Apartments.com Listing Fees and How Much Apartments.com Charges Landlords to List
Listing a rental on Apartments.com is free. The only fee a landlord can pay is the optional Premium upgrade, and Apartments.com does not publish its price: the amount varies by property type and market and is shown only once you reach the upgrade screen. A Premium listing runs 30 days. Applicants pay $32.00 plus tax, and card rent payments cost the renter 2.75%.
Figures read from the Apartments.com property owner help center
Sample listings are illustrative examples, not real properties. Nothing you paste is stored.
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Must-have facts
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Rewritten listing
Headline
Description
Questions you will get asked 20 times
Post this listing on RentPlace
One flat monthly fee for every unit you own, and the questions above get answered before the inquiry reaches you.
Every Apartments.com fee, and who is actually billed
Two columns do the work here. The price column tells you what Apartments.com states, including the row where it states nothing. The billed-to column tells you whether the money leaves your account or the renter's, which is where most comparisons go wrong.
| What you are paying for | Apartments.com price | Billed to | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publishing a rental listing | Free | Nobody | Posting a listing through Apartments.com Rental Tools costs the landlord nothing. The listing appears on Apartments.com and carries the standard contact form. |
| Premium listing upgrade | Not published | Landlord | Apartments.com states that pricing for Premium varies depending on your property type, and that you are shown the price when you reach the upgrade screen. There is no public rate card, so you cannot budget the number before you are inside the checkout. |
| How long a Premium listing runs | 30 days | Landlord | A Premium listing and its features last 30 days from the date of purchase. For properties under 5 units, you upgrade again after it expires. This is a third of the window Zillow sells for a single premium charge. |
| Properties with 5 to 49 units | Quoted by phone | Landlord | Owners and managers at this size are directed to call the Apartments.com advertising line for what the company calls flexible packages. There is no self-serve price for a portfolio. |
| Rental application and screening | $32.00 plus tax per applicant | Renter | Covers TransUnion credit, criminal and eviction reports. The applicant can reuse the same application for 30 days across up to 10 participating landlords, so they pay once, not once per property. |
| Receiving applications and screening reports | Free | Nobody | Apartments.com states it is free for you to have renters apply directly to your property and see their screening reports. The applicant carries that cost, so you never collect an application fee yourself. |
| Rent collected from a checking account | Free | Nobody | ACH bank transfers carry no fee to either side. Signing up for rent collection costs the landlord nothing. |
| Rent paid by card or mobile wallet | 2.75% of the payment | Renter | Applies to debit card, credit card, Apple Pay and Google Pay. On $1,800 of rent that is about $50 a month, charged to the tenant rather than deducted from your payout. |
Publishing a rental listing
Free billed to nobody
Posting a listing through Apartments.com Rental Tools costs the landlord nothing. The listing appears on Apartments.com and carries the standard contact form.
Premium listing upgrade
Not published billed to landlord
Apartments.com states that pricing for Premium varies depending on your property type, and that you are shown the price when you reach the upgrade screen. There is no public rate card, so you cannot budget the number before you are inside the checkout.
How long a Premium listing runs
30 days billed to landlord
A Premium listing and its features last 30 days from the date of purchase. For properties under 5 units, you upgrade again after it expires. This is a third of the window Zillow sells for a single premium charge.
Properties with 5 to 49 units
Quoted by phone billed to landlord
Owners and managers at this size are directed to call the Apartments.com advertising line for what the company calls flexible packages. There is no self-serve price for a portfolio.
Rental application and screening
$32.00 plus tax per applicant billed to renter
Covers TransUnion credit, criminal and eviction reports. The applicant can reuse the same application for 30 days across up to 10 participating landlords, so they pay once, not once per property.
Receiving applications and screening reports
Free billed to nobody
Apartments.com states it is free for you to have renters apply directly to your property and see their screening reports. The applicant carries that cost, so you never collect an application fee yourself.
Rent collected from a checking account
Free billed to nobody
ACH bank transfers carry no fee to either side. Signing up for rent collection costs the landlord nothing.
