Published 2026-09-28 · 12 min read

Stessa Review (2026): Free Rental Property Accounting for Landlords

Stessa promises something no other landlord tool has pulled off: a free accounting platform that actually handles the books for rental properties, built by a company that understands real estate instead of general small business. It's owned by Roofstock, the rental-property marketplace, and it has become the default first step for landlords who want to stop managing their finances in a spreadsheet without paying for QuickBooks.

But "free" deserves a close look. Stessa's most useful features — the Schedule E reports, unlimited receipt scans, and advanced transaction tracking — live behind its paid Pro tier. This review breaks down exactly what the free Essentials plan gets you, where the paid tiers earn their money, how the features actually work, and where Stessa falls short compared to a spreadsheet, QuickBooks, or a banking-first platform like Baselane.

The short verdict

Stessa is the best free rental property accounting software for landlords with 1–10 units who want automated bookkeeping, bank feeds, and a portfolio dashboard without paying a monthly fee. The Essentials plan costs $0 and covers unlimited properties, unlimited automated bank feeds, basic financial reports, and free ACH rent collection — a genuinely useful package at a price nothing else matches.

The honest caveat: the features that make tax time painless — one-click Schedule E reporting, the full accountant tax package with CapEx detail, advanced transaction tracking, and unlimited receipt scanning — require Stessa Pro at $35/month ($28/month billed annually). If you do your own taxes or hand clean books to a CPA, Pro pays for itself in one tax season. If you're a buy-and-hold investor with a handful of doors who just wants to know where every dollar went, the free plan is enough.

Stessa is not the best choice if you want your bank and your books in one place (see our Baselane vs Stessa 2026 comparison), if you need double-entry accounting for an entity with multiple owners, or if you want a general-purpose accounting tool your bookkeeper already knows.

Pricing: what free actually includes

Stessa uses a three-tier model. Here's the real breakdown:

A few notes on what these numbers mean in practice:

Essentials is a real free plan, not a trial. There's no time limit, no unit cap, and no property cap. You can run a 20-unit portfolio on it indefinitely. The limits are feature depth, not scale — you get key-metrics dashboards instead of full chart history, 5 receipt scans a month, and a basic tax package.

Manage is the odd tier. At $15/month it adds maintenance tracking, tenant screening, lease templates, and the Schedule E–ready tax package. It's aimed at landlords who want Stessa to cover operations too, not just accounting. But many landlords use a dedicated property management tool for that side and only need the books — which makes Manage an awkward middle child.

Pro is where the accounting power lives. At $35/month (or $28/month billed annually, which is $336/year), Pro adds advanced transaction tracking, unlimited receipt scans, budgeting and pro-forma analysis, project expense tracking, and the full accountant tax package including CapEx detail. Compared to QuickBooks Online at $35–$60/month plus an accountant's hourly rate for cleanup, Pro is competitive if it replaces paid bookkeeping.

One more pricing angle: Stessa's cash management banking product pays 1.88% APY on Essentials and Manage, rising to 3.24% APY on Pro, FDIC-insured up to $2.5M per entity. Rent money sitting in Stessa's bank account earns interest while you pay for Pro — that interest alone can offset a meaningful chunk of the subscription.

Feature walkthrough

Income and expense tracking with automated bank feeds

This is Stessa's core and its strongest feature. You connect your bank accounts, credit cards, and mortgage servicers, and Stessa pulls transactions automatically — unlimited feeds on every tier, including free. It auto-categorizes transactions into rental-specific categories (rent, maintenance, property taxes, utilities, HOA dues), and it learns from your corrections.

The categorization quality matters because rental bookkeeping is different from normal small-business bookkeeping. A single credit card charge at Home Depot might be a maintenance repair, a capital improvement, or a supplies purchase — and the tax treatment differs. Stessa's categories map to Schedule E line items, which is what separates it from a generic budgeting app. In practice, the auto-categorization gets roughly 80–85% of recurring transactions right out of the gate and improves as you correct it.

