← All comparisonsRentmark vs Stessa

Stessa Alternative — Accounting Plus Actual Property Management

Stessa is built around the investor's balance sheet — bank feeds, financial reports, portfolio performance and tax-ready output — with rent collection and screening layered on.

The short answer

These two are less rivals than neighbours. Stessa looks at a rental from the investor's side — what the portfolio is worth and what it returns. Rentmark looks at it from the landlord's side — what the lease says, whether the rent arrived, what condition the unit is in and what you owe the tenant back at the end. If your pain is a shoebox of receipts in April, Stessa is the better fit. If your pain is a deposit dispute in August, it is this one.

Side by side

RentmarkStessa
Entry price$19.99/mo or $199.90/yr, flatFree tier; $12–$28/mo annually for paid tiers
Automatic bank feedsBank connection for matching rent paymentsYes, core to the product
Portfolio & asset performance reportingRental yield and net position per propertyDeeper — budgeting, pro-forma, advanced reports
State-aware lease generatorIncluded, unlimited, deposit rules per stateLegal forms library on paid tiers
E-signaturesUnlimited, includedMetered: 1/mo on Manage, 7/mo on Pro
Move-in / move-out inspectionsRoom-by-room, photos, tenant co-fillsNot a core feature
Itemized deposit settlement with state deadlineGenerated at move-outNot offered
Tenant portal with maintenance threadsIncludedMaintenance tracking on paid tiers
Built forRunning the tenancyTracking the investment

What Stessa costs

Stessa publishes a free Essentials tier (unlimited properties, bank feeds, basic reports, rent collection, screening), a Manage tier at $12/month billed annually or $15 monthly, and a Pro tier at $28/month annually or $35 monthly. E-signatures are metered on the paid tiers — one a month on Manage, seven on Pro.

Read from their own pricing page on 10 August 2026. Prices change — check theirs before you decide, and tell us if this page has gone stale.

Rentmark, for comparison, is $19.99 a month or $199.90 a year — one plan, every feature, unlimited properties, no per-document or per-account fees. The full pricing page lists exactly what is free and what the subscription turns on.

When Stessa is the better choice

Genuinely, and we would rather you read this before subscribing than after:

  • Your main problem is the books, not the tenancy — you want bank feeds, Schedule E and portfolio performance
  • You hold property you do not operate day to day, or a manager handles the tenants
  • Budgeting and pro-forma modelling matter more to you than move-out documentation

When Rentmark is the better choice

  • You are the one signing the lease, chasing the rent and inspecting the unit
  • You need the lease itself generated with your state's deposit cap and deadline on it
  • You want move-in and move-out documented with photos and co-signed by the tenant
  • You send more than one document a month for signature

What switching actually involves

The part people expect to be painful is free: you can create a Rentmark account and enter every property, unit, tenant and lease you have without paying anything. Nothing is metered at that stage, so you can rebuild your portfolio in full, look at it, and decide afterwards.

The subscription starts when you want Rentmark to do things — generate the monthly rent schedule, issue receipts, chase late payments, open the tenant portal, run inspections and keep the accounts. Export is always available as CSV, in both directions of the decision.

Frequently asked

Is Rentmark cheaper than Stessa?

Rentmark is a single flat plan at $19.99 a month, or $199.90 a year, covering unlimited properties, tenants and leases with no add-on fees. Stessa publishes a free Essentials tier (unlimited properties, bank feeds, basic reports, rent collection, screening), a Manage tier at $12/month billed annually or $15 monthly, and a Pro tier at $28/month annually or $35 monthly. E-signatures are metered on the paid tiers — one a month on Manage, seven on Pro. Whether that works out cheaper for you depends on your portfolio and on which fees you would actually trigger, so compare the two against your own number of doors rather than against a headline price.

Can I move from Stessa to Rentmark?

Yes, and the setup side costs nothing: creating your account and entering your properties, units, tenants and leases is free, so you can rebuild your portfolio in Rentmark and see it in place before you subscribe to anything. The subscription turns on the operational side — rent schedules, receipts, reminders, the tenant portal, inspections and accounting.

When is Stessa the better choice?

Your main problem is the books, not the tenancy — you want bank feeds, Schedule E and portfolio performance. You hold property you do not operate day to day, or a manager handles the tenants. Budgeting and pro-forma modelling matter more to you than move-out documentation. If any of those describe you, stay where you are — this page exists to help you decide, not to talk you out of a tool that fits.

Does Rentmark take a percentage of my rent?

No. Tenants pay you directly using your own Stripe link, PayPal or Zelle details, or written bank instructions. Rentmark records the payment, updates the balance and generates the receipt, but it is never in the payment path, so there is nothing for it to take a cut of.

Our bias, stated plainly

This page is published by Rentmark, so read it as what it is. We have tried to keep every claim about Stessa sourced and dated, and to be specific about where they win. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it.

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Look before you switch

The live demo is the whole product with sample data — no account, no email address. Building your own portfolio afterwards is free.

Open the live demoSee the full feature list