AppFolio and Yardi come up together on almost every mid-size management company's shortlist, and the first question is always the same: what will each one cost at my door count? Yardi Breeze answers on its pricing page, in dollars, with the minimum printed underneath. AppFolio took its prices off its website in September 2024 and now answers with a demo form.
So this comparison uses Breeze's current published prices against the last list rates AppFolio printed, and says so wherever it matters. If you are shopping for a back office because units are sitting empty, neither will fix that this month. You can put the vacant unit live on RentPlace for $39 a month while the demos run, or paste the ad into the free Listing Grader first so the copy is not what is costing you applicants.
The short answer
Yardi Breeze is cheaper at every portfolio size on published price. Breeze residential costs $1 per unit per month with a $100 monthly minimum on an annual agreement, and Yardi prints "no onboarding fees, no training fees, no support fees" beside it. AppFolio's last published rate was $1.49 per unit for Core with a $298 minimum and a 50-unit minimum, plus an onboarding fee based on portfolio size.
In money: at 100 units Breeze is $100 a month and AppFolio Core was $298. At 500 units it is $500 against $745. The comparison flips on Yardi's upper tier: Breeze Premier has a $400 minimum, which is more than AppFolio Core's list price for any portfolio under about 270 units. AppFolio earns its higher price with a more modern leasing and maintenance workflow, an API on its upper plans and AI features built into the core product. Whether that is worth $2,000 to $3,000 a year to you is the actual decision.
What each vendor actually publishes
Yardi Breeze's pricing page shows residential Breeze at $1 a unit with a $100 minimum and a "Buy Now" button that goes straight to self-serve registration. Breeze Premier residential shows $1 a unit with "terms and minimums apply" and a $400 monthly minimum, both on an annual agreement. Commercial Breeze is $2 a unit with a $200 minimum. Affordable housing Premier is $3 a unit with a $400 minimum, associations $1 with $400, and commercial, self storage and manufactured housing Premier are quoted. Our Yardi pricing breakdown multiplies every one of those rates out by door count and decodes what the "terms and minimums apply" footnote on the Premier price actually requires.
AppFolio's pricing page names three plans, Core, Plus and Max, lists what each includes, and puts one line under each: "Minimum spend and units apply. Contact us for details." Core's line adds "50 unit minimum". Archived copies show the page last printed prices in August 2024: Core at $1.49 a unit with a $298 minimum spend, Plus at $3.20 and Max at $5.00. In January 2023 Core had been $1.40 with a $280 minimum. Our AppFolio pricing breakdown multiplies those rates out for every portfolio size and lists every fee we could source.
AppFolio vs Yardi Breeze pricing at 50, 100, 200 and 500 units
Monthly subscription for a residential portfolio, before payment fees. Breeze figures are its current published prices on an annual agreement. AppFolio figures are its last published list rates applied to the unit count, shown only because nothing newer is public.
| Units | Yardi Breeze | Yardi Breeze Premier | AppFolio Core (2024 list) | AppFolio Plus (2024 list) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | $100 (minimum) | $400 (minimum) | Not sold under 50 units | Not sold |
| 50 | $100 (minimum) | $400 (minimum) | $298 (minimum) | Minimum spend applies |
| 100 | $100 (minimum) | $400 (minimum) | $298 (minimum) | Minimum spend applies |
| 200 | $200 | $400 (minimum) | $298 | $640 plus minimum |
| 300 | $300 | From $400, terms apply | $447 | $960 plus minimum |
| 500 | $500 | From $500, terms apply | $745 | $1,600 |
| 1,000 | $1,000 | From $1,000, terms apply | $1,490 | $3,200 |
Two things stand out. Breeze's $100 floor covers everything up to 100 units, so a 60-door firm pays $1,200 a year for the software. And AppFolio's $298 floor covers everything up to 200 units, which makes it the expensive option for exactly the 50 to 150 unit firms that are its entry market. If AppFolio offers you less than $1.49 a unit today, that is a discount worth getting in writing.
Onboarding, training and support fees
This is where the gap is widest and least discussed. Yardi prints three lines under every Breeze price: no onboarding fees, no training fees, no support fees. AppFolio's archived page said "Onboarding fee based on portfolio size", and the figure is set in the quote. For a 150-door firm moving off spreadsheets or an older system, a one-time onboarding charge can equal several months of subscription, so it belongs in the year-one column before you compare anything else.
