Property maintenance software for small landlords: 11 tools priced
Property maintenance software for landlords and property managers: 11 tools, with list prices at 20, 80 and 250 units and the free options.
Start from the work orders template
Take requests, assign jobs, track them to done.
Property maintenance software takes tenant repair requests, assigns each job to your staff or a vendor, and tracks it until it’s done. Many small landlords get it inside a property management suite; at 80 units, five of the six suites we priced list $100 to $265 a month. The other options are a maintenance add-on, a work order app, or a free form and spreadsheet.
This guide is for landlords and property managers with roughly 10 to 300 units who are outgrowing texts, a shared inbox or a spreadsheet and are comparing maintenance management software. It covers what the software must do, the four kinds of tools, their costs at 20, 80 and 250 units, and how to switch.
How we researched this: in October 2026 we checked every price, minimum and feature below on each vendor’s own US pricing or product page and price calculator, linked where each appears. Prices change often, so check again before you buy.
The four kinds of property maintenance software, side by side:
| Kind of tool | Who it suits | How it’s priced |
|---|---|---|
| Property management suite (Buildium, AppFolio and others) | You want rent, leases, accounting and maintenance in one system | By unit count, usually with a monthly minimum |
| Maintenance add-on (Property Meld, Latchel) | 100 or more doors, many vendors and lots of after-hours calls | Per unit, on top of your suite |
| Work order app (MaintainX, UpKeep, GoodTaco) | You run your own maintenance team and keep rent somewhere else | By the user, or a flat plan |
| A spreadsheet and a request form | A few requests a week and one person keeping the list | Free |
If rent is under control and maintenance is the mess, you don’t have to change your whole system. Keep your maintenance log in a Google Sheet? GoodTaco’s Google Sheets app builder builds an app on that sheet, reading and writing it live. In Excel? Turn the spreadsheet into an app by uploading it, with no account needed to try. Starting fresh, GoodTaco’s work order template gives you a tenant request page, a team board and repeating jobs, free to start.
What should property maintenance software do?
Use these seven jobs as your checklist when you compare tools:
- Take tenant service requests in one place. A portal, request page or form that asks the same questions every time; calls and texts get logged there too. Our guide to the maintenance request form has the fields and a filled-in sample.
- Triage. Someone sets a priority and a due date for each request, and declines what isn’t yours to fix. True emergencies, like an active leak or a gas smell, are phoned in first and logged as urgent afterwards.
- Assign to staff or a vendor. Each job gets one owner, your technician or an outside plumber or roofer, with the unit, access notes and the tenant’s contact.
- Track every job to done, unit turns included. The team sees each job’s status, what it’s waiting on and what’s overdue, and technicians update jobs from their phones on site. The closed record says what was fixed, the hours, the parts and the vendor’s invoice.
- Keep history per unit and per piece of equipment. When unit 2B reports no hot water for the third time, you want the first two, plus the water heater’s age and serial number.
- Run repeating jobs. Filter changes, smoke alarm tests, gutter cleaning and boiler service should become work orders before they’re due, so nobody has to remember them.
- Report to owners. Each owner wants to know what was done at their building this month and what it cost, and to approve big repairs first.
Here’s that for a small portfolio: three buildings, 80 units, one week.
Each card shows the building and unit, how urgent it is, who has it and what it’s waiting on. If your setup can’t show that in one place, that’s the gap to fill.
What are the types of property maintenance software?
Each kind covers those jobs differently, and only a suite handles rent and accounting as well.
Property management suites with a maintenance module
A suite runs the whole rental business: listings, screening, leases, rent, accounting and owner statements. Maintenance is one module, with requests coming in through a resident portal.
- Buildium. Essential starts at $65 a month (its calculator offers it up to 40 units) and Growth at $202, rising with unit count. Every plan includes work order management, a resident portal and an owners portal. Growth and Premium require Buildium’s onboarding service (Buildium pricing).