Rent paid by card or mobile wallet
2.75% of the payment billed to renter
Applies to debit card, credit card, Apple Pay and Google Pay. On $1,800 of rent that is about $50 a month, charged to the tenant rather than deducted from your payout.
RentPlace is not affiliated with Apartments.com or CoStar Group. These are Apartments.com's own statements, read from its property owner help center and rental manager pages. They can change, so confirm the figure on the upgrade screen before you pay.
The Premium price is not a secret, it is a quote
This is the single most useful thing to know before you plan a marketing budget around Apartments.com.
Search for what Apartments.com charges and you will find pages offering a confident range: fifty dollars a month, two hundred, five hundred, pick one. None of those come from Apartments.com. The company's own help center says pricing for Premium varies depending on your property type and that you will be prompted with the price when you access the Premium upgrade screen. That is the whole published answer.
So the number you pay is generated for your property, in your market, at the moment you click through, and two landlords on the same street can be quoted differently. There is nothing improper about that, it is how internet listing services have priced ads for years. It does mean two practical things. You cannot compare Apartments.com against another portal on price until you have created a listing and started a checkout you may not want to finish. And you cannot forecast next quarter's advertising line, because the input is not a number you control or even know.
The portfolio path is the same shape. Under 5 units you repeat the upgrade listing by listing. Between 5 and 49 units, Apartments.com asks you to call its advertising line for what it describes as flexible packages, which is a sales conversation rather than a price. If you are the kind of operator who wants the cost of filling a unit to be a known, fixed, boring line in a spreadsheet, that is worth knowing before you build a leasing process around it.
Thirty days is shorter than your average vacancy
The Premium window matters more than the Premium price, because the window decides how many times you pay it.
30
days a Premium listing runs
Counted from the date of purchase, not from the date the unit goes live. It ends on its own, and for properties under 5 units the fix is to buy the upgrade again once it expires.
2x
what a 45-day vacancy costs in upgrades
A unit that takes six or seven weeks to lease crosses the window boundary, so the ad that was supposed to shorten the vacancy gets bought twice. The slower the unit, the more the visibility costs.
$60
lost per vacant day on an $1,800 unit
One extra vacant week is about $420 of rent you will never bill. That single number is larger than any listing fee on this page, which is why the fee is the wrong thing to optimize first.
Run that arithmetic on your own rent before you argue about advertising spend. The vacancy calculator on our pricing page takes the rent and the days and shows you the number, and it is almost always an order of magnitude bigger than the listing fee that started the conversation.
Apartments.com and Zillow, on the parts each one publishes
These are the two portals most US landlords weigh against each other, and their fee schedules are not built the same way. Both figures below are the companies' own.
| Compared on | Apartments.com | Zillow Rental Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to publish | Free | Free |
| Premium upgrade price | Not published. Quoted at the upgrade screen by property type and market | $39.99 per listing, published openly |
| How long the upgrade lasts | 30 days | Up to 90 days |
| Portfolio pricing | 5 to 49 units: packages quoted by phone | No bulk pricing. Each upgrade is a separate full-price charge |
| Application fee | $32.00 plus tax, paid by the applicant | $35, paid by the applicant |
| Application reuse | Reusable for 30 days across up to 10 participating landlords | Reusable across Zillow applications for 30 days |
| Rent by bank transfer | Free | Free |
| Rent by card | 2.75% on debit, credit, Apple Pay and Google Pay, paid by the renter | 2.95% on credit, $9.95 flat on debit, paid by the renter |
Cost to publish
Apartments.com: Free
Zillow: Free
Premium upgrade price
Apartments.com: Not published. Quoted at the upgrade screen by property type and market
Zillow: $39.99 per listing, published openly
How long the upgrade lasts
Apartments.com: 30 days
Zillow: Up to 90 days
Portfolio pricing
Apartments.com: 5 to 49 units: packages quoted by phone
Zillow: No bulk pricing. Each upgrade is a separate full-price charge
Application fee
Apartments.com: $32.00 plus tax, paid by the applicant
Zillow: $35, paid by the applicant
Application reuse
Apartments.com: Reusable for 30 days across up to 10 participating landlords
Zillow: Reusable across Zillow applications for 30 days
Rent by bank transfer
Apartments.com: Free
Zillow: Free
Rent by card
Apartments.com: 2.75% on debit, credit, Apple Pay and Google Pay, paid by the renter
Zillow: 2.95% on credit, $9.95 flat on debit, paid by the renter
The full breakdown of the Zillow side lives on our Zillow Rental Manager cost page, and the two are set against each other unit by unit in Zillow vs Apartments.com for landlords.
