Reviewed by a team that manages 1,000+ rental units. Most DIY landlords don't need a single all-in-one suite — they need two purpose-built tools that do the two hardest jobs really well. Here are the ones we actually recommend.
Pricing verified July 2026
The short version: TurboTenant runs the front-of-house (listings, screening, rent), Stessa runs the back-of-house (books, banking, taxes). Most landlords benefit from both.
Our picks
Best Free Plan for DIY Landlords
TurboTenant
Partner
A genuinely free core toolkit for listings, screening, and rent collection.
Cheap paid tiers ($149–$199/yr for the essentials most landlords need)
Fast to set up
Cons
Renter-paid screening fees can frustrate applicants
Leases and e-signatures are paywalled to Essentials+
Pricing scales at higher unit counts (up to $999/yr Pro at 61+ units)
Best for: DIY landlords with a handful of units who want a free operations toolkit.
TurboTenant handles the operational side: listing your unit, taking applications, screening tenants, collecting rent online, and logging maintenance requests. Essentials adds unlimited leases + e-sign. Pro adds income verification, free ACH, and accounting insights.
Free unlimited-property bookkeeping plus purpose-built landlord banking.
Pricing
Essentials free · Manage $12/mo (billed annually) or $15/mo · Pro $28/mo (annual) or $35/mo
Fees
Cash Management: up to 1.88% APY (Essentials) / 3.24% APY (Pro); FDIC insured up to $3M per entity via partner banks; 1.1% cash back
Pros
Free tier supports unlimited properties, automatic bank feeds, and basic reports
Purpose-built landlord banking (Cash Management) with competitive APY
Schedule E report saves real CPA time at tax time
Cons
Best reports and top APY tier require Pro
Lease and maintenance tooling is thinner than a full property-management suite
E-signature caps on paid tiers
Best for: Landlords who want their books ready for Schedule E without a bookkeeper.
Stessa is the accounting brain: link your bank accounts, tag transactions to properties, and get owner-ready reports (including Schedule E). Manage adds maintenance requests + 60+ legal forms; Pro adds unlimited portfolios, advanced reports, unlimited receipt scans, and the top APY tier.
Feature depth on the free tier, honesty of pricing, whether renter-paid fees create friction on applications, quality of the accounting output at tax time, and how the pricing scales as your unit count grows.
Why two tools, not one
TurboTenant and Stessa are complementary — one handles operations (listings, screening, rent collection, maintenance), the other handles books and taxes. Many landlords end up running both because they each do their side better than the all-in-one alternatives.
Partner disclosure
Both TurboTenant and Stessa links are partner links. If you sign up we may earn a commission — the ranking is based on our operational use of both tools, not the commission rate.
