Alternatives to Cozy for Rent Collection

Cambridge, MA · Member since 2015 · 651 posts · 736 votes

I've been using Cozy for rental applications and rent collection for years. Now that Apartments.com own Cozy, I've already stopped using their application functionality and I'm worried about how rent collection will be impacted once my account is transferred to Apartments.com. So I've been researching rent collection alternatives.

I'm looking for rent collection services that are reliable and free for both the landlord and the tenant. I don't need any other property management tools. So far, the possibilities that I have found are Zibo and Tellus. Thoughts?

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Justin R.

Developer · San Diego, CA · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes

Timely thread. In March and April, we tested 5 solutions, each with 3 different tenants. The goal was to get feedback from actual tenants in different situations to see what people liked. Keep in mind we already have full accounting and payments and everything else in place -- this is really more about the tenant experience than what I prefer as the landlord or manager. Here's the results:

Apartments.com: Free. One tenant had a hard time signing up and linking to the property. Payments took a long time to arrive (6 biz days, IIRC). Also had a problem where their address validation didn't allow us to enter a recently built building, with no work around. Functionality is complete. I don't trust the company and expect they will squeeze for revenue once they have market share.

Buildium: Subscription. Considered, but they really want to displace the accounting system, which was a no-go for us.

Zibo: Free. So much potential. Tenants found this super easy to use. Engaged with their designers and product people to provide feedback. They have a good chance to grow to be the best pure-play rent payment solution out there -- their product and UI is spot on. Biggest issue we had is that they don't have a way to add one-time charges right now. Designers showed me UI mockups with the feature in it. Keep an eye on this.

TenantCloud: Subscription. I really wanted this to work, but the UI is a mess. It feels like a product that had features added for years with no real roadmap to make it cohesive. Payments don't feel core to the product. Can push data into Quickbooks in realtime (only one amongst the ones we tested that does this). 2 of 3 tenants couldn't successfully link to their property. It gave me headaches trying to get this working.

Rentler: Free. Favorite amongst tenants. Particularly good feedback on UI and tenant signup process and also because they report rent payments to credit bureaus, increasing tenant credit scores - that's a win for tenants AND us. Also, payments arrive faster (2 or 3 days - ICR). Supports different properties depositing into different bank accounts. Lacks one-time charge/credit, but can support it by modifying the next rent payment (provided feedback - they assure feature is coming).

Other solutions we didn't evaluate but are on our list are: PayRent.com, TurboTenant, and RentecDirect.

For May, we have moved about 50% of our tenant base to Rentler, as that's the clear preference of those who participated in the testing. Assuming it goes well, we'll continue moving people over, although we'll maintain some tenants on an alternative platform as a way to provide redundancy for the business.

I am 100% a fan of simple solutions, so a Buildium or AppFolio based system could certainly make sense. However, we are relentlessly focused on the quality of the tenant experience, and willing to incur additional work in order to deliver an optimized experience. There's a certain brand and feel we're going for, and using best-in-class tools is our way to get there. Note we're talking about dozens of units here -- it may be very different if the scale were larger and we were not owner-managers.

It's a constantly evolving space - always keeping an eye out for the best tools.

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Nikki KofkinPro Member
Real Estate Agent · Chicago, IL · Member since 2016 · 82 posts · 32 votes
5y
Currently looking into payment processing options myself and have narrowed it down to Cozy, Rentler, TurboTenant, or Zillow at the moment because all are free for landlords and offer free ACH payments for tenants. Will be curious to see if you add TurboTenant to your tests! @Joe Splitrock you made a good point about feature comparison. Would be good to compare the features of each in addition to user experience. This would make a good article.
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Nikki KofkinPro Member
Real Estate Agent · Chicago, IL · Member since 2016 · 82 posts · 32 votes
5y