Free posting solved the price, not the inbox
Both big portals now cost nothing to post on. That moved the expensive part somewhere the fee table cannot show you.
An Apartments.com inquiry arrives through a contact form. Nothing in it requires the renter to say when they want to move in, what they earn, how many people are moving in, whether there is a dog, or how long a lease they want. Applications collect that, but an application comes after the showing, and the showing comes after you have spent four days writing back to people to find out whether they are plausible. Buying Premium makes that pile bigger. It does not change the shape of a single message in it.
That is the trade, stated plainly. Apartments.com gives you an enormous renter audience for nothing, then hands you an unsorted stack and charges an unpublished amount to make the stack taller. For one unit in a strong market that is a fine deal and you should take it. For eight units, where the sorting happens eight times over and the Premium window resets on each one separately, it stops being a fine deal and starts being your Tuesday.
RentPlace works on that side instead. A renter cannot send "is this still available?" because the listing asks your screening questions before the message will send: move-in date, income band, occupants, pets, lease length. Every applicant on a listing answers the same questions, so replies line up side by side rather than arriving in thirty different shapes. Billing is one flat monthly fee for the whole portfolio, published on the pricing page, so a unit that takes six weeks costs exactly what a unit that goes in three days costs. There is no upgrade screen and no window to buy twice.
Apartments.com and RentPlace, side by side
Including the rows where Apartments.com is the better answer. If reach is the whole problem and you have one unit, the free Apartments.com listing is hard to beat, and we would rather say so here than have you find out after paying us.
| Compared on | Apartments.com | RentPlace |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to post a listing | Free | Included in the plan, from $39 a month |
| Renter audience | One of the largest rental audiences in the US, plus the wider network | Smaller. We are new and we are not going to pretend otherwise |
| Cost to be seen | Premium upgrade, price not published until checkout | Nothing extra. Placement is not sold |
| Can you budget it in advance | No. The Premium figure is generated per property and market | Yes. Four plan prices published on the pricing page |
| What an inquiry contains | A contact form message | Move-in date, income band, occupants, pets, lease length, message |
| Who sets the screening questions | The Apartments.com application flow | You do, per listing, and every applicant answers the same set |
| Cost when a vacancy runs long | The 30-day upgrade expires and you buy it again | Unchanged. The monthly fee does not move |
| Portfolio vacancy view | Per listing | Every unit, days vacant and time-to-lease in one board |
| Listing quality help | Free rent comparison reports for pricing the unit | Every listing graded out of 100 and rewritten before it goes live |
| Background and credit reports | Yes, TransUnion, $32.00 plus tax paid by the applicant | No. We collect structured answers, we are not a consumer reporting agency |
Cost to post a listing
Apartments.com: Free
RentPlace: Included in the plan, from $39 a month
Renter audience
Apartments.com: One of the largest rental audiences in the US, plus the wider network
RentPlace: Smaller. We are new and we are not going to pretend otherwise
Cost to be seen
Apartments.com: Premium upgrade, price not published until checkout
RentPlace: Nothing extra. Placement is not sold
Can you budget it in advance
Apartments.com: No. The Premium figure is generated per property and market
RentPlace: Yes. Four plan prices published on the pricing page
What an inquiry contains
Apartments.com: A contact form message
RentPlace: Move-in date, income band, occupants, pets, lease length, message
Who sets the screening questions
Apartments.com: The Apartments.com application flow
RentPlace: You do, per listing, and every applicant answers the same set
Cost when a vacancy runs long
Apartments.com: The 30-day upgrade expires and you buy it again
RentPlace: Unchanged. The monthly fee does not move
Portfolio vacancy view
Apartments.com: Per listing
RentPlace: Every unit, days vacant and time-to-lease in one board
Listing quality help
Apartments.com: Free rent comparison reports for pricing the unit
RentPlace: Every listing graded out of 100 and rewritten before it goes live
Background and credit reports
Apartments.com: Yes, TransUnion, $32.00 plus tax paid by the applicant
RentPlace: No. We collect structured answers, we are not a consumer reporting agency
Use both if it helps. Plenty of landlords keep the free portal listing for reach and run the qualifying somewhere that asks the questions for them.