Support also differs by plan on AppFolio: standard on Core, enhanced on Plus, a dedicated customer success manager only on Max. Breeze lists live chat support, a phone line and an online help center, and charges nothing for support on either tier.
Commercial, affordable and association portfolios
Mixed portfolios change the math. Breeze commercial is $2 a unit with a $200 minimum, published. AppFolio lists commercial on every plan but has never published a separate commercial rate. Affordable housing is a Plus feature at AppFolio (last listed at $3.20 a unit) and a Breeze Premier product at $3 a unit with a $400 minimum, so the two are close there. Community associations: Breeze Premier at $1 a unit with a $400 minimum, AppFolio by quote.
Commercial tenants usually pay on invoice rather than through a resident portal, with CAM reconciliations and reimbursements on top of base rent, and chasing those invoices by hand is where receivables quietly age. Neither platform's pricing covers that follow-up work, which is why some firms chase every open invoice by email and text automatically with a separate tool.
Payment and screening fees
Neither vendor publishes its payment fee schedule on a pricing page. Breeze lists ACH, debit card, credit card and cash at retailers through PayNearMe among its features, without prices. AppFolio's resident help center says a transaction fee applies to online payments and is shown before the resident submits; cash payments cost $3.99 or $4.99 depending on which answer on its own help page you read. Trade press reported a $2.49 eCheck fee to AppFolio residents from July 2023, or $1.00 if the manager absorbs it.
That line matters more at AppFolio than people expect. In its 2025 results AppFolio reported $721.5 million of Value Added Services revenue, mostly payments, screening and risk mitigation, against $211.5 million from its core software. Ask both vendors for the ACH fee, the card percentage, the screening price and who each is billed to, in writing, before you sign.
Where AppFolio is the better buy
- You want one modern workflow for leasing, maintenance and inspections. Inspections, unit turns, work orders and the Realm-X AI assistant are part of Core. Many teams find AppFolio faster to learn.
- You need an API. Read-only on Plus, read/write on Max. Breeze's pricing page does not list an open API on either tier.
- You run 200 or more residential doors and want room to grow. At that size AppFolio's per-unit rate is competitive, and Plus and Max add budgeting, custom fields, a leasing CRM and a success manager.
Where Yardi Breeze is the better buy
- You are under 50 doors. AppFolio will not sell to you. Breeze will, at $100 a month.
- You want a known price and no onboarding bill. Breeze is the only vendor in this comparison that prints both.
- You run commercial or mixed-use space. Breeze publishes a commercial rate and grows into Yardi Voyager if you outgrow it.
- You need corporate and property ledgers, approval workflows or job costing. Those are Breeze Premier features at a $400 minimum. Below about 270 units that is more than AppFolio Core's list price, so compare Premier against Core feature by feature, not only on price.
What about Yardi Voyager
Voyager is Yardi's enterprise platform for large and institutional portfolios, sold by quote with separate implementation. If you are searching "AppFolio vs Yardi" with 5,000 or more units, Voyager is the product you will be shown, and the comparison becomes AppFolio Max against Voyager, both by quote. For the 50 to 1,000 unit firms most of this search comes from, Breeze is the Yardi product that competes with AppFolio, and it is the one with a public price. If you are choosing between the two Yardi tiers rather than between vendors, the Yardi Breeze vs Yardi Voyager pricing comparison works through the four things that actually force the switch.
How to decide this week
Count your doors. Under 50, the choice is Breeze or a Breeze-sized rival: Buildium Essential starts at $62 a month and the full ladder is on our Buildium pricing page, and DoorLoop's is on the DoorLoop pricing ladder. From 50 to 200, put AppFolio's quote next to Breeze at $100 to $200 and Breeze Premier at $400, add AppFolio's onboarding fee to year one, and ask whether the workflow difference is worth the gap. Above 200, both are credible, and the payment fees your residents will pay deserve as much attention as the subscription.
Then deal with the part neither system touches: the vacant unit and the inquiries it gets. On RentPlace a renter cannot send "is this still available?" because the listing asks your screening questions before the message will send, so move-in date, income band, occupants, pets and lease length arrive in the first message. Management companies use the Manager plan for up to 150 active listings, and the whole four-plan table is on the pricing page. RentPlace is not affiliated with AppFolio or Yardi.