Most Stessa reviews were written when it was free bookkeeping software with one paid plan. It now has three plans, collects rent, lists vacancies, screens applicants and holds cash, and it raised the price of Pro in 2024. This review works from the current price list and help center, and from the pattern in what landlords post on Trustpilot and G2. We sell rental listings, not accounting software, so we have no stake in which bookkeeping tool you pick.
If what brought you here is an empty unit and not the ledger, you can list the vacancy on RentPlace for $39 a month while you decide, or score the ad you already have in the Listing Grader first.
The short verdict
Stessa is the best free way for a landlord with one to about twenty doors to keep rental books that survive tax season. The free Essentials plan covers unlimited properties, bank feeds and a basic tax package. The paid plans are reasonable if you use what they add: Manage at $144 a year for the Schedule E report and lease templates, Pro at $336 for advanced reports and a higher rate on cash. It is weaker as a rent app, because tenants pay $2 per bank payment unless you bank with Stessa, and it is the wrong tool for anyone managing property for other owners.
How much does Stessa cost?
Stessa has three plans: Essentials is free, Manage is $12 a month billed annually or $15 billed monthly, and Pro is $28 a month billed annually or $35 billed monthly. Every plan covers unlimited properties, so the price does not change with your door count.
| Plan | Billed annually | Billed monthly | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $0 | $0 | Unlimited properties, bank feeds, basic reports, rent collection, listings, screening |
| Manage | $144 a year | $180 a year | Schedule E report, 60+ legal forms, unlimited lease templates, one eSignature a month, faster rent payouts |
| Pro | $336 a year | $420 a year | Unlimited portfolios, advanced reports, budgeting and pro forma, unlimited receipt scans, phone support, higher cash rate |
Two things most reviews miss. Month-to-month billing costs 25% more than the annual rate the pricing page leads with. And Pro was $20 a month until 2024, when Stessa added the Manage tier and moved Pro to $28, a 40% rise. If a review tells you Pro is $20, it is describing the old product. The full breakdown, including the cash balance at which Pro's higher interest rate pays for the plan, is on our Stessa pricing page.
Does Stessa charge tenants?
Yes, unless the rent lands in a Stessa cash management account. A tenant paying by bank transfer to the landlord's own bank pays $2 per payment, and a tenant paying by credit or debit card pays 3%. The fee is non-refundable and the landlord cannot switch a payment method off.
| What is paid for | Price | Who pays |
|---|---|---|
| Rent by bank transfer into a Stessa cash account | $0 | Nobody |
| Rent by bank transfer to your own bank | $2 per payment, $24 a year | Tenant |
| Rent by card | 3%, which is $54 a month on $1,800 of rent | Tenant |
| Credit report | $29 | Applicant or landlord |
| Background check only | $29 | Landlord only |
| Complete screening package | $49 | Applicant or landlord |
| State lease template on Essentials | $15 each | Landlord |
This is the design to understand before you sign up. Stessa is free for the landlord because the tenant, the applicant and the cash account pay for it. The only way to spare a tenant the $2 is to receive rent into Stessa's own account, which is held through a partner bank. Landlords who want rent in their existing checking account should expect tenants to notice the fee.
Stessa against RentRedi, TurboTenant and Innago
Stessa is the strongest of the four on accounting and the weakest on tenant fees. The others began as rent and leasing apps and added bookkeeping later; Stessa did it the other way round.
| Platform | Landlord pays a year | Tenant bank payment | Tenant card payment | Screening |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stessa Essentials | $0 | $2, or $0 into a Stessa account | 3% | $29 to $49 |
| Stessa Manage | $144 | $2, or $0 into a Stessa account | 3% | $29 to $49 |
| RentRedi | $144 on the annual term | $1 | 3.1% + $0.30 | $39.99 |
| TurboTenant Pro | $199 for 1 to 10 units | $0 on Pro | 3.49% | $45 to $55 |
| Innago | $0 | $2 | 2.99% | $30 to $35 |
Stessa Manage and RentRedi cost the same $144 a year, which makes the choice simple: pick Stessa if the problem is the books, RentRedi if the problem is collecting rent from a phone. The details are in our RentRedi review, the TurboTenant pricing breakdown and the Innago review.