You can also split transactions across properties (one utility bill covering three rentals, for example), which is essential for multi-property landlords and painful to do in a spreadsheet.

Bank connections

Stessa connects to bank accounts, credit cards, and loan servicers through its data aggregator, and it also offers its own Stessa Cash Management account — a banking product with 1.88–3.24% APY depending on tier, 1.1% cash back on debit purchases, no minimum balance, and FDIC coverage up to $2.5M per entity.

The important distinction: Stessa is accounting software with a banking product attached. If you open the Stessa bank account, your banking data flows into your books natively. But most landlords keep their existing bank accounts and just connect the feeds — which works fine.

One limitation to note: because Stessa isn't a bank-first platform, it can't give you a separate virtual account per property the way dedicated landlord banking tools can. Money organization — keeping each property's cash physically separate — is a gap. If that matters to you, read our Baselane review, which approaches the problem from the banking side first.

Schedule E reports

This is the feature that converts landlords. On the Pro (and Manage) tier, Stessa generates your Schedule E tax report — rental income and expenses organized exactly the way the IRS wants them, property by property. The Pro tier's accountant tax package adds CapEx detail (capital expenditures tracked separately from repairs, which matters for depreciation).

For context on why this matters: Schedule E is where landlords report rental income, and every dollar you misclassify is either a missed deduction or an audit flag. A report that maps your year's transactions to Schedule E lines, grouped by property, is what turns a box of receipts into a fileable return. If you hand your CPA a clean Stessa tax package instead of a shoebox, you pay for fewer of their hours. At typical CPA rates of $150–$250/hour, saving even two hours of cleanup covers Pro for the year.

The free Essentials tier includes only the basic tax package — usable, but without the Schedule E structure. If clean tax reporting is why you're considering Stessa, budget for Pro.

Rental performance dashboard

Stessa's dashboard is the investor-facing half of the product. It shows your portfolio at a glance: net cash flow, cap rate, and net operating income per property, plus a monthly P&L view. The free tier shows key metrics; Pro unlocks full chart history so you can see performance trends over time.

The metrics are calculated automatically from your transactions and property data (purchase price, financing terms, current value estimates). For buy-and-hold investors, this replaces the manual portfolio spreadsheet — and unlike a spreadsheet, it updates itself every time a bank feed syncs.

What the dashboard doesn't do well: it doesn't replace a real deal-analysis tool for acquisitions. If you're underwriting new properties, see our roundup of the best rental property analysis tools, which covers dedicated underwriting software like DealCheck.

Tax package

Stessa's tax package is a bundle of reports your accountant (or you, if you self-file) can use at tax time. The tiers stack:

• Essentials: Basic tax package — income and expense summaries by property.
• Manage: Adds Schedule E–structured reporting.
• Pro: Adds CapEx detail, advanced transaction tracking, and full data export at the advanced reporting level.

The practical question is whether you self-file or use a CPA. Self-filers need the Schedule E structure the most — it's the difference between staring at a blank Schedule E form and filling it from a pre-organized report. With a CPA, the tax package reduces billable hours. Either way, the Pro tax package is the feature that justifies the Pro price.

Bonus features worth knowing

Stessa isn't just accounting software — it's grown into a broader landlord platform:

• Rent collection: Free ACH rent collection on all tiers, with autopay, automated reminders, late fees, tenant ledger, and rent roll. Pro and Manage add accelerated payment processing (getting your money faster).
• Tenant screening: Applications and screening are available, letting you run the full leasing workflow.
• Leasing: Vacancy advertising with syndication to Zillow, lease templates (Manage and Pro), and eSigning.
• Maintenance tracking: Available on Manage and Pro — tenants can submit maintenance requests, and you can track work orders.
• Document storage: Unlimited document and receipt storage on all tiers.

