Note: Rentec Direct’s product has additional features not listed in this article. Please contact Rentec Direct for more information on their property management software.
The right property management software can take the stress out of running your business—helping you stay organized, reduce risks, and grow faster. But with so many options available, finding the right fit for your needs can be overwhelming.
Rentec Direct and Buildium are two popular property management software solutions. Both cover key tasks like accounting, leasing, maintenance, and tenant communication. But which one is the best choice for you in 2025?
In this guide, we’ll compare Rentec Direct and Buildium side by side and break down their features, pricing, and overall value. By the end, you’ll have the insights you need to choose the software that best aligns with your business needs.
Buildium at a Glance
Buildium is an all-in-one tool for property managers of residential, commercial, and community association portfolios of all sizes. It brings together accounting, tenant screening, marketing, leasing, and more into one central platform.
Furthermore, Buildium is highly customizable with integrations for third-party apps on Buildium’s Marketplace and open API access that lets you create customized workflows from scratch. Whether you’re looking to simplify or scale your business (or both!), Buildium can help.
Features
Buildium has a comprehensive set of features for every stage of the lead-to-lease lifecycle—from advertising vacant units to helping tenants move out.
Here’s a list of Buildium’s top features:
- Accounting: Keep track of every transaction, including rent payments, deposits, refunds, and vendor fees. Plus, automatically reconcile bank accounts, conduct trust accounting, and get ready for tax season with 1099 e-filing.
- Leasing: Create robust leases from customizable templates, collect leasing signatures online from any device, and upload leases to your Buildium account for safe-keeping.
- Maintenance: Accept, assign, and track work orders from a central dashboard to keep up with repairs. You can also schedule recurring maintenance tasks and outsource maintenance calls to Buildium’s dedicated 24/7 Maintenance Contact Center.
- Marketing: Get a free website, automate rental listing syndications, screen tenants, and accept online rental applications. With All Property Management, you can also market your property management services to local landlords.
- Resident Center: Make it easy to collect rent online, send text and email updates, and maintain strong relationships with Buildium’s tenant-facing Resident Center.
- Electronic Payments: Accept credit cards and ACH transfers with built-in payment processing. You can also set up recurring payments and automated reminders.
- Mobile Apps: Run your business on the go with Buildium’s dedicated mobile app and let tenants access the Resident Center from a tenant-facing app.
- Integrations: Tap into an entire suite of third-party app integrations with Buildium Marketplace, not to mention Open API access for those who want to program their own software integrations.
Pricing
Buildium offers three pricing tiers. Each tier comes with the following basic features:
- Accounting
- Maintenance
- Tasks
- Violations
- Online Portals
- Resident & Board Member Communications
From there, the pricing tiers break down like this:
- Essential: Starting at $58/month, you get all of Buildium’s core features, plus tenant screening, standard reporting, and a free marketing website.
- Growth: Starting at $183/month, you get everything in Essential, plus free property inspection features, enhanced tenant screening, unlimited eSignatures, lower online transaction costs, live phone support, and advanced analytics and insights.
- Premium: Starting at $375/month, you get everything in Growth, plus Open API access, priority support, and a dedicated growth consultant for new client leads.
Rentec Direct at a Glance
Rentec Direct is another property management platform for landlords and property managers. We’ll focus on Rentec PM, which includes everything in Rentec PRO (the landlord version) plus an owner portal and trust accounting features.
Features
Rentec Direct offers many features to help property managers run their business:
- Trust Accounting: Comply with local regulations regarding the handling of owner accounts and stay prepared for potential audits.
- Tenant Screening: Access credit reports, criminal backgrounds, evictions and more at wholesale pricing.
- Work Order Tracking: Let tenants submit maintenance requests or create your own work orders to track and update.
- Marketing: Create rental listings directly on the Rentec platform to be published on a custom website and syndicate them across online rental marketplaces.
- Online Payments: Accept credit cards or ACH transfers from tenants for one-time or recurring rent payments.
- Mobile App: Make rent payments, submit work orders, and view payment histories.
- Income and Expense Tracking: Stay on top with an easy-to-use general ledger accounting system for you and your CPA.
Pricing
Rentec PM pricing is based on how many units you manage. On the company’s pricing page, you can adjust a slider for the number of units managed to get a monthly quote. The base price is $50/month if you select 20 or fewer units and goes up from there. However, you can save 10% by choosing an annual billing cycle.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Features to Look For
Rentec Direct and Buildium can both help you take your property management business to the next level. However, the right choice depends on your unique needs, portfolio size, and goals.
As a starting point, make sure your property management software includes these core features:
Accounting
Your property management software should handle basic accounting, such as income and expense tracking on top of keeping your business accounts separate from owner accounts. In addition, look for basic tax tools like 1099 e-filing and audit prep.
Leasing Tools
Pick a property management software that makes leasing to tenants a breeze with built-in lease templates, online document sharing, e-signing, rent collection, and inspections.