I made a quick features comparison. These weren't all-encompassing features but enough for me to make a decision. After seeing that TurboTenant and Zillow can't take separate roommate payments, those two were out. I was really leaning towards Tellus and Rentler. The Tellus app interface is really cool and I like that it has a lot of extra features (like move in and move out reports you can share with tenants with photos in the app). I think I am going to give Rentler a try for now as it has the most features that I am interested in...for some reason am not as keen on Cozy at the moment. Happy to add any other rows and update this, or allow anyone to contribute to the Google Sheet and add another comparison/spice it up here: https://docs.google.com/spread...
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Joe SplitrockPro Member
Moderator
Rental Property Investor · Sioux Falls, SD · Member since 2015 · 9k+ posts · 18k+ votes
5y
Originally posted by @Nikki Kofkin:

I made a quick features comparison. These weren't all-encompassing features but enough for me to make a decision. After seeing that TurboTenant and Zillow can't take separate roommate payments, those two were out. I was really leaning towards Tellus and Rentler. The Tellus app interface is really cool and I like that it has a lot of extra features (like move in and move out reports you can share with tenants with photos in the app). I think I am going to give Rentler a try for now as it has the most features that I am interested in...for some reason am not as keen on Cozy at the moment. Happy to add any other rows and update this, or allow anyone to contribute to the Google Sheet and add another comparison/spice it up here: https://docs.google.com/spread...

Just FYI, Cozy did not have a mobile app, but Apartments does have a mobile app. I would also consider adding other criteria to your selection process. Digital lease signing is amazing and within that feature you want ability to load your own lease. Usually with that feature comes digital document storage, so the tenant can download their lease at any time. That is just one less thing for them to ask you for. I would also consider advertising capabilities for vacancies. Zillow and Apartments are the only services that drive vacancy traffic. Some of the other services may syndicate out to other platforms. The nice thing about having advertising integrated is someone can apply on the same platform that they found your property.
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Justin R.
Developer · San Diego, CA · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
5y
Originally posted by @Nikki Kofkin:

I made a quick features comparison. These weren't all-encompassing features but enough for me to make a decision. After seeing that TurboTenant and Zillow can't take separate roommate payments, those two were out. I was really leaning towards Tellus and Rentler. The Tellus app interface is really cool and I like that it has a lot of extra features (like move in and move out reports you can share with tenants with photos in the app). I think I am going to give Rentler a try for now as it has the most features that I am interested in...for some reason am not as keen on Cozy at the moment. Happy to add any other rows and update this, or allow anyone to contribute to the Google Sheet and add another comparison/spice it up here: https://docs.google.com/spread...

Right on putting that comparison table together. The biggest difference I saw between the platforms when I did my eval was the rate of successful signup without the tenant communicating with me - I indicated in my earlier writeup which platforms had problems and which didn't. Think this varies a lot based on your tenant profile -- if you've got non-English speaking or older or tech-phobic tenants, little things can really get in the way.
I'm surprised so few have mobile payment options -- it seems like a blatantly obvious feature. In addition to payments, lease signing, and maintenance pictures are best-on-mobile interactions. There's a couple (like RentRedi.com) who ONLY have mobile for payments ... more like a Venmo experience. I know that won't fly with some of my tenants.
As an update to my previous post 1 month ago: We moved over a larger test set of 15 tenants in May to Rentler.com. No signup problems, no payment problems, zero complaints.
One new negative for Rentler: when the payments hit your bank account, they don't indicate who paid them - this makes reconciling in Quickbooks (or whatever accounting software) unnecessarily hard. Apartments.com includes the payers name and does each ACH transfer separate, which is a nice touch. Renter should adopt that too.

