LandlordPro vs SimplifyEm: Which is Right for You?
What SimplifyEm does well
It is a bookkeeping tool that small landlords find easy: per-property income and expense tracking, bank reconciliation, tenant and owner portals, and export to QuickBooks Online or Excel, priced by unit band with no card required to start and no contract. Above 100 units it scales at about $7/month per additional 10 units. Reviewers often single out phone and email support.
Where SimplifyEm fits:
- Landlords whose only real need is per-property books
- Anyone who wants owner portals without a professional PM platform
- Small portfolios watching every dollar of software spend
Where SimplifyEm falls short
Almost everything outside bookkeeping is missing or weak:
- No tenant screening with FCRA adverse-action letters.
- No working e-signature — reviewers describe the built-in lease as unusable for signing.
- No listing syndication, so vacancies are marketed elsewhere.
- No inspections, no legal notices, no eviction tooling, no AI receipt scanning.
- Reporting is basic, with reviewers citing missing vacancy and occupancy reporting and redundant data entry.
Where LandlordPro wins
Built for the self-managing landlord
- Free tier up to 4 units — no credit card
- $19/mo Starter plan is lower than most competitors' minimum
- Every feature is reachable in 2 clicks, not 5
- Mobile-first PWA — works great on the jobsite
Features no other tool ships
- Eviction timeline tracker with per-state deadlines
- Tenant records bundle PDF with plain-English records summary
- AI receipt scanning with category suggestions
- Native property inspections (7 types)
- Geo-matched vendor ad marketplace
Feature-by-feature comparison
| Feature | LandlordPro | SimplifyEm |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free (2 properties, up to 4 units); $19/mo Starter | Tiered by unit count; $50/mo at 50 units |
| Free tier | ✓ Yes | × No |
| Per-property books and reconciliation | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Tenant and owner portals SimplifyEm owner portals are stronger if you report to other owners. | Partial | ✓ Yes |
| Online rent collection | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Tenant screening with adverse-action letters | ✓ Yes | × No |
| E-signature leases Reviewers report the built-in lease cannot be properly e-signed. | ✓ Yes | × No |
| Legal notices | ✓ Yes | × No |
| Eviction timeline with deadline tracking | ✓ Yes | × No |
| Tenant Records Bundle PDF with AI summary | ✓ Yes | × No |
| Native property inspections | ✓ Yes | × No |
| AI receipt scanning | ✓ Yes | × No |
| Listing syndication (Zillow) | ✓ Yes | × No |
| Maintenance and vendor management Basic work-order tracking. | ✓ Yes | Partial |
| QuickBooks export | Partial | ✓ Yes |
Pricing comparison
Pricing below is LandlordPro's published SaaS pricing and SimplifyEm's widely advertised pricing as of June 2026. Both vendors offer discounts and may run promotions — confirm current numbers on each vendor's pricing page before committing.
| Scenario | LandlordPro (monthly) | SimplifyEm (monthly, estimated) |
|---|---|---|
| 1–4 units | Free | Paid from the first tier |
| 10 units, full ops suite | $49 (Pro) | Bookkeeping only at any tier |
| 50 units | $99 (Property Manager) | $50/mo |
| 100 units | $99 + expansion | $80/mo — cheaper, but books only |
Who should pick which?
Pick SimplifyEm if…
- Bookkeeping is the whole job and you already handle leasing elsewhere
- You report to outside owners and want owner portals cheaply
- You want the lowest possible software bill at 50–100 units
Pick LandlordPro if…
- You need to screen, sign and market, not just record
- You want notices, inspections and an eviction timeline in one subscription
- You want receipts scanned rather than keyed
Switching from SimplifyEm to LandlordPro
Moving landlord software feels risky mostly because nobody explains the order of operations. Here it is, plainly.
1. Export from SimplifyEm. SimplifyEm exports income and expense records and property data to Excel, and syncs to QuickBooks Online.
2. Import properties and units first. Properties and units first, then tenants and leases. The expense history is the valuable part — bring it as your archive. The import wizard accepts CSV for properties, units, tenants and leases.
3. Re-authorize rent payments. No platform can hand an ACH authorization to another one — that agreement is between your tenant, their bank and the processor. Tenants re-enroll once from the portal, and Venmo and Zelle need nothing set up at all.
4. Run one month in parallel. Keep the old account alive through one full rent cycle and check both against your bank statement. When they agree, cancel. This costs one month's subscription and removes essentially all of the risk.
What won't come across. Owner-statement history does not map across. Keep the SimplifyEm export if you report to outside owners.
What you actually get
Comparison tables flatten everything into checkmarks. These are the parts landlords actually notice in the first month, in the order they tend to notice them:
- Applications that pre-screen on your criteria. You set the qualifications. Applicants come back ranked against them, with weak matches collapsed out of the way so you're reading the ones worth reading.
- Leases in minutes, customizable, e-signed. A wizard walks the terms, the lease generates against your state's template, and it goes out for signature without leaving the app.
- Vacancy ads built by clicking pills. Pick the features from a pill list and the ad writes itself, then pushes straight to Zillow. Minutes, not an afternoon of rewriting the same description for each site.
- AI receipt scanning with your phone as the scanner. Photograph the receipt, the data comes off it, and it files itself onto the Schedule E line your tax preparer is going to ask for. This is the one that saves the most hours.
- Guided photo walkthroughs. Your phone becomes the move-in and move-out condition record — a guided sequence, timestamped, so a deposit dispute is a document instead of an argument.
- Power tools on the side. Deal analyzer, cash flow tool, and an early payoff calculator, for the next property rather than the ones you already own.
The product is built and run by one person who self-manages 13 units — three duplexes, a triplex and a quad. Every feature above exists because the alternative was doing it by hand on a Saturday.
Frequently asked questions
What does SimplifyEm not do?
Tenant screening with adverse-action letters, working e-signature, listing syndication, inspections, legal notices, eviction tooling and AI receipt scanning. It is a bookkeeping tool with portals, and it is priced like one.
Is SimplifyEm cheaper?
At 50 to 100 units its unit-band pricing ($50 to $80 a month) lands below our $99 Property Manager tier — for bookkeeping only. Below that, we are free up to 4 units and $19 after.
Can I e-sign a lease in SimplifyEm?
Reviewers report the built-in lease cannot be properly signed, so in practice leases get handled elsewhere. LandlordPro includes e-signature and amendments from the Pro tier.
How do I market a vacancy on SimplifyEm?
You do not — there is no listing syndication. LandlordPro builds the ad from a pill list and pushes it to Zillow.
Try LandlordPro free — up to 4 units, no credit card
See whether the workflow fits you before you pay anything. If you outgrow us, you can export everything and move on.
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