What landlords ask about Apartments.com pricing
Answers use Apartments.com's own published statements.
How much does it cost to list on Apartments.com?
Nothing. Publishing a rental listing on Apartments.com is free for the landlord, and so are applications, screening reports and ACH rent collection. The only charge a landlord can incur is the optional Premium upgrade, and Apartments.com does not publish what that costs until you reach the upgrade screen.
Does Apartments.com charge a fee to list?
No. Apartments.com charges no fee to list a rental, and applications, screening and ACH rent collection cost the landlord nothing either. A fee only applies if you choose the optional Premium upgrade, which runs 30 days and whose price Apartments.com shows only on the upgrade screen.
How much does Apartments.com charge landlords?
Apartments.com charges landlords nothing to post a listing, receive applications or collect rent by ACH. The only landlord charge is the optional Premium upgrade, priced by property type and shown only at the upgrade screen, and it lasts 30 days. Renters pay the other fees: $32.00 plus tax to apply and 2.75% on card rent payments.
Does Apartments.com cost money?
Not to post. Apartments.com earns on the optional Premium listing upgrade, which the landlord pays, and on renter-side fees: $32.00 plus tax per application and 2.75% on card rent payments. If you post a basic listing and collect rent by bank transfer, Apartments.com bills you nothing at all.
What is the Apartments.com premium listing cost?
Apartments.com will not tell you in advance. Its help center states that pricing for Premium varies depending on your property type and that you are prompted with the price on the upgrade screen. Any page quoting a fixed monthly Premium figure is guessing, because no published rate card exists.
How long does an Apartments.com Premium listing last?
Thirty days from the date of purchase. It does not renew on its own. If the unit is still empty on day 31 you buy the upgrade again, which means a two-month vacancy costs two Premium charges and a three-month vacancy costs three.
Is Apartments.com free for landlords?
For posting, yes. Listing, receiving applications, reading TransUnion screening reports, generating a lease and collecting rent by ACH are all free to the landlord. Free covers everything except visibility, which is the one thing Premium sells and the one price Apartments.com keeps off the page.
How much does Apartments.com charge for applications?
The applicant pays $32.00 plus tax, not you. That fee covers the application plus TransUnion credit, criminal and eviction reporting, and it is reusable: the renter can share the same application with up to 10 participating landlords for 30 days without paying again.
Does Apartments.com have pricing for multiple properties?
Not self-serve. Properties with fewer than 5 units repeat the Premium upgrade one listing at a time. Properties with 5 to 49 units are told to call the Apartments.com advertising line for packages, so a portfolio price is quoted to you individually rather than listed anywhere public.
Why can I not find Apartments.com pricing anywhere?
Because Apartments.com deliberately does not publish it. Premium pricing is generated per property type and market and surfaced only inside the upgrade flow, and portfolio packages are handled by a sales line. The aggregator pages showing a tidy monthly range are inferring a number that the company itself does not state.
Grade the listing before you pay to promote it
Buying placement for a listing that leaves out the move-in date, the pet policy and the utilities just buys more of the wrong inquiries. Paste it into the grader at the top of this page: a score out of 100, the missing facts named one by one, and a rewritten headline and description. No account, nothing you paste is stored.
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