Prices checked September 29, 2026; TenantCloud rechecked October 8, 2026

AppFolio Alternatives
for Small Landlords

You searched for an AppFolio alternative, so there is a good chance you already hit the wall: AppFolio Core has a 50-unit minimum and no published price. This page lists what small landlords actually switch to, with every price taken from the vendor's own pricing page. SealedFolio publishes this page and sells one of the options, and it is listed with its gaps in every table below.

The best AppFolio alternative, in one answer

SealedFolio's short answer: the best AppFolio alternative depends on which part of AppFolio you wanted. If you wanted a full property management platform without the 50-unit floor, look at Buildium (from $62 a month) or Yardi Breeze ($1 per unit per month, $100 monthly minimum, annual agreement). If you self-manage a few doors and want online rent, screening and maintenance requests, look at TenantCloud (Starter up to 10 leases from $15 a month billed annually), RentRedi ($12 a month billed annually) or DoorLoop (from $69 a month billed annually, up to 10 units on Starter). If you want free, Stessa Essentials and Baselane Core cost $0. If you mainly want clean books and Schedule E reports kept off a vendor's servers, SealedFolio Pro is $19 a month for up to 3 properties and SealedFolio Portfolio is $39 a month unlimited, both with a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first payment, stored in an encrypted vault on your Mac or Windows PC. SealedFolio does not collect rent or screen tenants.

Every figure comes from the vendor's pricing page as read on September 29, 2026, with TenantCloud rechecked October 8, 2026: AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi Breeze, DoorLoop, TenantCloud, RentRedi, Stessa and Baselane. SealedFolio figures come from the SealedFolio pricing page. Vendors change plans, so confirm before you move a portfolio.

Why AppFolio does not sell to most small landlords

AppFolio is built for property management businesses, and its own pricing page says so in the fine print. SealedFolio read the AppFolio pricing page on September 29, 2026, and this is what it shows:

Three plans, no dollar figures. Core, Plus and Max each carry a Get a Quote button instead of a price.
A hard floor on Core. Core lists "Minimum spend and 50 unit minimum apply." Plus and Max say "Minimum spend and units apply" without publishing the number.
A feature list sized for a management company. Core covers property accounting and reports, marketing and leasing, work orders, inspections and unit turns, purchase orders and inventory tracking, integrated communication and the Realm-X assistant. Plus adds affordable and student housing tools, advanced budgeting and a read-only API. Max adds a leasing CRM and dedicated customer success management.

If you own 4 houses or a 12-unit building, none of that is available to buy, and much of it is built for managing other owners' properties. That is the real reason "AppFolio alternative" is a small-landlord search. The good news is that almost every tool in the comparison below publishes a price, and most have no unit minimum at all.

A note on the other lists you will find for this search. Some of the ranking roundups mix in general business tools such as monday, Jotform and Wrike, and one lists investment-management platforms like Juniper Square. SealedFolio kept this page to rental property software a landlord would actually move to.

AppFolio alternatives compared: published prices, unit rules and where your data lives

AppFolio sits in the first row for reference. Every other row, SealedFolio included, is a tool with a price you can read before you talk to sales.

Tool	Starting price (published)	Unit rule	What the entry plan covers	Where data lives
AppFolio Core	Quote only, minimum spend applies	50-unit minimum	Accounting, leasing, work orders, inspections, communication, AI assistant	AppFolio's cloud
Buildium Essential	From $62 a month. Growth from $192, Premium from $400	No minimum listed. Call over 5,000 units	Basic accounting, maintenance, leasing, standard reports, AI assistant	Buildium's cloud
Yardi Breeze	$1 per unit per month, $100 monthly minimum, annual agreement. Premier $400 minimum	Priced per unit, minimum spend	Online rent (ACH and card), listings and applications, basic accounting, maintenance requests	Yardi's cloud
DoorLoop Starter	$69 a month billed annually, $99 monthly	Up to 10 units. Pro from $149 a month annually	Online rent, tenant portal, maintenance, accounting, applications with screening, eSignature	DoorLoop's cloud
TenantCloud Starter	$15 a month billed annually, $18 monthly	Unlimited properties and units, up to 10 leases on Starter; Growth 30, Pro 60	Online rent, maintenance, listings and applications. Growth costs $350 a year; Pro costs $600 a year and adds tax reports. Business has custom pricing beyond 60 leases	TenantCloud's cloud
RentRedi	$12 a month billed annually, $29.95 monthly	Unlimited properties, no per-unit fee	Rent collection, accounting tools, screening (tenant pays), listings, maintenance	RentRedi's cloud
Stessa Essentials	$0. Manage $12 a month annually, $15 monthly	Unlimited properties	Rent collection, screening, maintenance tracking. Schedule E starts on Manage	Stessa's cloud
Baselane Core	$0. Smart $20 a month on an annual plan	No minimum listed	Landlord banking, rent collection, bookkeeping, Schedule E reports	Baselane's cloud
SealedFolio	Pro $19 a month or $179 a year. Portfolio $39 a month or $297 a year. No free tier, 30-day money-back guarantee	Pro up to 3 properties, Portfolio unlimited	Tenant files, rent roll, lease tracking, work orders, income and expenses, Schedule E and T776. No online rent or screening	Encrypted vault on your Mac or Windows PC

