TenantCloud vs Avail

[Adri Son]

Hi all - newbie here!

I've searched the site a few times but haven't found much data on TenantCloud (formerly EvaProperty) vs Avail (formerly Rentulations). 

I have a multi-unit building that has a shared foyer and 4 separate 1 bedroom apartments. I am managing the property remotely, but I do have an in-person maintenance person. I'm looking for the best software for my situation.

From my research so far the $9/month Standard TenantCloud (TC) plan is the most comparable to the $25/month Landlord Plus plan (for 5 units) on Avail for me. So far this is what I've gathered: 

Price: TC is $9/month for the standard plan (150 units) and Avail is $25/month for Landlord Plus (5 units only)

Background Checks - Both have packages available for background checks. TC charges $19.95 for a background check that includes credit score, evictions, criminal, sex offender registry). Avail's most similar background check package has a full screening available at $45 (includes criminal and sex offender registry). 

Rental Payments / Banking - both TC and Avail don't charge for the bank ACH transfers with the plans I'm comparing. Both TC and Avail have autopay capabilities for the tenant as well as automated payment requests from the landlord. TC allows stripe/paypal/credit card for application fees and rental payment. Avail has a 3.5% service fee per transaction for credit cards. For Avail, if a payment is denied by the bank for non-sufficient funds, there is $15 NSF Fee added to your next payment. Avail will deposit the money to the landlord 3 business days after the withdrawal date. TC uses Dwolla which takes 1-2 business days to process from Dwolla to the recipient's bank account and 4-6 days for ACH. TC just says standard fees apply - I can't find more information otherwise, but I think Stripe charges 2.9% for credit card payments.

The state I'm in requires a separate, in-state bank account to hold all security deposits, so I need to be able to link multiple bank accounts to my profile. TC allows up to 6 bank accounts and Avail doesn't specify as far as I can tell (but does allow multiple). Right now I am only managing my own property, but would either be better to use in this capacity if I started managing other properties for other people? And does anyone know if both tenant and landlord can allow multiple bank accounts on either side in these programs (for example if two roommates are splitting rent and want to pay from two accounts)?

Lease Creation - I love how Avail has their legal document templates state specific (I am in a different state). 

Data Storage - I would like the ability to store tenant-assessable documents like house rules, parking/laundry/trash info and instructions, etc. TC has 1GB under the standard plan Avail says it has unlimited messages and photo storage, and they have a welcome kit option you can buy for your tenant that includes templates for house rules and all that stuff ($39.95). 

Maintenance - I love how in Avail there is a Landlord only area for notes on Maintenance requests. That will help keep me organized. I do not know if TC has something similar (not really sure what the timeline thing is as I haven't been able to test it). I also don't know how good the TC maintenance bid system is (the one they advertise) or if I would use it or if they even have support in the area the property is in.

Advertising capabilities - moot for now, I don't have any need for Avail's marketing website as Craigslist seems to be the most effective option for finding tenants for me right now. However, that might change in the future. 

I have both of them in the trial period right now, which isn't actually that helpful because I can't see how everything works out without connecting it to current tenants (and I don't want to have them switch from service to service). TenantCloud shows a photo of your property taken from Google Maps but my property's photo is currently inaccurate (customer support has messaged me saying they are looking into it). Neither really have an option (from what I can tell) for you to upload your own photos unless through the listing services. Right now I'm leaning towards TC even though I've had a much better user experience using Avail because of future scalability (upgrading from Avail's Landlord Plus to Landlord Professional will be a $25 jump to $50/month). TC's customer service seems to take one full day to respond to anything which is not that great, and I haven't needed to submit any support tickets for Avail at all.

My questions are: is there anything I've missed in considering/comparing the two? 

Are there any snags people have experienced in using either programs? Especially on what they claim to deliver, like synchronization issues, tenant account creation, etc. 

Does anyone have any experiences with the accounting capabilities of either program? Would it be better to have a separate program just for accounting?

Does anyone have experiences with either that would be helpful to be aware of? Opinions on what would be the best fit? 

Thanks!

[Derek Vander Veen]

Hi Adri,

I'm currently in trial periods for both Avail and TenantCloud, and am curious which you decided is a better solution for systematizing your property management functions.  I echo most of what you say about both systems, and agree that while I like Avails interface and user functionality, TenantCloud seems to have more detail and has more scalability at a lower price.  

I have six units today, which fits Avail's model well, but have plans to acquire more properties and eventually make this a full time focus of mine.  This makes me think TenantCloud may be the better long-term choice for me between the two options.

Any additional thoughts after spending some additional time researching would be greatly appreciated.

[Rob B.]

