A Hemlane alternative if you want software, not a hybrid management service

Starter is free forever: advertise to Apartments.com, Zillow and seven more sites, screen applicants (national credit, criminal, eviction and income), and run rental accounting with bank sync, cash-flow and income-statement reports. Basic, after a 14-day trial, is $2 per unit with a $28 platform fee baked into the “$30/mo” example on Hemlane’s pricing page — so one unit is $30, and each extra unit adds $2. Basic adds lease tracking, document storage, e-sign, rent collection with $0 ACH fees, late fees, tenant messaging and tenant perks (insurance and credit-bureau reporting).

Essential is $20 per unit plus the platform fee ($48/month in Hemlane’s one-unit example) and layers on a dedicated repair coordinator, 24/7 emergency support, work-order management, invoicing for repairs with no markups, and state-specific leases, amendments and notices. Complete is $58 per unit plus the platform fee ($86/month in the one-unit example) and adds a property-management assistant for tenant communication, a vetted repair network, repair-price thresholds, VIP support and a local leasing and turnover network. Tenant Placement starts at $695 including a lockbox fee; inspections are $300; Eviction Shield is $4.95 a month. Screening is $40, paid by the tenant. Premium listing to seven exclusive sites is $89 for 30 days.

If you want someone else to diagnose a leak at 11 p.m., or to answer tenant messages, Hemlane is selling that labour and the software together. That is a different purchase from a $2-per-unit app. Comparing Complete to The Property Tool on software features is a category error — you would be comparing a managed-service bill to a SaaS bill.

Basic is the fair software-to-software row. At ten units Hemlane Basic is $28 + $20 = $48 a month with $0 ACH, listing and screening included. Ten units here are $20 a month with owner statements, mixed-stay calendars and e-sign included, and without listing syndication or bureau screening. Hemlane wins the leasing funnel and the waived ACH fee; this product wins the owner-reporting layer and the short-stay calendar. Neither row is “cheaper” until you know which of those you actually use.

Everything operational. Maintenance is a record you own: request, assignee, photos, vendor cost, closed. There is no Hemlane repair coordinator and no 24/7 staff network. Tenant management and messaging are yours. E-signatures send the lease you already have; Hemlane’s state-specific templates and notices on Essential are a real advantage if you do not have those documents.

The trade we do make is the owner side. Statements, splits and the owner portal are the product, not an add-on service. Hemlane’s homepage speaks to rental owners, property managers and agents, and the software plans include income, expense, cash-flow and lease-ledger reports with bank sync. What we could not verify on Hemlane’s public pricing and homepage is a management-fee-and-split owner statement of the kind a manager hands an investor every month. If that document is the job, run it on your own data in both tools before you switch.

Hemlane is explicit about long-term rentals: single-family, multifamily, rent-by-the-room, affordable housing, fifty states. It is not a short-term channel manager. The Property Tool is, with a nightly calendar and optional channel manager. A portfolio that is half Airbnb and half twelve-month leases does not have to live in two Hemlane-class tools.

The $28 platform fee is the other structural difference. It is a floor: one unit on Basic is $30, not $2. Two units on The Property Tool are $0; five are $10; twenty-five are $50. Hemlane’s fee is easy to miss if you only remember the “$2 /unit” headline. Put both numbers on the same napkin before you decide. The pricing page is the napkin on this side.

If you are on Starter or Basic, the move is a software export: properties, tenants, leases, transactions, documents. If you are on Essential or Complete, you are also ending a service relationship — repair coordination, tenant communication, possibly placement. Do not cut that off mid-work-order. Close open jobs in Hemlane, then move the record.

Screening and listing will not come with you. Tenant Placement, if you used it, is a Hemlane service, not a setting. How to switch covers the data side; the service side is a conversation with whoever has been coordinating repairs.