Ready to Run Your Rentals From Your Phone?
14-day free trial. Card required, no charge until day 15. Import your Stessa data in under 10 minutes.
📱 Take it on the go with our iOS app
Stessa is free, but it's desktop-first, slow on phones, and missing the things working landlords need most: rent collection, recurring invoices, and a real iOS app. Fast Pay Books is the modern alternative built for the operator on the move.
Card required, no charge until day 15 · Import from Stessa CSV in under 10 minutes
An honest take, because hype-only comparisons don't help anyone.
Where Stessa shines: If you own one or two long-term rentals and only need a clean Schedule E once a year, Stessa Essentials is genuinely a great free product. The desktop dashboards look polished, the bank-feed automation is reliable, and the free tier really is free with no surprise upgrades — as long as you don't need anything beyond basic reports.
Where it falls short: The product is desktop-first and the mobile web experience is slow. Rent collection is handled through a partner, not natively. There's no mileage tracking. Recurring invoices for tenants aren't supported. Schedule E and lease eSigning live on the paid Manage tier ($12-15/mo) or Pro tier ($28-35/mo). And since Stessa is owned by Roofstock — which has been through layoffs and product slowdowns since 2023 — the pace of new features has visibly slowed.
The honest summary: Stessa is a free dashboard for landlords who do their books on a laptop once a quarter. Fast Pay Books is a paid product for landlords who do their books on their phone every week, collect rent through ACH, and want mileage and 1099-NEC tracking handled in one place. Different users, different tools. This page exists to help you figure out which one you are.
Both built for landlords. One built for your phone.
| Feature | Fast Pay Books Landlord | Stessa Free | Stessa Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $24.99/mo | Free | $15–$28/mo |
| Per-property dashboard on phone | ✓ Native iOS | Limited mobile web | Limited mobile web |
| Receipt capture from phone | ✓ Auto-tag to property | Basic | Yes |
| Schedule E export | ✓ One-tap PDF + CSV | Tax package | Tax package |
| Rent collection (ACH + reminders) | ✓ Built-in | Through partner only | Through partner |
| Recurring invoices for tenants | ✓ | Not supported | Not supported |
| Mileage between properties | ✓ Auto-tracked iOS | Not supported | Not supported |
| Bank connection (Plaid) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| iOS app quality | ✓ Native, mobile-first | Web-only | Mobile web |
| Product cadence | Weekly releases | Slow / unstable post-Roofstock layoffs | Slow / unstable |
| Owner / parent company | Fast Pay Books (independent) | Roofstock | Roofstock |
| Free trial | 14 days, card required, no charge until day 15 | Always free | Free → paid upgrade |
"Stessa was free, but every time I tried to log a Home Depot run from the parking lot, I'd give up halfway through. The mobile experience is just not there. Fast Pay Books feels like the app Stessa should have shipped."
— Small landlord, 6 doors, switched from Stessa Q1 2026Free is not free if it costs you 14 hours every April.
Native iOS, not a mobile webview. Add a property, snap a receipt, log a mileage trip, send a rent reminder — all in 3 taps from anywhere with signal.
Recurring invoices, auto-reminders, Stripe + ACH. Stessa requires a third-party partner for rent collection. We handle it natively.
Background-tracked, IRS-compliant export. The 65.5¢/mile deduction adds up — most landlords leave $1,000+/yr on the table because Stessa doesn't track it.
Stessa's parent (Roofstock) has been through layoffs and product slowdowns since 2023. We ship every week. Bug reports get answered by the founder.
Everything Stessa's tax package gives you, we give you — plus the rent-collection and 1099 features Stessa makes you bolt on.
Real pricing across the full Stessa lineup. Verified May 2026.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (billed yearly) | 12-month cost | Rent collection | Mileage tracking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Pay Books Basic | $24.99 | $24.99 (no annual discount yet) | $299.88 | ✓ Built-in ACH | ✓ Auto iOS |
| Stessa Essentials | Free | Free | $0 | Via partner | Not supported |
| Stessa Manage | $15 | $12/mo ($144/yr) | $144–$180 | Via partner | Not supported |
| Stessa Pro | $35 | $28/mo ($336/yr) | $336–$420 | Via partner (faster ACH) | Not supported |
Fast Pay Books Landlord is the more expensive option on paper. The honest case for paying it: rent collection is native (no third-party partner), mileage is auto-tracked (the IRS 65.5¢/mile deduction adds up to ~$1,000+/yr for most multi-property landlords), and you get a real iOS app that doesn't make you give up on phone-based bookkeeping. If you're going to upgrade to Stessa Pro anyway ($336-420/yr), the gap to Fast Pay Books is $168-252/yr — usually less than the mileage deduction you're currently missing.