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Nikki KofkinPro Member
Real Estate Agent · Chicago, IL · Member since 2016 · 82 posts · 32 votes
5y
Originally posted by @Joe Splitrock:
Originally posted by @Nikki Kofkin:

I made a quick features comparison. These weren't all-encompassing features but enough for me to make a decision. After seeing that TurboTenant and Zillow can't take separate roommate payments, those two were out. I was really leaning towards Tellus and Rentler. The Tellus app interface is really cool and I like that it has a lot of extra features (like move in and move out reports you can share with tenants with photos in the app). I think I am going to give Rentler a try for now as it has the most features that I am interested in...for some reason am not as keen on Cozy at the moment. Happy to add any other rows and update this, or allow anyone to contribute to the Google Sheet and add another comparison/spice it up here: https://docs.google.com/spread...

Just FYI, Cozy did not have a mobile app, but Apartments does have a mobile app. I would also consider adding other criteria to your selection process. Digital lease signing is amazing and within that feature you want ability to load your own lease. Usually with that feature comes digital document storage, so the tenant can download their lease at any time. That is just one less thing for them to ask you for. I would also consider advertising capabilities for vacancies. Zillow and Apartments are the only services that drive vacancy traffic. Some of the other services may syndicate out to other platforms. The nice thing about having advertising integrated is someone can apply on the same platform that they found your property.

Ah you're right! I just logged into my Apartments.com app and yes, I can look at rental manager view. I did have to re-log into apartments.com, it seems like I'm not on the app anymore though and looking at it on mobile friendly deskop that I clicked through the app...I think the main reason I didn't want to do Cozy/Apartments was because of the recent integration. But maybe I'll do a split test and try it out too.
And yes that's a good point about uploading my own lease and digital doc storage! I would still advertise on Zillow and Apartments. Easy to re-activate my listing so it's not much work so I didn't add that row because I didn't care much about that. But yes a good point for others considering. I probably would want to use a different application so I didn't add that row either (I generally use mysmartmove, haven't compared that to Zillow or Apartments.com applications yet). All good points though.

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Nikki KofkinPro Member
Real Estate Agent · Chicago, IL · Member since 2016 · 82 posts · 32 votes
5y
Originally posted by @Justin R.:
Originally posted by @Nikki Kofkin:

Right on putting that comparison table together. The biggest difference I saw between the platforms when I did my eval was the rate of successful signup without the tenant communicating with me - I indicated in my earlier writeup which platforms had problems and which didn't. Think this varies a lot based on your tenant profile -- if you've got non-English speaking or older or tech-phobic tenants, little things can really get in the way.
I'm surprised so few have mobile payment options -- it seems like a blatantly obvious feature. In addition to payments, lease signing, and maintenance pictures are best-on-mobile interactions. There's a couple (like RentRedi.com) who ONLY have mobile for payments ... more like a Venmo experience. I know that won't fly with some of my tenants.
As an update to my previous post 1 month ago: We moved over a larger test set of 15 tenants in May to Rentler.com. No signup problems, no payment problems, zero complaints.
One new negative for Rentler: when the payments hit your bank account, they don't indicate who paid them - this makes reconciling in Quickbooks (or whatever accounting software) unnecessarily hard. Apartments.com includes the payers name and does each ACH transfer separate, which is a nice touch. Renter should adopt that too.

Thanks Justin! Yes I definitely took the user experience into account with my decision based on your thoughts and others anecdotes on the thread. And very interesting point about indicating who has made the payment!
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Carolyn Fuller
OP
Cambridge, MA · Member since 2015 · 651 posts · 736 votes
5y
@Justin R.
Thank you for the update about Rentler not indicating who paid and not separating the transfers. Do they separate security deposits from rent payments?
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Joe SplitrockPro Member
Moderator
Rental Property Investor · Sioux Falls, SD · Member since 2015 · 9k+ posts · 18k+ votes
5y
Originally posted by @Nikki Kofkin:
Originally posted by @Joe Splitrock:
Originally posted by @Nikki Kofkin:

I made a quick features comparison. These weren't all-encompassing features but enough for me to make a decision. After seeing that TurboTenant and Zillow can't take separate roommate payments, those two were out. I was really leaning towards Tellus and Rentler. The Tellus app interface is really cool and I like that it has a lot of extra features (like move in and move out reports you can share with tenants with photos in the app). I think I am going to give Rentler a try for now as it has the most features that I am interested in...for some reason am not as keen on Cozy at the moment. Happy to add any other rows and update this, or allow anyone to contribute to the Google Sheet and add another comparison/spice it up here: https://docs.google.com/spread...