Hi @Adri Son -- Congratulations on getting started with both options. As I'm sure you've seen by now, there are a lot of helpful tools out there that can help you to bring a certain level of automation and transparency to this process, but it really comes down to the number of units that you have. At the end of the day, of the two options, you should consider pricing based on the number of units that you have. Either way sounds like you've gotten off to a great start! Helpful to have an option that allows you to achieve all of these steps in one place (ie. keep track of things like rent payments + leases, but it also offers several other tools as well -- the ability for tenants to build a credit score up to 40+ points for on-time rent payments with the latest CreditBoost feature; which can be enticing for them as rent tends to be one of the largest monthly expenses for most Americans.

[Ron Skoletsky]

Hi Adri & Derek,  Which product did you end up going with?  I'm starting on my research into a property management site and am trying to figure out which way to go.  Ideally, I'd love to have a site that can be customized with our business logo and allow us to be able to upload documents for the tenants, etc.

[Rodrigo O.]

Hi everyone. Wanted to post this article that does a good comparison between Avail and Tenant Cloud (and Cozy) mentioned here. Hopefully his helps!

-Rodrigo

https://landlordgurus.com/cozy-vs-avail-vs-tenantcloud-property-management-software-comparison/

[Dakota Wilde]

@Ron Skoletsky Hi, Ron! I'm a Tenant cloud user. 

It actually has such option available- You can create your own marketing website with a business logo or even upgrade to a higher plan and set up a personal domain. 

It seems to me, Buildium also offers this feature but I'm not 100% sure. 

[Joe Gee]

Im a Tenantcloud user and I think it's a great value.  At $9/mo, you can gather tenant leads online, screen tenants, sign documents online, collect rent payments online, message tenants through the app, and much much more. There are Automatic late fees that collect and email notifications to tenants when rent is due.  So many features.  I self manage so it's such a helpful tool.  And you can always upgrade if you decide you want to hire a prop manager(s).  Recommend it 100%! 

[JT Crownover]

How does Tenantcloud rent collection transactions work? Is it like Cozy, that has like a 5 day delay?

[Joe Gee]

They use something called TC payments to collect it with no fees for either side. When the tenant makes the payment, it gets into my account in about 2-3 days. 

I do have some gripes about the app. It acts sort of as a webpage and is a little buggy, but it is still useful and functional for the most part. 

[JT Crownover]

I think we would have outgrown Tenantcloud pretty quickly. Glad we went with Buildium. There are some quirky things about buildium that I'm not crazy about, but I think its the best option for us for the money.

[Alexander Canha]

Wanted to bring this thread back up! Doing research on which software to use and I'm split between these two!

[Alexander Canha]

Originally posted by @Derek Vander Veen:

Hi Adri,

I'm currently in trial periods for both Avail and TenantCloud, and am curious which you decided is a better solution for systematizing your property management functions.  I echo most of what you say about both systems, and agree that while I like Avails interface and user functionality, TenantCloud seems to have more detail and has more scalability at a lower price.  

I have six units today, which fits Avail's model well, but have plans to acquire more properties and eventually make this a full time focus of mine.  This makes me think TenantCloud may be the better long-term choice for me between the two options.

Any additional thoughts after spending some additional time researching would be greatly appreciated.

 Hey Derek, just wanted to see which platform you ended up going with?

[Derek Vander Veen]

Hi @Alexander Canha.  I decided to go with Tenant Cloud as our property management software, and I couldn't be happier with my experience over the past ~18 months.  For $90/yr we've got everything we need to manage our 11 units, and our residents have all had great things to say about the tenant interface / experience as well.  It also presents a very professional image to residents / applicants given how robust the mobile app is and all that they can do through it.  It makes us a tech friendly option since they can fill out their application, pay rent, submit maintenance requests, view a copy of their lease, see a summary of their lease terms, and view transaction history all from their phone.  

TenantCloud has a lot of features, so I would recommend setting up your portfolio and shadow posting activity for a couple months while you get used to the system, but then once you spend a little time with it I think you'll find it's a great value for the price.  They add new features and enhance existing features through updates regularly, so it's clear they're investing time into continually improving the overall features of the product. 

I use the accounting software, which was something that was missing from a lot of the other PM options we looked at, and have been very pleased with the functionality.  I export our activity once a month into excel to reconcile against our bank balance to confirm all activity has been recorded.  The process for our 11 units generally only takes ~15 minutes a month.

I hope this feedback helps! 

[Isidoro Leon]

Hello All, 

I'm curious how Landlord Studio stacks up against TC and Avail.  LS does have a 'Smart Receipt Scan' option that is supposed to log the receipts details for a specific property.  One drawback is LS is not recommended for commercial property investments.  Also, they only allow online rent payments via ACH (no charge).

Let me know your thoughts on Landlord Studio!

[Greg Wilson]

I am a current TC user and due to their price increases from $90 per year to $50 per month, I am switching to Avail.

[Greg Soon]

@Greg Wilson

I do not see $50 price even now,

[Account Closed]

Are both apps designed for someone who wants to manage one unit?