Alternatives to Cozy for Rent Collection

[Carolyn Fuller]

I've been using Cozy for rental applications and rent collection for years. Now that Apartments.com own Cozy, I've already stopped using their application functionality and I'm worried about how rent collection will be impacted once my account is transferred to Apartments.com. So I've been researching rent collection alternatives. 

I'm looking for rent collection services that are reliable and free for both the landlord and the tenant. I don't need any other property management tools. So far, the possibilities that I have found are Zibo and Tellus. Thoughts?

[Justin R.]

Timely thread.  In March and April, we tested 5 solutions, each with 3 different tenants.  The goal was to get feedback from actual tenants in different situations to see what people liked.  Keep in mind we already have full accounting and payments and everything else in place -- this is really more about the tenant experience than what I prefer as the landlord or manager.  Here's the results:

Apartments.com: Free.  One tenant had a hard time signing up and linking to the property.  Payments took a long time to arrive (6 biz days, IIRC).  Also had a problem where their address validation didn't allow us to enter a recently built building, with no work around.  Functionality is complete.  I don't trust the company and expect they will squeeze for revenue once they have market share.

Buildium: Subscription. Considered, but they really want to displace the accounting system, which was a no-go for us.

Zibo: Free. So much potential.  Tenants found this super easy to use.  Engaged with their designers and product people to provide feedback.  They have a good chance to grow to be the best pure-play rent payment solution out there -- their product and UI is spot on.  Biggest issue we had is that they don't have a way to add one-time charges right now.  Designers showed me UI mockups with the feature in it.  Keep an eye on this.

TenantCloud: Subscription. I really wanted this to work, but the UI is a mess.  It feels like a product that had features added for years with no real roadmap to make it cohesive.  Payments don't feel core to the product.  Can push data into Quickbooks in realtime (only one amongst the ones we tested that does this).  2 of 3 tenants couldn't successfully link to their property.  It gave me headaches trying to get this working.

Rentler: Free. Favorite amongst tenants.  Particularly good feedback on UI and tenant signup process and also because they report rent payments to credit bureaus, increasing tenant credit scores - that's a win for tenants AND us.  Also, payments arrive faster (2 or 3 days - ICR).  Supports different properties depositing into different bank accounts.  Lacks one-time charge/credit, but can support it by modifying the next rent payment (provided feedback - they assure feature is coming).  

Other solutions we didn't evaluate but are on our list are: PayRent.com, TurboTenant, and RentecDirect.

For May, we have moved about 50% of our tenant base to Rentler, as that's the clear preference of those who participated in the testing.  Assuming it goes well, we'll continue moving people over, although we'll maintain some tenants on an alternative platform as a way to provide redundancy for the business.

I am 100% a fan of simple solutions, so a Buildium or AppFolio based system could certainly make sense.  However, we are relentlessly focused on the quality of the tenant experience, and willing to incur additional work in order to deliver an optimized experience.  There's a certain brand and feel we're going for, and using best-in-class tools is our way to get there.  Note we're talking about dozens of units here -- it may be very different if the scale were larger and we were not owner-managers.

It's a constantly evolving space - always keeping an eye out for the best tools.