Just FYI, Cozy did not have a mobile app, but Apartments does have a mobile app. I would also consider adding other criteria to your selection process. Digital lease signing is amazing and within that feature you want ability to load your own lease. Usually with that feature comes digital document storage, so the tenant can download their lease at any time. That is just one less thing for them to ask you for. I would also consider advertising capabilities for vacancies. Zillow and Apartments are the only services that drive vacancy traffic. Some of the other services may syndicate out to other platforms. The nice thing about having advertising integrated is someone can apply on the same platform that they found your property.

Ah you're right! I just logged into my Apartments.com app and yes, I can look at rental manager view. I did have to re-log into apartments.com, it seems like I'm not on the app anymore though and looking at it on mobile friendly deskop that I clicked through the app...I think the main reason I didn't want to do Cozy/Apartments was because of the recent integration. But maybe I'll do a split test and try it out too.
And yes that's a good point about uploading my own lease and digital doc storage! I would still advertise on Zillow and Apartments. Easy to re-activate my listing so it's not much work so I didn't add that row because I didn't care much about that. But yes a good point for others considering. I probably would want to use a different application so I didn't add that row either (I generally use mysmartmove, haven't compared that to Zillow or Apartments.com applications yet). All good points though.

I am on my second month of rent collection since my account moved from Cozy to Apartments. I didn't have any tenant complaints or payment processing issues through the transition. I did have duplicate properties show up, but that is because I already had an Apartments account, so they imported Cozy as a duplicate. I just had to delete the Apartment dot com one and it was find. Apartment dot com uses Transunion, so it is the same as Smartmove which is also Transunion. Zillow uses Experian, which is who Cozy used prior to the transition to Apartments. The nice thing about Zillow applications is they can be used for any property listed on Zillow. For example if you show a property to someone who already applied for another Zillow listed property, you can instantly see their application and credit report when they apply. The renter only pays one time. That is also nice if you reject an applicant, because they can apply for any property on Zillow. It makes the blow of rejection a little softer because the money isn't a total loss. I am going to try Zillow for application on my next vacancy. I may even test out rent collection.
There are so many small rent collection companies out there. Realistically in the next few years many of them will either go out of business or get acquired.
1 Reply
Sam G.
Member since 2020 · 21 posts · 7 votes
5y
We wanted to sign up for Cozy, but by then they'd been acquired - so we were only able to sign up for apartments.com. Seems to work ok for SFRs, but they're struggling with multi-unit properties. I've had a couple of major issues with apartments.com that are clear deal breakers:
- Unable to end leases and remove residents for one side of a duplex because the other side had a longer lease with overlapping term. Multiple calls / emails with apartments support and ended up setting this up as a new property. Not great.
- Double charging tenants who had auto-pay turned on during lease renewal. New lease and higher rent did not take effect for a couple months, but the system charged them both the current lease rent and new lease rent. No help from apartments support - other than to say cancel auto pay, pay manually and issue credits outside the system.
I'm looking into Zumper now - they seem to have a streamlined user experience (both tenant and landlord side), cover the full gamut (screening, leases, payments) and say they'll get payments cleared next day. Anyone else use Zumper, and have any feedback?
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Mark Edwards
Member since 2021 · 1 post · 1 vote
5y
Originally posted by @Justin R.:
Timely thread. In March and April, we tested 5 solutions, each with 3 different tenants. The goal was to get feedback from actual tenants in different situations to see what people liked. Keep in mind we already have full accounting and payments and everything else in place -- this is really more about the tenant experience than what I prefer as the landlord or manager. Here's the results:

Thanks for that post. So helpful.

