.svg){kind=icon}
If you’ve been shopping around for a great rental property management software tool, chances are you’ve seen the names Appfolio and Cozy pop up a lot often.
They’re two of the most popular property management tools in recent years, and worth consideration if you’re in the market for a property management tool.
The only problem?
Cozy closed its doors in 2018, so one of the above contenders is MIA.
With that said, the heart of the question at hand is still the same.
When it comes to property management software, it’s important to know:
What do you need from your property management tool?
Do you need:
- Strong accounting features?
- Or everything but accounting and really just need a good QuickBooks integration?
- Is onboarding new tenants a sticking point?
- Maybe customer service is especially important to you?
Knowing how a tool fares in these and other areas is key to deciding which tool is best for you and your business.
In this property management software review, we’ll take you through a comparison between some of the best property management tools.
But first, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
Appfolio vs Cozy: Which Is Better?
Appfolio is a property management company that offers an all-in-one solution with strong accounting features such as online rent payments, billing, invoicing, and a convenient late fee calculator for property managers and property owners.
Similarly, Cozy was a property management solution with a variety of features for both residential and commercial properties. They offered a decent free plan, though the feature set on that free plan was highly limited.
Cozy made for a good starting point if you had never used a property management tool before, though users reported getting minimal value from the free version of the software.
In fact, many users reported still using a combination of tools such as Excel and QuickBooks as Cozy’s free plan was only really reliable for signing up new tenants through its eLeasing tools.
However…
Cozy closed its doors in 2018
That’s the elephant.
In 2018, Apartments.com owner CoStar purchased Cozy. Cozy as a property management tool is no longer available in any form:
Plans were stated to integrate some of Cozy’s features into the Apartments.com platform, though only its tenant-side features were ever integrated. For that reason, a comparison is no longer possible.
With that said, there are several highly competitive alternatives worth considering, many whose feature sets blow Cozy’s out of the water.
Let’s take a look at some of those now.
3 Best Cozy alternatives
If you had been looking into Cozy, it might be a little off-putting to hear that it’s no longer available.
However, there are still several comparable (or better) all-in-one property management software tools on the market today to pit against Appfolio.
Here are some of the best:
1. DoorLoop
DoorLoop is a complete property management tool designed for rental property owners and managers, to manage their entire portfolio from anywhere.
Its feature set is competitive with most property management software tools out there and beyond, along with a few unique ones like a seamless QuickBooks Online integration.
So, if you’re attached to QuickBooks and rather just use your property management tool for everything else and keep your accounting separate? You’re good to go.
Possibly most important, though, is that it’s purpose-built with ease of use in mind.
All property management services in DoorLoop are fast, seamless, and easy to find. Response times are lightning-fast, navigation is sensibly structured, and you can access everything with either a cloud-based or convenient smartphone app version of the software.
DoorLoop features:
- Convenient QuickBooks Online integration
- … or all the tools you need to manage your property accounting right from within the app (whichever you prefer)
- Manage maintenance requests with a streamlined management system, including tenant communications and vendor payments
- Leasing and marketing tools to help you both bring in new tenants with things like automated listings and move them in with eLeasing and background checks
- A convenient tenant portal where you can collect rent online, take care of fees and responsibilities, and communicate with you and your team in a way that doesn’t give you a headache (everything in one place, simple and easy)
- And much more
DoorLoop pricing
DoorLoop is just $59 per month for up to 20 units.
Want to see it in action? Schedule a free demo to get started today.
2. SimplifyEM
SimplifyEM is a good option if you’re looking for a property management tool with strong accounting tools.
They have several unique accounting features such as payment reminders via their tenant portal. However, if you’re looking for a property management tool that can do more than accounting, you’ll find SimplifyEM highly lacking in most other areas.
SimplifyEM features
- Payment reminders
- Automatic rent payments
- QuickBooks integration
SimplifyEM Pricing
SimplifyEM offers a free trial version, with their basic starter plan coming in at $20 per month. The plan only covers up to 10 units, however, so it’s best for smaller portfolios.
3. Rentmoji
Rentmoji is a property management tool unique for its clean UI and convenient multi-platform cloud-based and smartphone versions.
You generally won’t find yourself wanting for anything with Rentmoji. However, the trade off is that it’s hard to get started with them and their enterprise pricing model means you’ll likely be paying much more.
Rentmoji features
- Tenant portal
- Automatic rent payments
- Maintenance management
Rentmoji pricing
Rentmoji, like many other property management software tools, doesn’t list their pricing online. Typically, that means they use enterprise pricing (i.e. they’re generally expensive and better for larger portfolios).