Maintenance Tools
Every property management software should allow tenants to submit work orders from a resident portal so you can quickly assign and complete tasks. Integrated vendor profiles can also help ensure you pick the right team for each job.
Marketing Tools
Your property management software should help you create listings to syndicate across online rental marketplaces. Ideally, it also helps you market your services to local landlords, which is exactly what Buildium’s partner service, All Property Management does.
Communication Tools
Find a property management platform that makes it easy for you to update and notify owners and tenants via online messages, texts, or emails. Clear communication is important for keeping tenants and owners satisfied.
Mobile Apps
In today’s remote-first world, mobile compatibility is a must. Your property management software should have a dedicated mobile app for you, tenants, and owners so everyone can communicate and get updates on the go.
Integration with Other Software
Choose property management software that can integrate with other tools. For example, open API access or a dedicated marketplace for third-party apps can help future-proof your business by making it easier to add on capabilities as you grow.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Pricing
Rentec Direct and Buildium both offer monthly and annual subscription plans. However, Buildium’s subscriptions are further tiered into three plans, while Rentec Direct offers only one.
If you opt for a monthly billing cycle, Rentec Direct costs $50 per month for up to 20 units. Meanwhile, Buildium only costs $58 per month for up to 20 units.
From there, Rentec Direct’s pricing goes up by $2 to $3 for every additional unit after 20. Meanwhile, Buildium’s cost goes up at 40 units and then every additional 20 units thereafter until 150 units. At that point, you can get Buildium’s Growth plan starting at $183 per month or the Premium plan starting at $375 per month.
Both Buildium and Rentec Direct let you save 10% by opting for annual instead of monthly billing.
If you’re looking for a flexible yet predictable pricing option, Buildium is a good choice. With Rentec Direct, the cost may fluctuate with every additional unit, making it hard to predict costs.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Property Management Accounting
Property managers need a robust accounting system to keep track of multiple income streams, expenses, and other transactions across their clients’ portfolios.
Buildium offers comprehensive accounting tools to help you stay on top of business finances. These include automated bookkeeping across multiple accounts, accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR), and built-in calculators to show you what’s owed to your company, property owners, and vendors. Because Buildium is an integrated platform, it also lets you turn work orders into bills that can be paid online. By connecting your bank account to Buildium, you can also automatically reconcile bank statements.
Rentec Direct offers similar accounting features, including a general ledger, trust accounting certifications, and a comprehensive reporting system to keep your clients updated. You can also export financial reports as PDFs or Excel files to print or email.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Communication Portals
As a property manager, you need to communicate with tenants, owners, and vendors frequently. A central platform where you can manage all your messages from one place can be a real difference-maker.
Buildium stands out with its dedicated Resident Center, which lets tenants submit maintenance requests and get status updates, no matter where they are when using the mobile app. Similarly, owners can log in to Buildium’s Owner Portal to access their latest financial reports, including profit and loss statements, contributions and draws, and other transactions. This lets you communicate, share important documents, and collect payments easily.
Rentec Direct’s communication features revolve mostly around its Tenant Portal. Here, residents can submit maintenance requests, receive property notices, view lease agreements, and purchase renters insurance from their online account (also available via mobile app).
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Online Rent and Fee Collection
Collecting rent and fees is a crucial part of property management, and the right software can make the process seamless for you and your tenants.
Buildium’s payment system lets you collect rent, fees, and bills online. When residents link their bank account or credit card information, they can set up recurring payments to fully automate payments, cutting processing times by up to 70%. The same goes for paying yourself and other vendors. Plus, you can view payment histories to see where and when money is flowing.
Rentec Direct offers online rent collection through its tenant portal. Residents can set up free ACH transfers or pay by credit card, which incurs a 2.95% transaction fee. You can also accept cash payments with a partner service called PayNearMe.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Property Maintenance Management
Property managers need software that helps them accept, assign, and track maintenance requests to ensure they don’t fall through the cracks.
Buildium includes a maintenance request system that lets residents, owners, and employees submit work orders and attach relevant photos, videos, and documents. From there, tenants can get status updates from their phone, and you can track how well your vendors perform. Of course, some maintenance tasks are recurring, which is why Buildium lets you automatically schedule them at regular intervals.
In addition, Buildium offers a 24/7/365 Maintenance Contact Center which you can use to outsource your after-hour (or all) maintenance calls. It’ll deliver prompt responses, create work order tickets, and dispatch emergency teams upon your request.
Rentec Direct lets residents submit maintenance requests from a tenant portal. From there, you can prioritize the most pressing work orders to minimize damage and costs.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Revenue Generation and Growth Tools
The best property management platforms support your long-term success by helping you set up new revenue streams and scale your business.