- AppFolio. Core starts at $1.49 per unit per month, with a minimum spend and a 50-unit minimum; AppFolio asks you to contact it for details. Core includes work order management, inspections and unit turns (AppFolio pricing).
- DoorLoop. DoorLoop One is $3.00 per unit per month, $1.80 per unit above 100, with a $239 monthly minimum. It includes maintenance requests, work orders, owner and tenant portals and unlimited users (DoorLoop pricing).
- Rentec Direct. Rentec Pro, for landlords, and Rentec PM, for property managers, start at $50 a month and rise with unit count. Rentec Starter is $25 a month for 10 or fewer properties, and none needs a long-term contract (Rentec Direct pricing). Every plan has work orders and a tenant portal that takes maintenance requests (Rentec Direct tenant portal); only Rentec PM has an owner portal.
- Yardi Breeze. $1 per unit per month with a $100 monthly minimum, on an annual agreement, with no onboarding fee. It takes residents’ maintenance requests online, tracks work orders and links vendor invoices (Yardi Breeze pricing).
- TurboTenant, for self-managing landlords with 1 to 50 doors. Its free plan includes maintenance requests; paid plans are priced per year by unit count, from $149 a year for up to 10 units (TurboTenant pricing).
The catch: you pay by the unit for the whole suite, and moving rent and books that already work is a big job.
Maintenance coordination add-ons
These sit on top of your suite and take over the legwork: tenant calls, troubleshooting, vendor dispatch and approvals.
- Property Meld. Ops is $2.00 per unit a month with a $200 monthly minimum. It covers AI repair intake, vendor dispatch and owner approval of estimates, and says it “works best with management companies overseeing 100+ doors” (Property Meld pricing). It connects to AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi and others (Property Meld integrations).
- Latchel. A 24/7 maintenance line for property managers that tries to solve requests before sending anyone. It lists no prices; you book a demo or a free assessment (Latchel).
They earn their keep when after-hours calls and vendor scheduling fill someone’s week. Under about 100 units, the minimums bite: $200 a month for 20 units is $10 a door.
Work order apps
A work order app, or a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), does maintenance only: requests, assignments, repeating jobs and a history for each piece of equipment, usually with a phone app for technicians.
They usually price by the user. MaintainX Essential is $20 per user per month billed yearly ($25 monthly), with unlimited repeating work orders and free requester accounts (MaintainX pricing). UpKeep Essential is $24 per user per month, but repeating maintenance starts on Premium at $55 (UpKeep pricing).
They suit owners with their own maintenance crew who keep rent somewhere else. Our roundup of free work order software compares their free plans. GoodTaco’s work order template belongs here too.
A spreadsheet and a request form
The free setup: an online form for requests that saves every answer to a Google Sheet (Google help), with columns your team fills in for priority, who’s assigned, due date, status and cost. Our work order template guide has the columns to copy.
It works for a few requests a week, and breaks down when several people edit at once, repeating jobs live in someone’s calendar and owner reports are built by hand.
How much does property maintenance software cost?
Suites price by the unit with a monthly minimum; work order apps price by the user, so they’re shown for a team of four. List prices from each vendor’s page or calculator in October 2026, paid monthly where offered:
| Tool and plan | 20 / 80 / 250 units, a month |
|---|---|
| Yardi Breeze, annual agreement | $100 / $100 / $250 |
| Rentec Pro | $50 / $160 / $500 |
| Rentec PM | $50 / $200 / $625 |
| Buildium | $65 Essential / $265 Growth / $412 Growth |
| DoorLoop One | $239 / $240 / $570 |
| AppFolio Core | 50-unit minimum, ask for a quote / from $119 / from $373; a minimum spend applies |
| TurboTenant Free, built for 1 to 50 doors | $0 / $0 / $0 |
| Property Meld Ops, on top of a suite | $200 / $200 / $500 |
| MaintainX Essential, 4 users | $100 at any size |
| UpKeep Premium, 4 users | $220 at any size |
| Google Forms and Sheets | $0; they come with a free Google account |
| GoodTaco work order template (our product) | Free to start; Pro $49 a month includes 10 users |
A few things move these numbers:
- Paying yearly takes 10% off Buildium and Rentec Direct. DoorLoop One drops to $2.50 a unit ($1.50 above 100) with a $199 minimum, and MaintainX Essential to $20 a user.