Your data comes with you. No reconstruction.
Step 1 — Export from Stessa. From your Stessa dashboard, go to Transactions → Export and download all transactions as CSV. Then go to Reports → Export and download your rent roll. If you've been tracking receipts, export those too.
Step 2 — Start your Fast Pay Books trial. Pick the Basic plan ($24.99/mo). Card required, no charge until day 15.
Step 3 — Drop the CSV into the import wizard. We auto-map your Stessa property labels to Fast Pay Books properties, categorize transactions, and preserve the original dates. Any unmapped categories surface in a review screen so you can confirm before import.
Step 4 — Connect your bank via Plaid. From this point on, transactions auto-import and auto-tag to the right property using rules. The first time a new vendor hits, you confirm the property once and we remember.
Step 5 — Turn on rent collection and mileage. Set up recurring ACH invoices for each tenant, then enable background mileage tracking on the iOS app. You're operational. Total elapsed time: about 10 minutes for a portfolio of 1-10 properties.
Switch to Fast Pay Books if: you own 2+ rentals (or one rental plus a 1099 side business), you want rent collection built into the same product as the books, you drive between properties and want that mileage tracked automatically, you pay handymen who need 1099-NECs at year-end, and you live on your phone more than your laptop.
Stay on Stessa if: you own a single long-term rental, your transaction volume is light, you do your books quarterly on a desktop, you're already in the Roofstock ecosystem for property management or financing, or your budget genuinely can't absorb $24.99/mo.
The truth: we don't win every comparison and we're not trying to. Stessa Essentials is a real product that solves a real problem for the right user. Fast Pay Books Landlord solves a different problem — for landlords who treat their portfolio like an active operating business rather than a tax-time exercise.
The questions we get in support every week from landlords evaluating the switch.
Stessa Essentials is free and includes unlimited properties, automatic bank feeds, basic financial reports, and online rent collection through a partner. Schedule E reports, lease templates, eSigning, and advanced reports are paywalled behind Stessa Manage ($12-15/mo) or Stessa Pro ($28-35/mo). For most landlords with more than one property, the free tier eventually forces an upgrade.
Yes. Export your Stessa transactions and rent roll as CSV from the Stessa dashboard, then drop the file into our import wizard. We map your properties, transactions, and categories automatically. Most landlords are fully migrated in under 10 minutes for a single year of data.
Not in-house. We focus on the books, rent collection, and tax export. For tenant screening we recommend pairing Fast Pay Books with TransUnion SmartMove, RentPrep, or Zillow Rental Manager. If tenant screening is a core requirement, Stessa's partner network may be a closer fit.
Both products produce Schedule E reports, but Fast Pay Books generates a one-tap Schedule E PDF + CSV with the IRS line numbers pre-mapped. Stessa's tax package is comparable on Manage and Pro tiers, but requires you to be on a paid plan. We include Schedule E on every plan with no add-on cost.
Stessa's free tier exists because Stessa is owned by Roofstock and uses the product as a lead funnel for property management, marketplaces, and financial services. Their incentive is to keep you in their ecosystem. Fast Pay Books is an independent product paid for directly by landlords — which means our incentive is to make the bookkeeping product itself excellent, not to upsell other services.
Yes. Our iOS app runs background mileage tracking and lets you tag each trip to a specific property with one swipe. At year-end you export an IRS-compliant log. Stessa does not track mileage at all — this is a meaningful deduction (65.5¢/mile in 2026) that most multi-property landlords miss.
If you have one property, low transaction volume, and only need a Schedule E once a year, Stessa Essentials (free) is genuinely a fine choice. Fast Pay Books Landlord makes more sense once you have 2+ properties, want rent collection built in, or want mileage and 1099-NEC tracking handled natively.
14 days free. A card is required to start the trial, but you're not charged until day 15. Cancel anytime before then with no charge. The card requirement keeps fake accounts off the platform and makes the day-15 transition seamless if you decide to stay.
14-day free trial. Card required, no charge until day 15. Import your Stessa data in under 10 minutes.
📱 Take it on the go with our iOS app