Published 2026-09-25 · 22 min read

Avail Review 2026: The Free Property Management Software for DIY Landlords

Avail built its reputation on a simple promise: property management software that is free for landlords. That promise is still on the homepage, but it is no longer the whole story, and the older version of this review got the details wrong in ways that matter to your wallet. Avail now publishes two tiers. The free tier, called Unlimited, is genuinely free at $0 per unit with unlimited units. Alongside it sits a paid upgrade, Unlimited Plus, at $9 per unit per month. Rent paid by bank transfer is not free for your tenant on the free tier either: the fee is $2.50 per payment on Unlimited, waived only on Plus, with a 3.5% fee on card payments on either tier. None of that makes Avail a bad product — it makes it a product to choose with the current numbers in front of you. Every price and fee below was checked against Avail's own pages on October 16, 2026; anything Avail does not publish a fixed number for is labelled as such.

The short version: Avail covers the core self-managed workflow — listings syndicated to 19 rental sites, applications with TransUnion screening, state-specific lawyer-reviewed leases with digital signing, rent collection, maintenance tracking, income and expense tracking, and messaging — at $0 per month on Unlimited, with no unit cap published. The decision is threefold. First, your tenants fund the system by default: $2.50 per bank-transfer payment on the free tier, 3.5% by card, plus screening costs that vary by location. Second, the features landlords most often want after year one — FastPay deposits, waived ACH fees, custom questions, full lease customization, reusable templates, a branded website, faster support — sit behind Unlimited Plus at $9 per unit per month, or $648 a year on six units. Third, the accounting is tracking, not a ledger, and workflows are standardized. For a landlord with a handful of standard units happy on the free tier, Avail remains one of the strongest no-subscription starting points in the category; if you know you will want Plus from day one, price it as a $9-per-unit product from the start.

What Avail does

Avail follows the rental cycle a do-it-yourself landlord works: list, screen, sign, collect, maintain, keep records. The free tier includes the full sequence in basic form; Plus upgrades speed, customization, and support inside the same product.

Rental listings and lead management

Create a listing in Avail and it is syndicated to what Avail describes as the top 19 rental sites — the pricing page names Zumper, Padmapper, Walkscore, Realtor.com, Doorsteps.com, Rentable, and ApartmentList, and the homepage adds Redfin — with lead management, messaging, and showing scheduling alongside. One tier distinction matters: the branded property website, a custom marketing and portfolio site with a tenant portal, is a Plus feature. On Unlimited you get the syndicated listing and a shareable apply link.

Applications and tenant screening

Applications are online and tied directly to screening. Avail's screening is powered by TransUnion: the pricing page describes tenant-initiated credit reports and background checks, a nationwide criminal history report, nationwide eviction reports, automated residence and employment reference checks, and income verification. The screening page details the reports: a full credit report with score, trade lines, inquiries, and debts; criminal records from all 50 states; and eviction searches from all 50 states plus Washington, D.C.

Two facts correct the older version of this review. First, who pays is a choice: the pricing page states screening costs can be covered by the tenant — the arrangement it calls most common — or by the landlord. Second, Avail publishes no single national screening price: costs vary by location due to state laws, and landlords choose which reports each applicant must provide. Any review quoting one Avail bundle price is inventing a number, so check the live cost in your account before printing it in a listing or criteria document. Custom application questions are also tiered — a Plus feature, with the standard application on the free tier.

Leases and digital signing

Avail provides state-specific, lawyer-reviewed lease templates with digital signing on both tiers. Per the lease page, the template is tailored to your location with required attachments, clauses, and disclosures, and federal, state, and local requirements such as radon, mold, and lead-based paint disclosures are added through a feature called Local Assist. You set the term, rent, due date, deposit, fees, and pet policy, and tenants sign electronically. You can also upload your own lease for free online signing and use an amendment template when terms change.

Customization is the tier line. The homepage states it directly: templates can be customized with Unlimited Plus. The Plus list names lease customization, cloning and reusing templates, customizable clauses and rules, and unlimited document attachments. On the free tier you get the template and digital signing, including signing a lease you upload; deep editing and saving a customized version as a reusable clone are Plus capabilities. Property-specific clauses reused at every turnover are what hit the limit.