Sources read September 29, 2026, with TenantCloud rechecked October 8, 2026: AppFolio plans, Buildium pricing, Yardi Breeze pricing, DoorLoop plans, TenantCloud plans, RentRedi pricing, Stessa plans, Baselane pricing, SealedFolio brand facts. Rent Manager is left out of the table because its pricing page shows Basic, Plus and Premium bundles with a Get Quote button and no prices, the same problem as AppFolio.

What AppFolio alternatives cost in year one on eight rentals, SealedFolio included

AppFolio alternatives are easiest to compare on a real portfolio, so take a landlord with eight single-family rentals, billed annually wherever the vendor offers it, using the pricing pages SealedFolio read on September 29, 2026.

AppFolio Core: not available. Eight units is under the 50-unit minimum.
Yardi Breeze: 8 units x $1 is $8 a month, but the $100 monthly minimum applies, so $1,200 for the year. That works out to $12.50 per unit per month until you pass 100 units.
Buildium Essential: from $62 x 12 = $744 for the year. Buildium lists this as a starting price.
DoorLoop Starter: $69 x 12 = $828 for the year. Starter stops at 10 units, so buying unit 11 moves you to Pro at $149 a month annually, which is $1,788 a year, and DoorLoop says Pro pricing scales at $3 per unit.
TenantCloud: Starter is $180 for the year and covers up to 10 leases, so it fits eight rentals with one lease each. Growth is $350 for up to 30 leases; Pro is $600 for up to 60 and adds tax reports.
RentRedi: $144 for the year on the annual plan.
Stessa: Essentials is $0. Manage, which adds the Schedule E report, is $144 for the year.
Baselane Core: $0 if rent lands in Baselane Checking. If rent goes to your existing bank, 8 tenants x 12 months x $2 = $192 a year, unless you pass the fee to tenants.
SealedFolio Portfolio: $297 for the year. Eight properties is over the 3-property limit on SealedFolio Pro, so Portfolio is the plan. No rent fees, because SealedFolio does not move rent.

On price alone, RentRedi, Stessa and Baselane win for a small portfolio, and the management-company tools cost several times more. SealedFolio sits in the middle. What you pay SealedFolio for is local storage and tax output, not a cheaper rent collection tool, and you can run SealedFolio next to a free rent collector if you want both. Expecting to grow past eight rentals? SealedFolio repeats this math at 3, 10, 25, 50 and 100 units in its rental software cost breakdown by portfolio size.

Pick an AppFolio alternative by the part of AppFolio you wanted

AppFolio bundles three jobs into one quote. Small landlords rarely need all three, and SealedFolio only does one of them.

Tenant operations

Rent, screening, repairs

If the AppFolio feature you wanted was tenants paying online and submitting maintenance requests, TenantCloud, RentRedi, DoorLoop and Stessa all do it without a unit floor. RentRedi starts at $12 a month billed annually. TenantCloud Starter is $15 a month billed annually for up to 10 leases.

SealedFolio does not do this job.

Management company

Owners, ledgers, staff

If you manage other people's properties, you need what AppFolio sells to managers. Buildium from $62 a month and Yardi Breeze Premier at a $400 monthly minimum, with its owner portal and separate property and corporate ledgers, are the closest published-price peers.

SealedFolio does not list owner portals or trust accounting, so it is not built for this job.

Books and taxes

SealedFolio, locally

If you wanted AppFolio's accounting and reports for your own rentals, SealedFolio keeps per-property ledgers, tenant files, the rent roll, work orders and Schedule E and T776 reports in an encrypted vault on your Mac or Windows PC for $19 or $39 a month.

Honest catch: no online rent, no screening, no phone app, no free tier.

Want the wider field ranked on privacy, price and tax features? SealedFolio's 2026 ranking of seven landlord software tools scores the cloud platforms one by one.

The trade-offs each AppFolio alternative keeps off its landing page

Every AppFolio alternative has a catch that shows up in the fine print, not the headline price. SealedFolio pulled these from the same pricing pages used in the table above, read on September 29, 2026, and lists its own catch last.