The breadth is a genuine advantage for a landlord who wants one platform instead of five subscriptions. But breadth is also a warning: Stessa's screening, leasing, and maintenance tools are good enough to avoid separate subscriptions, not best-in-class at any one of them.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Free Essentials plan is genuinely free: unlimited properties, unlimited bank feeds, free ACH rent collection, no trial expiration.
• Rental-specific accounting categories mapped to Schedule E line items, not generic small-business buckets.
• Automated bank feeds on all tiers, including free — the manual data entry is eliminated.
• Schedule E and accountant tax package (Pro) make tax time dramatically easier; can pay for itself in saved CPA hours.
• Performance dashboard with cap rate, cash flow, and NOI per property — an investor view spreadsheets can't match without maintenance.
• High-yield cash management banking (up to 3.24% APY on Pro) with 1.1% cash back on purchases.
• Roofstock-owned: backed by a real estate company, not a startup that might vanish.
• Unlimited document and receipt storage on every tier.

Cons

• The best accounting features (Schedule E reporting, advanced transaction tracking, unlimited receipt scans, CapEx detail) are Pro-only at $35/month — the free plan's tax output is basic.
• Only 5 receipt scans per month on Essentials and Manage; paper-receipt-heavy landlords will hit the wall fast.
• No direct integrations with QuickBooks or Xero — if your bookkeeper or CPA works in one of those, you'll be exporting CSVs.
• Not double-entry accounting; complex entities (multi-member LLCs with equity tracking, partner capital accounts) will outgrow it.
• Not a bank-first tool: no separate account per property, so money organization is weaker than banking-first alternatives.
• Mobile experience is landlord-only; there's no tenant app.

Stessa vs spreadsheets

The honest comparison most landlords need: is Stessa better than the free rent ledger you're already using?

For 1–3 units with simple finances, a spreadsheet is fine — and we offer a free rent ledger spreadsheet you can download and use forever. Spreadsheets win on control and cost (zero). They lose on automation: every transaction is manual entry, categorization is whatever you remember, and tax-time means rebuilding your year's books by hand.

Stessa's free Essentials plan beats a spreadsheet the moment you have bank feeds connected, because categorization happens automatically and the dashboard generates itself. The crossover point is roughly 3+ units or any situation where you're spending more than an hour a month on the books. Below that, the spreadsheet is honestly fine.

If you want to improve your spreadsheet game before committing to software, our landlord bookkeeping guide covers the categories and habits that make any system work, and the rental property bookkeeping checklist gives you a monthly routine.

Stessa vs QuickBooks

QuickBooks Online (Simple Start at $35/month, Essentials at $65/month) is the general-purpose standard. It has double-entry accounting, payroll, invoicing, and a massive ecosystem of bookkeepers who know it. If your CPA insists on QuickBooks, or your entity structure needs real double-entry books, Stessa isn't a substitute — use QuickBooks.

But for rental properties specifically, Stessa wins on three things: price (free vs. $35+/month), rental-specific categories out of the box (QuickBooks needs custom chart-of-accounts work to speak Schedule E), and the performance dashboard (QuickBooks gives you financial statements, not cap rates and cash-on-cash return). Most independent landlords don't need double-entry accounting for a Schedule E property — they need clean categorized transactions and a tax package. Stessa delivers that at $0–$35/month.

One gap to be aware of: because Stessa doesn't integrate directly with QuickBooks or Xero, if you ever hire a bookkeeper who works exclusively in QuickBooks, you'll export data out of Stessa. Full data export is available on all tiers, so it's a friction point, not a dead end.

For the full field of options, see our best landlord accounting software roundup and the deeper rental property accounting software comparison.

Who Stessa is for (and who should skip it)

Stessa is ideal for:

• Landlords with 1–10 units who want free automated bookkeeping and a portfolio dashboard.
• Self-filers who dread Schedule E — the Pro tax package is the cheapest way to make tax time painless.
• Investors who want performance metrics (cap rate, cash flow, NOI) without maintaining a portfolio spreadsheet.
• Landlords currently doing books in a spreadsheet who are spending an hour+ a month on data entry.
• Buy-and-hold investors who want one platform covering accounting, rent collection, screening, and leasing basics.