Online rent collection

This is where the free-tier economics live. Tenants can pay by bank account or card, schedule and automate payments, split payments with roommates, and report on-time payments to credit bureaus through CreditBoost, per the rent collection page. Landlords create payment lists for rent, deposits, and fees, connect a bank account through Plaid, and configure reminders and auto-assessed late fees; the pricing page adds property-specific bank accounts.

On timing, the rent collection page states payments transfer within three business days on standard processing, or as soon as the next day with FastPay. The FastPay page confirms FastPay covers bank payments only and is a Plus feature: up to three business days on free, next business day on Plus.

On fees, the pricing page overturns the central claim of this review's old version. On Unlimited Plus, bank payments carry no fee. On Unlimited, tenants pay $2.50 per bank transfer. Card payments add a 3.5% fee regardless of subscription. Rent by ACH on the free tier therefore costs your tenant $2.50 per payment, every month — state it honestly in your listing and lease conversation.

Maintenance, accounting, communication, and support

Tenants and landlords can both create maintenance tickets, tenants can upload photos, and tickets can be auto-forwarded to maintenance professionals, per the pricing page, with costs tracked in the dashboard. The real value is the written, timestamped record a code inspector or court will ask to see. Accounting is income and expense tracking on both tiers, showing money in and out per property. That serves a Schedule E landlord well, but it is not double-entry bookkeeping, trust accounting, or owner statements — a scope limit, not a defect, since Avail does not claim to be your general ledger. Messages are included free, tenants get 24/7 portal access, and support follows the same pattern: standard support included, Plus listing Priority Care at two times faster response times, with no guaranteed response time published for either tier in the pages checked.

The pricing: what is actually free, and who pays for what

The complete tier picture, from Avail's pricing page:

Three conclusions replace the old version of this review. First, its claim that there is no monthly subscription tier is false now: Unlimited Plus exists at $9 per unit per month. The accurate statement is narrower and still strong — no subscription is required for the core product, and the free tier has no published unit cap. Second, its claim that tenants pay by ACH for free is false on the free tier: the fee is $2.50 per payment on Unlimited, and Plus is what waives it. Third, the card fee is the largest tenant-facing number and no subscription removes it: 3.5% of a $1,400 rent is $49.00 per payment, or $588.00 over a year, on either tier. Treat card payment as the expensive exception, not the default.

How Avail makes money — and why it matters to you

A free tier is a business model, not a gift: Avail earns from the tenant's $2.50 bank-transfer fee on the free tier, the 3.5% card fee on both tiers, screening charges paid by whichever party you assign, and Plus subscriptions. Volume feeds the model, which is why the free tier is complete enough to run a tenancy. The risk to monitor is repricing: re-read the pricing page yearly and export your records.

A worked example, with dates and dollars

Take six units at $1,400 per month, over the twelve rent cycles from Tuesday, December 1, 2026 through Tuesday, November 30, 2027. Gross rent: 6 × $1,400 × 12 = $100,800.

Scenario 1 — stay on free Unlimited, tenants pay by bank transfer. Your subscription cost is $0. Each tenant pays $2.50 per payment: $2.50 × 12 = $30.00 per tenant per year, and $2.50 × 6 × 12 = $180.00 across the portfolio, all tenant-paid. Rent arrives within three business days.

Scenario 2 — upgrade to Unlimited Plus. The subscription is $9 × 6 units × 12 months = $648.00 per year, paid by you. The tenant bank fee is waived, so the $180.00 disappears, and bank payments arrive the next business day through FastPay. The honest subtraction: you pay $648.00 to remove $180.00 of tenant fees — a net $468.00 — so Plus pays only when FastPay speed on $100,800 of rent, custom questions, lease customization, the branded website, and Priority Care support are together worth more than $468.00. On one unit: $108.00 a year to waive $30.00 of fees.

Scenario 3 — the card trap, on either tier. If tenants pay by card, the fee is $1,400 × 3.5% = $49.00 per payment, tenant-paid regardless of subscription: $49.00 × 6 × 12 = $3,528.00 across the portfolio for a year. Your tier changes nothing. The $3,348.00 gap between Scenarios 1 and 3 on the same rent roll is purely a payment-method conversation at move-in — steer tenants to bank transfer in the lease packet and welcome message, and reserve cards for real emergencies.