- DoorLoop’s 250-unit figure assumes the first 100 units stay at $3.00 and only the rest drop to $1.80; confirm with DoorLoop.
- Buildium’s figures are calculator estimates without taxes, onboarding or add-ons such as check printing. Property inspections cost extra on Essential and are included on Growth and Premium.
- Property Meld is in addition to your suite’s price: a 250-unit manager on Buildium Growth and Property Meld would pay $912 a month at these list prices.
Does the property management software you already pay for handle maintenance?
Check first. Most suites have a maintenance module; the question is whether it covers your week. Ask your vendor or test these:
- Can technicians see, update and close their jobs on a phone?
- Does your plan include repeating jobs, or only a higher plan?
- Can you pull a monthly repair cost report for each building and owner?
- Does it keep equipment history, with serial numbers, install dates and past jobs?
- How do vendors get the job: a vendor portal, an email, or your phone call?
If it does all five, stay put. Otherwise add a tool beside it for the gap: a work order app when your technicians need job lists and equipment history, or an add-on when vendor dispatch and after-hours calls are the bottleneck.
Which maintenance software should landlords and property managers choose?
It comes down to size, whether you need rent in the same system, and who does the repairs:
- Under 20 units, and you fix most things yourself. A free landlord app, or a form and a spreadsheet, is enough. Spend the money on a good handyman.
- 20 to 100 units, with a technician or two. If you need rent and accounting too, Rentec Direct and Yardi Breeze have the lowest list prices above. Buildium Essential runs $65 to $84 a month. If rent already works, a work order app gives your team one board without paying per unit.
- 100 to 300 units, mostly vendors, managing for owners. A suite with an owner portal is the backbone, and AppFolio’s 50-unit minimum stops mattering. Add Property Meld or Latchel when after-hours calls and vendor scheduling take up someone’s week.
- 100 to 300 units with your own technicians. Keep the suite for rent and owner statements, and check its maintenance module first. If it doesn’t give your technicians job lists, repeating jobs and equipment history, run maintenance in a work order app beside it, and decide which system owners’ repair reports come from.
How do you move maintenance off a spreadsheet?
Set up the records before you open the doors to requests:
- List your buildings, units and equipment: addresses, access notes, and the make, model, serial number and install date of each boiler, water heater or washer worth tracking.
- List your team and vendors, with each person’s trade and phone number.
- Bring in open jobs first, from the old sheet, inbox and texts, then last year’s closed jobs if your tool can import them.
- Set up repeating jobs such as filters, smoke alarm tests, gutters and boiler service, each with how often and who does it.
- Give tenants one way in: put the new link in move-in packets, on a lobby sign and in your voicemail greeting, and reply to texted requests with it.
Run maintenance with GoodTaco’s work order template
If your week looks like the board above, and Cedar Row’s owner wants October’s repairs in one report, GoodTaco’s work order template is a working property maintenance app built for that, not a spreadsheet file. Sign up and you land in your own copy, with sample records from a small team looking after apartments, offices and a retail plaza. Clear them and add your buildings, equipment and team.
What you get:
- A request page for tenants. Publish the app with its public link, then share the request link, or a link for each building with the building already picked. Tenants get a work order number to quote. Only people signed in to your GoodTaco workspace can open the board and the work orders. Anyone else who has the link gets the request page and nothing more.
- A board with requests to review, open work and what’s overdue. Accept a request to make it a work order: pick who’s assigned, the priority and a due date, which the app fills in from the priority (Urgent the same day, High the next day, Normal within 7 days, Low within 14).