Skip Stessa if:

• You want your bank and your books in one system with a separate account per property — a banking-first platform like Baselane fits better. Read the full Baselane vs Stessa comparison.
• Your entity structure needs double-entry accounting, partner capital accounts, or multi-member LLC equity tracking.
• Your CPA or bookkeeper works exclusively in QuickBooks or Xero and won't touch anything else.
• You need tenant-facing tools like a tenant mobile app or best-in-class maintenance coordination.

FAQ

Is Stessa really free?

Yes — the Essentials plan is free with no time limit, no property cap, and no unit cap. You get unlimited properties, unlimited automated bank feeds, basic financial reports, unlimited document storage, and free ACH rent collection. The catch is depth: Schedule E reporting, unlimited receipt scans, advanced transaction tracking, and budgeting require the paid Pro tier ($35/month, or $28/month billed annually).

Who owns Stessa?

Stessa is owned by Roofstock, the online marketplace for rental property investors. Roofstock acquired Stessa to pair its property marketplace with free financial tools for landlords. That ownership is a plus for longevity — the product is backed by a substantial real estate company, not a bootstrapped startup.

Does Stessa do my taxes for me?

No — Stessa is not tax software and doesn't file returns. It generates tax packages: reports that organize your income and expenses by property and (on paid tiers) by Schedule E line item, with CapEx detail on Pro. You or your CPA use those reports to prepare the return. The value is in the organization, not the filing. If you're looking at deductions specifically, see our rental property tax deductions guide.

Can I use Stessa with my existing bank accounts?

Yes. You connect your existing bank accounts, credit cards, and mortgage servicers through automated feeds — unlimited on all tiers. Stessa also offers its own optional cash management bank account (1.88% APY on Essentials/Manage, 3.24% APY on Pro, 1.1% cash back on purchases), but you're not required to use it.

Does Stessa work for multi-member LLCs?

It depends on complexity. Stessa supports shared account access (with advanced ownership metrics on Pro), which covers simple multi-owner setups where you just need to see each owner's share. But Stessa is not double-entry accounting, so entities that need partner capital accounts, equity tracking, or formal distributions should use QuickBooks or work with a CPA.

How does Stessa compare to Baselane?

They start from opposite ends. Stessa is accounting software with a banking product attached; Baselane is a bank that grew a bookkeeping app. Stessa has the deeper free accounting toolkit and broader operational features (screening, leasing, maintenance). Baselane wins on money organization — a separate account per property. We compared them feature by feature in Baselane vs Stessa 2026; if accounting is your priority, Stessa wins; if organizing cash by property is, Baselane does. Try Baselane free.

What's the catch with the free plan?

Three real limitations: (1) only 5 smart receipt scans per month, which paper-receipt landlords will exhaust quickly; (2) the tax package is basic — no Schedule E structure, which is the whole point for most landlords at tax time; (3) the dashboard shows key metrics but not full chart history. If you hit any of those walls, Pro at $35/month removes all three.

Can I export my data if I leave Stessa?

Yes — full data export is available on all tiers, including the free Essentials plan. Your transactions, documents, and reports can be exported, which matters if you ever migrate to QuickBooks, a new CPA's preferred system, or a different platform.

Bottom line

Stessa earns its reputation. The free Essentials plan is the most generous offer in landlord accounting: unlimited properties, unlimited bank feeds, and free rent collection for $0, forever. For landlords who just want clean books and a portfolio dashboard, it's the obvious first step — and it beats a spreadsheet the moment you connect your accounts.

The real decision is Pro at $35/month ($28/month annual). If you're spending an hour a month on books, dreading Schedule E, or paying a CPA to clean up a shoebox, Pro is one of the best $336/year a landlord can spend. If you're a small landlord with simple finances and a good spreadsheet habit, start free and stay free.

One parting note: software doesn't fix sloppy habits. Whatever tool you use, the landlords who win at tax time are the ones who reconcile monthly and save every receipt. Our landlord accounting mistakes guide covers the errors that cost real money — most of them are free to fix.

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