However, you’ll need to contact one of their sales representatives directly to find out more about their pricing.
Appfolio vs. DoorLoop
With Cozy no longer a consideration, let’s take one of our alternatives and compare it to Appfolio to see which wins out.
We’ll compare Appfolio and DoorLoop’s all-in-one property management software to see which may be the better option for you based on:
- Features
- Pricing
- Customer service
- and ease-of-use.
First, let’s look at how they stack up in terms of features.
Appfolio vs. DoorLoop: Features
Both DoorLoop and Appfolio have a strong set of comparable features.
Let’s look at each individually:
With DoorLoop, you have a complete suite of property management tools at your fingertips.
We covered a few of the overarching feature categories earlier, but some other notable features include:
- Automatic rent payments via a convenient tenant portal, and multiple other tools to make it easier to collect rent and more of it
- Full (and we mean full) accounting suite: Multiple payment methods, full chart of accounts QuickBooks Online integration, bank account syncing with Plaid, bank reconciliations, and more
- Professional IDX-based website, automatic listings, and more great marketing tools
- Leasing tools such as tenant screening and digital eLeases, making it easier than every to bring in new tenants– and in record time
- Owner portal that makes it easy to manage reports for owners and print checks
- And that’s just the beginning.
With Appfolio, you get a similarly robust feature set with unique community features. However, there are a few holes here and there.
Features include:
- Tenant portal with online payments
- Tenant communications via the portal and on maintenance orders
- Unique association features such as event and calendar management
- Assign maintenance orders to vendors
- Owner portal where you can print checks and run owner reports
Appfolio vs. DoorLoop: Pricing
Pricing is always a sticking point, as it should be.
However, you’ll be pleasantly surprised that both options deliver fair and reasonable pricing.
With DoorLoop, you can get started for just $49 per month.
With Appfolio, pricing is competitive at $1.40 per unit per month. However, it’s their monthly minimum that leaves most portfolios out to dry.
At a $280 monthly minimum, only portfolios with around 200 or more units will find the pricing sensible. Otherwise, you’re just paying extra for every unit.
Appfolio’s Plus plan moves up to $3 per unit, and a $1,500 monthly minimum, considerably higher for just a few features:
- Workflow management
- Revenue management
- Data export
- Performance insights
Appfolio vs. DoorLoop: Ease-of-use
So far, the biggest difference between DoorLoop and Appfolio has been pricing.
However, in the next two sections– ease-of-use and customer service– the difference will be clearer.
A piece of software is only as valuable as it is easy to use.
If it just ends up further complicating things, what is the point?
With DoorLoop, users report that the software is super fast and incredibly easy to use.
Response times are low, navigation is clear and it’s simple and straightforward to find something.
With Appfolio, users report that while the software is robust, there is so much that the software can be overwhelming and it can often be hard to find things.
Appfolio vs. DoorLoop: Customer service
Finally, let’s take a quick look at customer service.
This may be the most overlooked element when shopping for a property management tool.
However, as soon as you go to set up or need help with an issue, you’ll feel the difference between a software that has great customer service vs. one that doesn’t.
Lastly, keep in mind that for both ease-of-use and customer service sections, we reference real user reviews via review sites like Capterra.com.
With DoorLoop, users report both that onboarding is a breeze and that general customer service requests are answered promptly and handled quickly.
In fact, you can even get a hold of a real live human being through DoorLoop support. Incredible.
That, unfortunately, is not something available with Appfolio.
With Appfolio, users report that customer service requests often simply result in an automated email response that calls them to watch a particular video or read an article in their help center.
Some users report having waited for several weeks for a response to a simple setup or functionality issue as well.
The final verdict: Which is best for your business?
So, what is the final word?
Ultimately, only you can decide which rental property software tool is best for your business.
With that said, DoorLoop offers not only a comparable feature set, but the:
- The best all-around user experience
- Better pricing (especially for smaller portfolios)
- and reliable customer service.
Appfolio, on the other hand has a comprehensive feature set, but trades that with bad customer service and a high monthly minimum.
We’re pretty confident we can help streamline, optimize, and simplify your property management efforts better than any tool out there.
But what do you think?
If you’re looking for a powerful all-in-one property management tool that’s both incredibly easy to use and affordable, try DoorLoop.
See what DoorLoop can do for you, and schedule a free demo today!
Want to compare more property management software systems? Download this free whitepaper to get the inside scoop on the most popular picks!
.svg)