Buildium helps you grow in many ways. For example, Buildium Rewards lets you earn credits toward your monthly subscription if you get tenants to pay rent with ePay, an integrated online payments solution by Buildium. You can also increase revenue by selling supplemental services by Buildium Marketplace partners, such as HomeWiseDocs®, or you can offer tenants liability insurance through Buildium Property Insurance. To get in front of new clients, you can add your business to All Property Management, a service that connects owners with property managers operating in their area.
Beyond its core features, Rentec Direct offers some integrations that can help you expand your business, including renters insurance through Sure® and pet screening through PetScreening®. We recommend comparing integrations like these with Buildium’s to see what best aligns with your needs.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Rental Applications and Tenant Screening
To attract quality tenants (and avoid problematic ones), you need a thorough rental application and tenant screening system. The right software can help you implement one.
Buildium offers customizable online rental application forms that you can tweak in just a few clicks by adding, reordering, and creating custom sections. Your applications can then be branded and integrated with your website for visitors to fill. From there, you can manage your applications from a central dashboard and screen the most promising applicants. Tenant screening includes full access to credit, criminal, and eviction data.
Rentec Direct also lets you accept rental applications online and offers integrated tenant screening, including criminal background search, credit reports, eviction search, prior address search, and SSN verification.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Online Renting and eSign
After accepting a rental application, you must share a lease and have the applicant sign it. With the right software, you can streamline this process and keep it all online.
Buildium lets you collect secure eSignatures from any device with Dropbox Sign. You can even send reminders and status updates to keep everyone on the same page. While you’re at it, Buildium lets you offer renters insurance through MSI for $100,000 in liability and up to $30,000 in personal property. Furthermore, with Buildium Marketplace partner Obligo®, you can offer tenants flexible security deposit options.
Rentec Direct also uses Dropbox Sign for eSignatures and lets you offer renter’s insurance and security deposit insurance directly from the tenant portal.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Integrations and API Access
It’s important that your property management software can integrate with third-party apps. That way, you can build a tech stack that meets your business’s unique needs well in the future.
Buildium has an ever-growing Marketplace of third-party app integrations. These include apps for associations, collections fulfillment, marketing, productivity, property management services, and resident services. Furthermore, Buildium offers open API access so you can develop custom workflows between Buildium and other apps from scratch.
Rentec Direct also offers optional third-party integrations. However, its selection is currently only half as big as Buildium’s. Plus, the company doesn’t advertise open API access for custom integrations.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Showing Coordination
These days, many tenants want to schedule viewings before committing to a rental. The right software can help you coordinate showings to improve the overall experience.
Buildium partners with Tenant Turner® to offer showing pre-qualification, scheduling, and follow-ups. You can even let tenants book self-service showings via text or email and send automated responses to requests. For even more flexibility, you can get the ShowingHero® add-on to direct all your lead calls and emails to an automated showing coordination service.
Rentec Direct doesn’t offer any showing coordination features, except through its integration partner ShowMojo®.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Customer Support
To take full advantage of a property management software, you need a reliable customer support team who can onboard your team and walk you through issues as they arise.
Buildium includes customer support in all of its pricing plans. However, the Essential Plan comes with ticket support only—while the Growth Plan comes with ticket support and live phone support. The Premium Plan comes with ticket, live phone, and priority support—plus a dedicated growth consultant for new client leads.
Rentec Direct has a support email and phone line available Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Otherwise, the company has a self-serve knowledge base on its website.
Rentec Direct vs. Buildium: Final Thoughts
Ultimately, the right choice between Rentec Direct and Buildium comes down to your business’s needs and goals. Both offer the core features any property management platform should have. However, if you want a comprehensive, scalable solution to streamline your operations for years to come, Buildium may be the better choice.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to find out if Buildium is for you. Sign up for a free 14-day trial to see how Buildium handles real-world tasks with sample data. If you prefer a guided walkthrough, sign up for a free demo. We’re happy to show you the ins and outs of all that Buildium has to offer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is property management software?
Property management software is a central digital platform for handling rent collection, leasing, maintenance, accounting, tenant communication, and other property management tasks. It’s designed to streamline workflows so your business can run more efficiently.
Do I need property management software?
If you manage multiple properties, property management software can be a game-changer. It can reduce manual work, minimize errors, ensure regulatory compliance, and save you money. While a spreadsheet may be sufficient for one or two units, most portfolios greatly benefit from property management software.
What is the difference between Rentec PRO and Rentec PM?
Rentec PRO is designed for landlords managing their own rental properties, while Rentec PM is tailored to professional property managers handling multiple properties on behalf of owners. As a result, it includes extra features like an owner portal and trust accounting.
Are there drawbacks to property management software?
While property management software offers many benefits, they do have an upfront cost and some may have a steep learning curve. Furthermore, the ongoing subscription cost can eat into your profit margins. However, this can be well worth the investment if it helps you generate new income streams and scale your business.
How do I get the most value from property management software?
To get the most value from a property management software, choose the right platform for your needs and goals, take advantage of work order and payment automations, regularly review financial reports, keep your data current, and train your team to use the software effectively.
