online. State-specific lease agreements are available for an extra cost for the Free and Vacancy Pro plans, as well as the option to use your own agreement. These can be sent to tenants for digital signature and then stored online. With the free TurboTenant plan, there is an additional cost for documents like state-specific leases and digital signatures.

RentRedi doesn’t offer a system for creating leases online. Instead, landlords may upload their own lease and addendums to share with applicants. The RentRedi Tenant App is used to create a legally binding signature, and the signed lease can be stored online with the tenant’s profile.

Online rent collection

TurboTenant charges $2 for ACH payments on the Free and Pro plan, while waiving it on the Premium plan. They also charge tenants 3.49% for paying rent using a debit or credit card.

RentRedi currently charges tenants $1 for each ACH or cash payment (available at over 90,000 retail locations) and 3.1% + 30 cents for each card payment. Landlords also have the option of picking up the fee themselves.

Financial reporting

With TurboTenant, you can manually enter and track all your expenses in one place at no extra charge. For each transaction, enter the date, property, and category for each expense. You can easily export all your transactions by creating and downloading a CSV to use with your favorite accounting software or to give to your certified public accountant (CPA).

Financial reporting is an add-on feature with RentRedi and requires a paid subscription with REI Hub, starting at $15 a month for up to 3 units as of January 2025. After signing up for an account, landlords can automatically sync properties to view the number, import recent transactions, and access preset rental templates. 

Tax management

Income and expense transactions entered on TurboTenant can be downloaded in a CSV format, uploaded to financial software such as QuickBooks, or sent to a CPA to help prepare a Schedule E. 

With RentRedi, a landlord must have a paid subscription with REI Hub to prepare a Schedule E and other reports, such as a P&L statement, cash-flow statement, and real estate balance sheet.

Stessa vs. TurboTenant vs. RentRedi

Although both TurboTenant and RentRedi come with a lot of features, they do have their shortcomings:

• TurboTenant only allows for 1 connected bank account on the Free and Pro plan, and income/expense tracking is done manually
• RentRedi’s lack of financial reporting without paying for REI Hub can be a dealbreaker for some landlords

That’s why 2 experienced real estate investors got together in 2016 and created Stessa, a Roofstock company, for rental property owners. 

Stessa is a cloud-based software that helps real estate investors maximize profits through smart money management, automated income, and expense tracking, personalized reporting, and much more:

• Automated income and expense tracking: Organize and categorize transactions automatically from connected bank, lender, credit card, and property management accounts with no extra fee or add-on required. 
• Financial reporting: Generate income statements, net cash flow reports, balance sheets (with the paid Stessa Pro plan), and more, all within the platform.
• Real-time performance metrics: Get 24/7 visibility into your portfolio’s performance with no third-party software required.
• Property management integration: Connect to some property management software platforms for a complete portfolio summary.
• Online rent collection: Automate your rent collection process, including payment reminders and late fees, reducing the likelihood of missed or late payments.
• Advertise vacancies: Publishing a vacancy for rent and syndicate your listing out to a variety of websites for maximum exposure to high quality tenants.
• Rental applications: Manage tenant applications efficiently and effectively by streamlining the process of publishing vacancies and collecting and reviewing applications.
• Landlord banking: Open FDIC-insured bank accounts and enjoy a more efficient way to manage your property-related finances. You can earn more than 10x the national average interest rate on every dollar deposited.*
• Tenant screening: Use a proprietary approach with RentPrep for comprehensive tenant checks, including a full credit report, background check, and more. Landlords can also add screening for income verification or of judgment and liens, increasing the odds of selecting reliable tenants.
• Unlimited properties: Add as many single-family homes, short-term vacation rentals, or multifamily units as you like.
• Tax center: Tax time is a cinch thanks to the Stessa Tax Package feature. It helps aggregate your transactions and sends you personalized tax reports via email with digital copies of all of your receipts packaged into a single ZIP file.
• eSigning (partnered with DocuSign): With the Stessa Pro plan, you can upload up to five documents monthly, mark them for electronic signatures, and send them to tenants, vendors, and partners.
• Smart receipt scanning: Add expense receipts to your transactions ledger quickly and accurately via mobile scans and email forwarding, reducing the risk of losing or misplacing vital receipts.

Go here to create a free Stessa account.

*Stessa is not a bank. Stessa is a financial technology company. Terms and conditions, features and pricing are subject to change. This article, and the Stessa Blog in general, is intended for informational and educational purposes only, and is not investment, tax, financial planning, financial, legal, or real estate advice.