What Stessa reviews praise
The praise is consistent and it is about one thing: tax season. Landlords describe keeping every rental record in one place and printing a few reports in the spring instead of rebuilding a spreadsheet. Reviewers on G2 single out the interface and the automatic categorizing of transactions from linked bank accounts, and nearly every positive review mentions that the core product costs nothing.
Support gets credit too, with a caveat. Reviewers who got through to a person describe thorough, patient help. The route to that person starts with an automated assistant, which is where the complaints begin.
What Stessa reviews complain about
Stessa's Trustpilot page is small and split. It shows 25 reviews and a score of 3.6, labeled Average, with 52% five-star and 40% one-star and almost nothing in between. G2 shows 4.0 from 12 reviews. Neither sample is large, so read the pattern and ignore the decimal.
The critical reviews cluster in three places. First, support: the first response is automated, and phone support is reserved for the $336 Pro plan. Second, bank connections: some accounts will not link or drop their link, which leaves the landlord entering transactions by hand. Third, money movement: transfers between accounts and rent payouts take longer than reviewers expected, with bank transfers taking up to five business days on the standard schedule.
The bank-feed complaint has a workaround. Stessa imports transactions from a spreadsheet, so when a bank will not connect you can convert the PDF bank statements into a spreadsheet and upload a month at a time. It is slower than a live feed, and it keeps the books complete.
Is Stessa legit?
Yes. Stessa is a real, established product owned since March 2021 by Roofstock, a marketplace for single-family rental homes, which also owns the screening company RentPrep that runs Stessa's tenant checks. The complaints in its reviews are about support speed, bank links and transfer timing, not about missing money or false charges.
Is Stessa safe to link to a bank account?
Linking a bank account to Stessa gives it read access to transactions so it can build your books; it does not let Stessa move money out of that account. The cash management account is a separate product, held through Thread Bank, Member FDIC, and Stessa itself is not a bank. If you prefer not to link anything, the spreadsheet import covers the same ground by hand.
Who Stessa fits, and who it does not
It fits a landlord with one to twenty doors whose real pain is the annual scramble for income and expense records. Essentials handles that for free. Step up to Manage if you prepare your own Schedule E or sign more than a few leases a year, since one state lease template costs $15 on the free plan. Step up to Pro if you hold property in several LLCs and want each as its own portfolio, or if you keep a five-figure balance in the cash account: at current rates an average balance near $27,100 earns enough extra interest to cover the $336.
It does not fit a landlord who wants rent in their own bank with no fee on the tenant, a landlord who wants a person on the phone without paying for Pro, or a property manager with clients. Owner statements and trust accounting are what the per-unit suites sell, and the Buildium pricing page shows what that costs.
It is also not where the vacancy gets filled. Stessa syndicates a listing to Zillow, and what comes back is the portal's usual stream of one-line messages. A RentPlace listing asks your screening questions before a renter can send anything, so each inquiry arrives with a move-in date, an income band, occupants and pets already answered. Plenty of landlords will sensibly run both: Stessa for the books, and a $39 listing for the empty unit.
Is Stessa worth it?
The free plan is worth it for almost any small landlord, because the cost is an hour of setup and the payoff arrives every April. Manage is worth $144 a year if it replaces lease templates and a hand-built Schedule E. Pro is worth $336 for multi-entity investors and for anyone with enough cash in the account to earn it back, and hard to justify otherwise. Before paying for any tier, read the tenant fee table above and decide whether you are comfortable with your tenants paying $2 a month to pay you.
Prices and fees here come from Stessa's pricing page and help center, and ratings from Trustpilot and G2. Confirm the figure on the vendor's page before you subscribe. RentPlace is not affiliated with Stessa or Roofstock.