The turnover, and the number this review will not invent. Say one unit turns over: the vacancy is listed on Monday, November 2, 2026, and you run TransUnion credit, criminal, and eviction reports on your finalists before signing a lease on Monday, November 16, 2026. You choose whether you or the applicant pays. This review cannot give you a verified dollar total, because the pricing page states that screening costs vary by location due to state laws and publishes no national price — any total printed here would be invented. Read the live cost in your account, write it into your screening criteria, and disclose it before anyone applies. Skipping screening to save a small per-turnover cost trades it for a bad tenancy's unknown cost: months of lost rent plus legal fees.

One full lease cycle on Avail

1. List the vacancy. Build the listing once and let syndication carry it to the 19 partner sites. Post your written screening criteria with it, including which TransUnion reports you run and the exact report cost shown in your account for your location.

2. Collect applications. Applicants complete the online application — the standard form on the free tier, custom questions requiring Plus. Every adult occupant applies, with no case-by-case exceptions.

3. Run screening in application order. Pull the credit, criminal, and eviction reports you selected, plus reference checks and income documentation, and decide against your written criteria in order, documenting each decision.

4. Build and sign the lease. Start from the state-specific, lawyer-reviewed template, confirm the Local Assist disclosures are present, set rent, deposit, fees, and pet policy, and send it for digital signing. Full customization and cloned templates are Plus features.

5. Turn on rent collection. Create the payment list, connect your bank account, set due date, reminders, and late-fee rule, and tell the tenant in writing how they will pay: bank transfer at $2.50 on the free tier, waived on Plus, or card at 3.5%.

6. Run the tenancy in the portal. Rent, messages, and maintenance tickets accumulate in one record. Watch the deposit timing you actually get against your cash flow needs.

7. Close the year with the records. Pull income and expense tracking per property, hand the record to your tax process, and export leases and reports to your own storage.

Nothing in that cycle requires a second tool for a standard tenancy, on either tier — the tiers change speed and flexibility, not whether the cycle completes.

Where Avail falls short

These limitations follow from the structure Avail itself publishes — two tiers, transaction fees, tracking-level accounting — not from forum anecdotes. They are tripwires for outgrowing the tool.

• The free tier is not fee-free for your tenants. Your subscription is $0, but a tenant on the free tier pays $2.50 monthly to pay by bank transfer and 3.5% by card. In a soft market, a landlord advertising no fee to pay rent has a real, if small, edge.
• The features that remove friction are the paid ones. FastPay deposits, waived ACH fees, custom questions, full lease customization with reusable templates, and the branded website are all Plus. None is essential to a first tenancy; several approach essential by the third turnover.
• Accounting stops at tracking. Income and expense tracking serves a Schedule E landlord well. It is not a general ledger, with no trust accounting or owner reporting — if that is your operation, Avail is the wrong center of gravity at any price.
• Screening prices are opaque until you are inside. The report structure is published clearly; the price is not, because it varies under state law. You cannot finish a written screening policy with a verified price until the account and property exist — set that up before your vacancy.
• Workflows are standardized. One application shape on the free tier and templates that fully bend only on Plus suit standard rentals and constrain unusual ones: mixed-use property, complex fee structures.
• Support speed is paid, with no published guarantee. Plus support is quantified only as two times faster, and neither tier publishes a guaranteed response time in the pages checked. If you need a contractual commitment, the published descriptions do not provide one.
• Scale changes the verdict functionally, not numerically. Avail pitches to do-it-yourself landlords and publishes no unit cap — the roughly 20-unit line in this review's old version was our judgment, not an Avail limit. The practical ceiling is reporting depth, team workflows, and owner-facing tools.

Avail vs. the alternatives

Comparisons are qualitative except where a figure was verified on the vendor's own pricing page on October 16, 2026. Treat any competitor price quoted anywhere — including in this review's previous version — as stale until you check the vendor's current page. The old table here priced Buildium at about $55 a month and marked Stessa as having no screening; both cells were wrong by this update.