Buildium: the $62 is a starting price, Growth and Premium require onboarding with Buildium's team, and 1099 e-filing is an add-on at $50 per batch plus $4.50 per form, according to the Buildium pricing page.
Yardi Breeze: the $1 per unit headline carries a $100 monthly minimum on an annual agreement, so a 10-unit landlord pays the same $100 as a 100-unit one. The owner portal is on Premier, where the minimum is $400, per the Yardi Breeze pricing page.
DoorLoop: Starter covers a maximum of 10 units. Features like QuickBooks Online sync, live bank connect and budgeting start on Pro, per the DoorLoop pricing page.
TenantCloud: the $15 Starter plan covers up to 10 leases and has no tax reports. Growth covers 30 leases at $350 a year, Pro covers 60 at $600 and adds tax reports, bank reconciliation and a separate owner portal. Above 60 leases, Business has custom pricing, per the TenantCloud pricing page.
RentRedi: the $12 rate needs a year paid up front, and $29.95 is the month-to-month price. Screening is charged to the applicant at $39.99 or $49.99, per the RentRedi pricing page.
Stessa: free for unlimited properties, but the Schedule E report is on Manage, per the Stessa pricing page. SealedFolio's SealedFolio vs Stessa comparison covers the data-ownership side.
Baselane: free ACH rent assumes rent lands in Baselane Checking. Rent into an outside bank costs $2 per payment, card rent costs the tenant 3.49%, and screening is sold from $24.99, per the Baselane pricing page. SealedFolio's Baselane vs Stessa fee breakdown works through a year of those fees.
SealedFolio: no online rent collection, no tenant screening, no listings, no iPhone or Android app and no free tier. SealedFolio Pro activates on 2 computers and Portfolio on 3, and one machine holds the vault, so your own backup routine matters.

None of those catches is a reason to rule a tool out. They are the questions to answer before you move eight leases and three years of receipts into it. SealedFolio's piece on what free property management software really costs goes further on fees and lock-in.

AppFolio vs Buildium and AppFolio vs Yardi Breeze, for managers near 50 units

AppFolio, Buildium and Yardi Breeze are the three names a growing manager compares, and SealedFolio is not in this fight, so this section sticks to what the three pricing pages say.

AppFolio vs Buildium. Buildium publishes Essential from $62 a month, Growth from $192 and Premium from $400, with no unit minimum on the page and a phone number only for portfolios over 5,000 units. AppFolio publishes no prices and starts at 50 units. If you are under 50, Buildium is the one you can buy. If you are over 50, get an AppFolio quote at your real unit count and put it next to Buildium Growth, which adds business analytics and enhanced screening, and remember Buildium's 1099 e-filing is an add-on.

AppFolio vs Yardi Breeze. Yardi Breeze charges residential portfolios $1 per unit per month with a $100 minimum on Breeze and a $400 minimum on Breeze Premier, both on annual agreements. Breeze Premier adds online lease execution, an owner portal, job cost tracking and separate property and corporate ledgers. For 50 to 100 units, Breeze costs $100 a month flat. Yardi's enterprise product, Voyager, is a different, quote-based purchase and not the one to compare at this size.

For a self-managing owner who is nowhere near 50 units, both head-to-heads are the wrong question. The job is usually rent collection plus clean books, which the lighter tools in the table above cover for less. SealedFolio's rental income and expense tracker for landlords shows what the books side looks like without a management platform.

When SealedFolio is the right AppFolio alternative, and when it is not

SealedFolio replaces the accounting and records side of AppFolio for an owner, not the tenant portal. Use the lists below to rule it in or out quickly.

SealedFolio fits if

You own your rentals and do not manage for other owners.
Tenants already pay by bank transfer, Zelle or check, or through a free rent collector you keep.
You want the rent roll, tenant files, leases and receipts in an encrypted vault on your own computer, working offline.
You need Schedule E for US rentals or T776 for Canadian ones.
You work at a Mac or Windows desk more than from a phone.

Pick something else if

You need tenants to pay rent inside the software: TenantCloud, RentRedi, DoorLoop, Stessa or Baselane.
You screen applicants often: RentRedi, Stessa and TenantCloud include it, Baselane sells it from $24.99.
You manage for third-party owners: Buildium or Yardi Breeze Premier.
You want to run things from a phone: SealedFolio has no iPhone or Android app, so pick a cloud tool.
You want to pay nothing: Stessa Essentials or Baselane Core.

For how SealedFolio handles tenants, leases and the monthly rent roll without a hosted account, see SealedFolio's local property management software page.

Moving off AppFolio or a spreadsheet to SealedFolio or another tool

Switching from AppFolio, or from the spreadsheet you kept because AppFolio would not take you, goes smoother in a set order, whichever alternative you choose, SealedFolio included.

Export before you cancel. Pull transaction history, tenant and lease lists, and a year-end report for every tax year you still need, while your old account is live.
Cut over at a tax-year line if you can. A January 1 switch means no single Schedule E is split across two systems.
Run both for one month. Check that income and expense totals match before you close anything.
Check one property against last year's return. If the new tool's annual report matches the Schedule E you filed, the import is sound.