I just created an account at BiggerPockets and signed in, just because of this post that you made. Super helpful to me.

Probably going to try Rentler in my case, because I have had bad experiences overall with TransUnion as a credit bureau in the past and so I have been preferring Experian reports now. Cozy was using Experian, but after the merger with Apartments.com, they are now using TransUnion. So I am jumping ship from Cozy/Apartments and shopping around. Thanks again for your info.

-Mark
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Franklin F.Pro Member
Investor · Crossville, TN · Member since 2016 · 58 posts · 27 votes
4y
Originally posted by @Margie Kohlhaas:
@Carolyn Fuller
I only collect from 6 tenants so Venmo (the free option) has worked well for me.

I've been considering Venmo. Did you use your own name for the account, or did you do a business account? For personal accounts, I understand you can do their "friends and family" deal? thanks

0 Reply
Jacky Cheng
New York, NY · Member since 2022 · 4 posts · 3 votes
4y
Quote from @Justin R.:

Timely thread. In March and April, we tested 5 solutions, each with 3 different tenants. The goal was to get feedback from actual tenants in different situations to see what people liked. Keep in mind we already have full accounting and payments and everything else in place -- this is really more about the tenant experience than what I prefer as the landlord or manager.  Here's the results:

Apartments.com: Free. One tenant had a hard time signing up and linking to the property. Payments took a long time to arrive (6 biz days, IIRC). Also had a problem where their address validation didn't allow us to enter a recently built building, with no work around.  Functionality is complete. I don't trust the company and expect they will squeeze for revenue once they have market share.

Buildium: Subscription. Considered, but they really want to displace the accounting system, which was a no-go for us.

Zibo: Free. So much potential. Tenants found this super easy to use.  Engaged with their designers and product people to provide feedback. They have a good chance to grow to be the best pure-play rent payment solution out there -- their product and UI is spot on. Biggest issue we had is that they don't have a way to add one-time charges right now. Designers showed me UI mockups with the feature in it. Keep an eye on this.

TenantCloud: Subscription. I really wanted this to work, but the UI is a mess. It feels like a product that had features added for years with no real roadmap to make it cohesive. Payments don't feel core to the product. Can push data into Quickbooks in realtime (only one amongst the ones we tested that does this). 2 of 3 tenants couldn't successfully link to their property. It gave me headaches trying to get this working.

Rentler: Free. Favorite amongst tenants. Particularly good feedback on UI and tenant signup process and also because they report rent payments to credit bureaus, increasing tenant credit scores - that's a win for tenants AND us. Also, payments arrive faster (2 or 3 days - ICR). Supports different properties depositing into different bank accounts. Lacks one-time charge/credit, but can support it by modifying the next rent payment (provided feedback - they assure feature is coming).

Other solutions we didn't evaluate but are on our list are: PayRent.com, TurboTenant, and RentecDirect.

For May, we have moved about 50% of our tenant base to Rentler, as that's the clear preference of those who participated in the testing. Assuming it goes well, we'll continue moving people over, although we'll maintain some tenants on an alternative platform as a way to provide redundancy for the business.

I am 100% a fan of simple solutions, so a Buildium or AppFolio based system could certainly make sense. However, we are relentlessly focused on the quality of the tenant experience, and willing to incur additional work in order to deliver an optimized experience. There's a certain brand and feel we're going for, and using best-in-class tools is our way to get there. Note we're talking about dozens of units here -- it may be very different if the scale were larger and we were not owner-managers.

It's a constantly evolving space - always keeping an eye out for the best tools.

Rentler is abandoning their payment platform and acquiring TenantCloud to use their payment platform. Are you now switching those tenants on Rentler to TenantCloud now? Or you're going to use another payment platform? As you mentioned, TenantCloud is not user friendly.
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