• vs. Innago: the closest philosophical rival, since Innago also gives landlords its whole product with no subscription and earns on per-use fees. Avail has a paid tier to grow into and charges the free-tier tenant $2.50 per bank payment; Innago publishes no paid tier and charges the tenant $2 per ACH payment by default.
• vs. Stessa: Stessa's pricing page settles the question the old table got wrong. Its free Essentials plan includes tenant screening — listed in the plan features alongside vacancy marketing, rent collection, maintenance requests, and unlimited properties — plus basic financial reports, with state-compliant leases at cost to you; the detailed grid prices an Essentials lease template at $15 each, and paid tiers (Manage $12 per month billed annually, Pro $28) add e-signatures, a Schedule E report, and larger legal-form libraries. The honest comparison is center of gravity: Avail is the operations toolkit with tracking-level accounting attached; Stessa is the finance system with leasing and screening attached.
• vs. TurboTenant: TurboTenant's pricing page publishes a free tier at $0 per month, paid tiers listed as starting at $12.42 per month for Essentials and $16.48 per month for Pro, and a full-service option priced by conversation. Its renter-cost table is the telling comparison: on the free plan, renters pay a $55 screening fee and a $2 bank-transfer fee; for Pro landlords, screening is $45 and bank transfers are free — card payments at 3.49% in both cases. That rhymes with Avail: a free tier funded partly by renter fees, a paid tier that reduces them. Avail's paid tier is cheaper per unit at $9 and waives the bank fee at that single level; compare screening costs only after checking Avail's live location-dependent figure, since it publishes no national price to set against the $55.
• vs. Buildium: Buildium's pricing page lists Essential as starting at $62 per month, Growth at $192 per month, and Premium at $400 per month — correcting this review's old figure of about $55 a month; the direction is unchanged but the gap is wider than we printed. Buildium is a professional platform for managers and larger portfolios, with purpose-built accounting and owner-facing tooling. A self-manager with six units gets little from it beyond a monthly bill; a manager running other people's properties gets too little from Avail at any price.

Who should use Avail

• First-time landlords who need listings, applications, screening, leases, and rent collection in one place, without learning five tools or paying while the first unit sits vacant.
• Small portfolios, roughly 1–10 units, where the free tier's tenant-paid fees are normal for the market and a per-unit subscription would eat margin.
• Landlords with standard residential tenancies whose lease language fits Avail's templates, or who are comfortable uploading their own lease for signing.
• Cost-conscious do-it-yourself landlords who will pair the tracking with a spreadsheet or tax preparer, and have the payment-method conversation at move-in so the 3.5% card fee never becomes the default.

Who should skip it

• Landlords who need general-ledger accounting, trust accounting, or owner statements inside the same system, and property managers whose clients expect owner reporting Avail does not offer.
• Landlords in markets so competitive that any tenant-facing payment fee is a leasing liability, unless the Scenario 2 arithmetic says Plus is worth its net cost.
• Landlords whose screening policy depends on custom application questions from day one and who do not want to pay per unit for them — Plus-only, so price Avail as a paid product.
• Anyone who needs a guaranteed, contractual support response time; neither tier's published description offers one.

The decision checklist

Before moving a tenancy onto Avail:

1. Confirm your segment. Standard residential and self-managed points to Avail; commercial, mixed-use, or managed-for-others points away, regardless of price.

2. Price both tiers against your unit count. Free is $0 at any size; Plus is $9 per unit per month, or $108 per unit per year. Write down your portfolio's Plus figure before reading its feature list.

3. Decide who pays each fee, in writing. The $2.50 bank-transfer fee on the free tier, the 3.5% card fee on both tiers, and the screening cost — assign each, and disclose them in your listing and criteria before anyone pays.

4. Verify your screening cost live. Set the property location in your account, choose your TransUnion report set, and record the exact price Avail shows. Check it against any state or local application-fee caps.

5. Choose your report set as policy. Credit, criminal, eviction, reference checks, income documentation — the same set for every applicant, decided before the first application arrives.

6. Set the card-fee trap shut. Steer tenants to bank transfer at move-in, in the lease packet and welcome message, and price the worst case with the Scenario 3 arithmetic.

7. Test your lease against the template. Confirm the required disclosures are present, and check whether your clauses fit the free tier or require Plus customization and cloning.

8. Decide on deposit speed honestly. Standard lands within three business days; FastPay lands the next business day and requires Plus. If your cash flow needs next-day money, count that as a Plus cost in step 2.

9. Plan your accounting from day one. Decide whether Avail's tracking is your tax record or a feeder into dedicated accounting software, and export records on a schedule.

10. Set a re-evaluation trigger now. A unit count, the second turnover needing a custom question or cloned lease, or the first month deposit timing pinches — when one fires, re-run this checklist against Plus and the alternatives.