- Staff and vendors on one team list. Add plumbers and heating contractors next to your technicians and assign them jobs. You still call or text the vendor; the app keeps the record, with their invoice as the contractor cost.
- History per building and per piece of equipment. Each building’s page shows its open and recent work orders and its equipment; each piece of equipment keeps its make, model, serial number, install date and every work order, with hours and parts. For one unit, pick the building and search for “2B”.
- Repeating jobs and My work. Set a job to repeat every so many days, weeks or months. Each work order is created a set number of days before it’s due (7 by default), when someone on your team who can edit opens the app. It lands in the work order list and in that technician’s My work, which shows one technician’s jobs at a time, most pressing first.
- Owner reporting by building and month. On the Done tab, pick a building and a month to see labor hours, parts and contractor costs and the average time to finish, then export a CSV file for the owner.
It runs maintenance only: no rent, leases, accounting, tenant screening or owner portal. If you need those in one system, you want a suite. If they already work, in your accounting software, a suite or a rent roll spreadsheet, the template adds maintenance with no per-unit price.
You change the app by asking in plain words, such as:
Add our technician’s hourly rate so labor shows in dollars on the Done tab.
Add an owner approved checkbox for jobs over $500.
Every version is saved, with one-click rollback, and the app works in any browser, including a phone’s. GoodTaco is free to start. Paid plans start at $9 a month, and Pro at $49 a month includes 10 users; bigger teams talk to us about Enterprise.
Already keep the log in a spreadsheet? Upload the Excel or CSV file instead, or build the app on your Google Sheet.
See every open job across your buildings, and what each building’s repairs cost. Start free, no credit card needed.
Frequently asked questions
What is property maintenance software?
Property maintenance software takes repair requests from tenants, helps you decide how urgent each one is, assigns it to your own staff or a vendor and tracks it until it's done. It keeps a history for every unit and piece of equipment, creates repeating jobs such as filter changes, and shows owners what was done and what it cost.
How much does property maintenance software cost?
Most property management suites price by the unit with a monthly minimum. At 80 units, list prices for Yardi Breeze, Rentec Direct, AppFolio, DoorLoop and Buildium on their own pages in October 2026 ran from $100 a month for Yardi Breeze, on an annual agreement, to $265 a month for Buildium Growth, paid month to month. TurboTenant, built for self-managing landlords, has a free plan that takes maintenance requests. Maintenance add-ons such as Property Meld cost extra, from $2 a unit with a $200 monthly minimum. Google Forms and Google Sheets come with a free Google account.
Is there free property maintenance software for landlords?
Yes. TurboTenant's free plan takes maintenance requests, and Google Forms with a Google Sheet comes with a free Google account. Work order apps such as MaintainX have free plans with limits, and GoodTaco's work order template is free to start. Free tools suit a few requests a week; check what each free plan leaves out before your team relies on it.
What is the difference between property management software and property maintenance software?
Property management software runs the whole rental business: listings, leases, rent, accounting and owner statements, with maintenance as one module. Property maintenance software focuses on repairs: requests, assignments, vendors, repeating jobs and history. Many landlords use their suite's maintenance module; others keep rent where it is and add a maintenance tool.
Which property maintenance software should a small landlord use?
It depends on size and who does the repairs. Under 20 units, a free landlord app or a form and a spreadsheet. From 20 to 100 units, Rentec Direct or Yardi Breeze if you need rent too, or a work order app if rent already works. Over 100 units, a suite with an owner portal, plus a work order app if your own technicians do the repairs, or Property Meld or Latchel when after-hours calls pile up.
Can I manage property maintenance in a spreadsheet?
Yes, for a small portfolio. Take requests with a free online form and keep one record per job with the building, unit, problem, priority, who's assigned, due date, status and cost. It gets hard once several people update it, repeating jobs live in someone's calendar, or owners want a report every month.
Start from the work orders template
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