RentGuard vs Avail (Realtor.com): Honest Comparison for DIY Landlords

Avail (now part of Realtor.com) is one of the most popular free landlord tools out there. And for good reason. It does a lot of stuff for $0. But "does a lot of stuff" isn't always what you need.

I tried Avail for about 3 months. Here's my honest take on how it compares to RentGuard.

What Avail Does

Avail is a full-cycle landlord platform. It covers listings, tenant screening, lease signing, rent collection, and maintenance tracking. All in one tool.

On the free Unlimited plan, you get listing syndication to Apartments.com, Realtor.com, Zumper, and more. You get tenant-initiated TransUnion credit and background checks (tenant pays). You get state-specific lease templates with digital signatures. You get direct-deposit rent collection (tenant pays $2.50 per bank transfer). And you get basic maintenance ticket tracking.

The Unlimited Plus plan at $9 per unit per month adds next-day rent deposits, waived tenant ACH fees, custom applications, custom leases, property websites, and faster support.

For a free tool, that's a lot. And it's genuinely useful if you need all of those features.

Where Avail Falls Short

The UI is clunky. I don't say this to be mean. But navigating Avail takes more clicks than it should. Setting up a property requires going through multiple screens. Checking rent status means logging into the dashboard and clicking around. For something you do every day, those extra clicks add up.

Support is slow. On the free plan, support response times are measured in days, not hours. When I had a question about a lease template, I waited 4 days for a response. Unlimited Plus gets faster support, but you're paying $9/unit for that.

It's owned by Realtor.com now. Avail used to be an independent company. It was acquired by Realtor.com in 2022. The platform increasingly feels like it's designed to funnel users toward the Realtor.com ecosystem rather than serve landlords independently. You'll notice Realtor.com branding throughout.

You have to use their system. If you want Avail's benefits, you need to enter your properties, leases, and tenants into Avail. You need tenants to use their portal for payments and maintenance. If you already have a workflow that works (spreadsheet, Venmo, text messages), Avail replaces all of that.

What RentGuard Does Differently

RentGuard takes the opposite approach. Instead of replacing your workflow, it monitors it.

You keep your Google Sheet. You keep collecting rent however you collect rent. You keep tracking maintenance however you track it. RentGuard just watches your spreadsheet and sends you an alert when something needs attention.

No tenant portal. No listing syndication. No lease signing. Just monitoring and alerts. One thing, done well.

Feature Comparison

Listing syndication. Avail wins. It syndicates to 10+ listing sites. RentGuard doesn't do listings at all. If you're looking for tenants, Avail is useful here.

Tenant screening. Avail wins. TransUnion credit, criminal, and eviction reports. RentGuard doesn't offer screening. You'd use a separate service or Avail's screening even if you use RentGuard for monitoring.

Lease management. Avail wins. State-specific templates with e-signatures. RentGuard doesn't handle leases.

Rent collection. Avail wins. Online payment processing with direct deposit. RentGuard doesn't collect rent. It monitors whether rent has been collected by checking your spreadsheet.

Overdue rent alerts. RentGuard wins. Proactive daily monitoring with email and text alerts the morning after grace period ends. Avail sends reminders to tenants but doesn't have the same landlord-alert focus. And if you collect rent outside Avail's platform, it can't track payment status at all.

Maintenance monitoring. RentGuard wins. It watches your maintenance tracker and alerts you when requests are aging based on priority. Avail has maintenance ticket tracking, but the alerting is basic.

Workflow flexibility. RentGuard wins. You keep your existing spreadsheet, Venmo, Zelle, text messages. Nothing changes. Avail requires you to adopt their platform as your workflow.

Who Is Avail Best For?

Avail is best for landlords who are starting from scratch and want one tool to handle everything. If you don't have a system yet and you want listings, screening, leases, payments, and maintenance in one place for free, Avail is a solid starting point.

It's also good for landlords who want tenants to have a portal for payments and maintenance requests. Some tenants prefer the structure of an online portal over texting their landlord.

Who Is RentGuard Best For?

RentGuard is best for landlords who already have a system that mostly works. You have a spreadsheet. You collect rent through Venmo or Zelle or check. Tenants text you about maintenance. It all works fine, except for the part where you forget to check your spreadsheet and miss things.

If you tried Avail and found it was too much overhead for what you needed, RentGuard is the opposite approach. Instead of "here's a platform that does everything," it's "keep doing what you're doing, but let us watch your data and alert you." I wrote more about this tradeoff in when to switch from spreadsheets to PM software.

The Honest Take

Avail does more things than RentGuard. A lot more. If you need a full platform with tenant-facing features, Avail is genuinely useful and the free tier is generous.

RentGuard does one thing that Avail doesn't do well: proactive monitoring of your existing spreadsheet with same-day alerts. If that's your main pain point, RentGuard solves it for $15/month without changing anything about how you work.

Different tools for different problems. Pick the one that matches your actual problem, not the one with the longest feature list.

If your problem is "I keep missing late payments because I forget to check my spreadsheet," descoshop.com. Free forever.