The bottom line

Avail still delivers the core of its promise, stated exactly: the essential toolkit — listings syndicated to 19 sites, applications with TransUnion screening, state-specific lawyer-reviewed leases with digital signing, rent collection, maintenance tracking, and income and expense tracking — is available at $0 per month on Unlimited, with unlimited units. What the old version of this review got wrong is everything around that core: a paid tier exists — Unlimited Plus at $9 per unit per month, holding FastPay deposits, waived ACH fees, custom questions, full lease customization, and priority support; bank-transfer rent costs your tenant $2.50 per payment on the free tier rather than nothing; and card payments cost 3.5% on either tier. Screening is TransUnion-powered with the payer chosen by you, at a price Avail varies by location and does not publish nationally. Inside its segment, none of that overturns the verdict; it disciplines it. Run one lease cycle free, have the payment-method conversation at move-in, and buy Plus only when the arithmetic says it pays.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Avail really free for landlords?

The landlord subscription on Unlimited is $0 per unit with unlimited units, including listings, applications and screening requests, leases with digital signing, rent collection, maintenance tracking, and income and expense tracking. Free describes your subscription line, not the whole system: tenants pay $2.50 per bank-transfer payment on this tier and 3.5% on card payments, and screening carries a location-dependent cost. A paid tier, Unlimited Plus at $9 per unit per month, also exists.

What is Unlimited Plus, and is it worth $9 per unit per month?

Unlimited Plus is Avail's paid upgrade at $9 per unit per month. Per the pricing page it adds FastPay next-day deposits, waived tenant ACH charges, custom application questions, full lease customization, clone-and-reuse templates, a branded property website, and Priority Care support at two times faster response times. It is worth it when that bundle outweighs the net cost in the worked example: on six units, $648 a year paid to remove $180 a year of tenant bank fees — a net $468 before valuing speed and customization.

How much does it cost a tenant to pay rent on Avail?

On free Unlimited, a bank transfer costs the tenant $2.50 per payment. On Unlimited Plus, bank transfers carry no fee. Card payments carry a 3.5% fee on either tier — $49.00 on a $1,400 rent. Tenants can also schedule and automate payments and split them with roommates.

How fast do I actually get my rent money?

On standard processing, Avail's rent collection page states payments transfer within three business days. With FastPay — Plus, bank payments only — funds deposit as soon as the next business day once the payment has processed. Card timing is not separately promised in the pages checked, so do not budget around a card deposit date Avail has not published.

How much does tenant screening cost on Avail, and who pays?

Avail publishes no single national screening price. Its pricing page states the cost of credit, criminal background, and eviction checks varies by location due to state laws, landlords choose which reports each applicant must provide, and the cost can be covered by the tenant — the arrangement Avail calls most common — or by the landlord. Reports are TransUnion-powered: full credit, nationwide criminal, and nationwide eviction. Read the live price in your account before quoting it.

Can I customize Avail's lease and application, or do I have to use the standard forms?

Both forms work in standard form on the free tier: state-specific, lawyer-reviewed leases with digital signing, and the standard application. Customization is the paid line — custom questions, lease customization, and cloning templates are Plus features. You can also upload your own lease for free online signing on either tier.

Does Avail have a unit limit?

No published one. The pricing page lists free Unlimited at $0 per unit with unlimited units, and Plus is priced per unit per month with no cap stated. The practical limit is functional: tracking-level accounting, no owner reporting or trust accounting, and standardized workflows push larger portfolios to manager-grade platforms.

When should I move from Avail to a paid platform?

When the limitation is structural: general-ledger or trust accounting, owner statements for clients, team tooling, or a guaranteed support commitment. Inside Avail, price Plus first — many landlords who think they need a new platform actually need FastPay and lease customization. Move platforms when even Plus leaves a structural gap, not when a monthly fee merely appears.

Read the rules yourself

Every claim in this review was checked against the vendor's own pages on October 16, 2026. Read them directly — the live page on the day you act governs your costs:

• Avail pricing — tiers, tenant payment fees, and screening cost notes (avail.co)
• Avail home — tier summary, listing reach, and lease customization note (avail.co)
• Online rent collection — payment types, timing, and CreditBoost (avail.co)
• FastPay — next-day deposits and Unlimited Plus access (avail.co)
• Tenant screening — TransUnion report contents and who-pays choice (avail.co)
• Lease agreements — state-specific templates, Local Assist, and signing (avail.co)
• Stessa pricing — free Essentials features and paid tiers (stessa.com)
• TurboTenant pricing — free tier, paid tiers, and renter fees (turbotenant.com)
• Buildium pricing — Essential, Growth, and Premium starting prices (buildium.com)

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