Best Property Management Software for 5-10 Units

When you have 5 to 10 units, you're in an awkward spot. Too many to track in your head. Not enough to justify $100+/month software.

I've been in this range for 2 years now. Here's what I've learned about software at this scale.

What 5-10 Units Actually Looks Like

At 5 units, you probably have 5 rent payments to track. Maybe 2-3 maintenance requests per month. You can handle this with a notebook if you're disciplined.

At 10 units, it changes. That's 10 rent payments, 5-8 maintenance requests per month, and enough complexity that things start slipping. Not because you're bad at your job. Because you have a day job too.

This is the range where most landlords first realize they need something more than their memory.

The Options (Honest Assessment)

Buildium ($55/month). Overkill. It's a full property management platform with accounting, tenant portals, vendor management. Great if you have 50 units and a bookkeeper. At 7 units, you'll spend more time setting it up than you'll ever save. I go deeper on this in my Buildium alternatives for small landlords post.

AppFolio ($1.40/unit/month, $280 minimum). Even more overkill. The $280/month minimum means you're paying for 200 units worth of software when you have 8. Pass.

TenantCloud (free to $15/month). Better fit for this range. The free tier works for basic stuff. The interface is a bit clunky but functional. My issue was that it wanted me to change my whole workflow. I didn't want to enter data in two places.

Avail/Apartments.com (free). Good for online rent collection and tenant screening. Not great for maintenance tracking. If your main need is collecting rent online, it works. If your main need is "don't let me forget about that leaking toilet in Unit 6," it won't help much.

Stessa (free). Focused on financials. Excellent for tracking income, expenses, and tax prep. Not designed for catching late rent or aging maintenance. It's a bookkeeping tool, not an operations tool.

Google Sheets (free). What most people in this range actually use. And it's fine. The data entry is fast, you can customize it however you want, and you already know how to use it.

The Real Problem at 5-10 Units

Here's what I've realized. The problem isn't data storage. Spreadsheets store data just fine.

The problem is attention. When you have 8 units and a full-time job and a family, you don't check your rent roll every day. You check it when you remember. And sometimes you don't remember until day 6. If you're wondering when to switch from spreadsheets to PM software, I wrote a whole post on the signals.

I went 11 days without checking my sheet last March. When I finally opened it, two tenants were overdue. One was already 8 days past the grace period. That's 8 days of stress I could have avoided if I'd just known on day 1.

What I Actually Use

Google Sheets for the data. It's where I track everything. Rent, maintenance, expenses.

RentGuard for the alerts. It connects to my Google Sheet and emails me when rent is overdue or a maintenance request is getting old. I don't have to remember to check. It checks for me.

This combo costs me $15/month. Way less than any real PM software. And I didn't have to migrate a single piece of data or learn a new system.

For landlords in the 5-10 unit range, this is the sweet spot. Keep your system. Just make it smarter.

It's free forever at descoshop.com.