SealedFolio Portfolio imports CSV, OFX and QIF files, and either SealedFolio plan can pull transactions with optional Plaid import. Before you file, run the totals through SealedFolio's free Schedule E calculator as a cross-check on whichever tool produced the report.

AppFolio alternative questions small landlords ask

The AppFolio answers below use each vendor's pricing page as read on September 29, 2026, with TenantCloud rechecked October 8, 2026, and SealedFolio's own published plans.

What is the best AppFolio alternative for small landlords?

The best AppFolio alternative for a small landlord depends on which part of AppFolio you wanted. For a full management platform with no 50-unit floor, Buildium starts at $62 a month and Yardi Breeze at $1 per unit with a $100 monthly minimum. For online rent, screening and maintenance at landlord prices, TenantCloud Starter covers up to 10 leases at $15 a month, and DoorLoop starts at $69 a month, both billed annually. For private books and Schedule E reports, SealedFolio is $19 a month for up to 3 properties or $39 a month unlimited, stored in an encrypted vault on your Mac or Windows PC, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first payment.

How much does AppFolio cost?

AppFolio does not publish dollar prices. Its pricing page lists three plans, Core, Plus and Max, each behind a Get a Quote button. Core carries a minimum spend and a 50-unit minimum, and Plus and Max say minimum spend and units apply without giving a number. The only way to get an AppFolio price is to book a demo and request a quote. SealedFolio, Buildium, Yardi Breeze, DoorLoop, TenantCloud, RentRedi, Stessa and Baselane all publish their starting prices.

Can I use AppFolio with fewer than 50 units?

Not on AppFolio Core, which states a 50-unit minimum on the AppFolio pricing page as read on September 29, 2026. Plus and Max also carry unit minimums, and AppFolio does not publish those numbers, so a landlord with 5 or 20 doors has no published AppFolio plan to buy. Tools with no unit floor include Buildium, TenantCloud, RentRedi, Stessa, Baselane and SealedFolio.

Who are the main competitors of AppFolio?

For property management companies, AppFolio's main competitors are Buildium, Yardi Breeze, Rent Manager, Entrata and ResMan, several of which appear in the Techjockey list of AppFolio alternatives. For smaller self-managing landlords, the realistic competitors are DoorLoop, TenantCloud, RentRedi, Stessa and Baselane, which publish prices and have no 50-unit minimum. SealedFolio competes only on the books and tax side, as a local Mac and Windows app with no rent collection.

Which is better, AppFolio or Buildium?

Buildium is better for a smaller manager because it publishes its prices and sets no unit minimum: Essential starts at $62 a month, Growth at $192 and Premium at $400, and Buildium asks only portfolios over 5,000 units to call. AppFolio can be the better fit for an operator already over 50 units who wants AppFolio's leasing CRM, affordable or student housing tools and its own AI assistant, and who is willing to buy through a quote. Check Buildium add-ons too: 1099 e-filing costs $50 per batch plus $4.50 per form.

Which is better, Yardi or AppFolio?

For a portfolio under 50 units, Yardi Breeze is the practical choice because AppFolio Core will not sell to you and Yardi Breeze publishes its price: $1 per unit per month for residential with a $100 monthly minimum on an annual agreement, or a $400 monthly minimum on Breeze Premier, which adds an owner portal and separate property and corporate ledgers. Above 50 units, compare an AppFolio quote against Breeze Premier at your actual unit count. Yardi Voyager, Yardi's enterprise product, is a different purchase.

What is the best free landlord software?

Stessa Essentials and Baselane Core are the strongest free options. Stessa Essentials is free for unlimited properties with rent collection, tenant screening and maintenance tracking, but its Schedule E report starts on Manage at $12 a month billed annually. Baselane Core is free with Schedule E reports included, but rent sent by ACH to a bank outside Baselane costs $2 per payment. SealedFolio has no free tier: it is paid at checkout and includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Is there an AppFolio alternative that runs on Mac or Windows without the cloud?

Yes. SealedFolio is a desktop app for macOS and Windows that keeps tenant files, the rent roll, leases, income and expenses, and Schedule E and T776 reports in an encrypted vault on your own computer, with core workflows running offline and no hosted account. It does not collect rent online, screen tenants or list vacancies. AppFolio and every other alternative on this page run in the vendor's cloud.

Under AppFolio's 50-unit floor? Try SealedFolio on your own computer

SealedFolio keeps your ledger, rent roll, tenant files, Schedule E and T776 in an encrypted vault on your Mac or Windows PC. Keep your bank and your rent collection where they are.

Buy SealedFolio

SealedFolio Pro is $19 per month for up to three properties. SealedFolio Portfolio is $39 per month for unlimited properties. Every SealedFolio plan is paid at checkout and includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

AppFolio Alternatives for Small Landlords