HOA Start for a Self-Managed HOA

Updated July 25, 2026 · By the CommonKeel editorial team

HOA Start is the platform in this category that leads with the association website. It is an all-in-one system for self-managed HOAs, POAs, and condominium associations, built around a site builder rather than bolted onto a payments portal, and it ranks third in our best software comparison. It is also the hardest of our tracked vendors to price, because every published figure is a starting point and the real number arrives only by quote. This page is a documentation-based assessment: what HOA Start includes, what the entry plan quietly leaves out, what a board can and cannot learn before requesting a quote, and who it fits. We have not run a hands-on trial. Everything below is drawn from HOA Start’s own pricing page, its published feature-comparison matrix, its FAQ, and its public support library, all reviewed directly on the vendor’s site July 25, 2026.

What HOA Start is

HOA Start (branded on its own site as “hoastart by Membershine”) is a web-based, all-in-one community platform sold to self-managed associations. Unlike the payments-first platforms in the category, its center of gravity is the community website: templates and designs, unlimited pages, a custom domain, live preview editing, and a resident-facing newsfeed, with the administrative modules built around it. The vendor also offers a Multi-Site Manager, which matters for master associations and boards that oversee more than one community.

The functional modules, per the vendor’s published feature matrix and support documentation:

• Financials. Online payments, one-time charges, accounting, budgeting, vendor management (payables), and print/stuff/mail invoices. The public support library indexes documents for an accounts-receivable dashboard, budgets, chart of accounts, reconciliations, reports, transactions, and vendors, which is a fuller general-ledger footprint than the marketing pages suggest.
• Payments. Processed through Stripe, with a documented Stripe Connect setup guide. A QuickBooks integration is also documented in the support library.
• Communication. Email blasts, text alerts with a bundled allowance per tier, newsfeed, private chat, digest notifications, and a message center.
• Governance and operations. Online voting, surveys and polls, a document repository, member directory, households, committee planner, boardroom, sub-admin roles, violation tracking, and ARC/work-order requests. Note the tier split covered below: several of these are not in the entry plan.
• Community life. Event registration (free and paid), amenity reservations with per-amenity calendars, photo gallery, and sponsorships.
• Platform. Password protection, SSL, nightly backups on Azure, unlimited storage, a web app on every tier, and a mobile app included at Premium and above.

What the entry plan actually includes, and what it does not

This is the part a board cannot get from a marketing page, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you request a quote. HOA Start publishes a full three-column feature matrix behind the “See all features” control on its pricing page. Read carefully, it splits the product in an unusual place: the money features are all in the entry tier, and the enforcement features are not.

Two practical consequences follow. First, a treasurer-driven board that mainly needs dues, a ledger, budgets, payables, and a website can genuinely start on the entry tier without losing accounting features, which is not true of every competitor. Second, an enforcement-driven board, the kind whose weekly pain is violation letters and architectural-review requests, is a Premium buyer, not a Professional buyer, and should price the tier it will actually use. The published $39 and $49 starting points are close enough that this may not change the decision, but they are starting points for the smallest communities, not quotes, so do not assume the gap stays small at your home count.

Where HOA Start does well

• Website quality is the point, not an afterthought. Most all-in-one platforms treat the public site as a thin wrapper on a portal. HOA Start sells the site first: designs, templates, unlimited pages, live preview, custom domain, and SSL. For associations in states that now expect records and notices to be posted online, and for communities that want a presence prospective buyers can see, that is a real differentiator. Our HOA website and resident portal checklist is the right way to test whether it meets your requirements.
• A complete financial stack in the entry tier. Accounting, budgeting, vendor management, one-time charges, online payments, and print/stuff/mail invoicing all sit in the lowest published plan. The support library’s index of chart-of-accounts, reconciliation, transaction, and vendor documents suggests real general-ledger structure rather than a payment log.
• A clear, written data-ownership answer. The vendor’s FAQ states that the association retains full ownership and control of every item of content, from photos and writeups to payment data and documentation, and that HOA Start will help you export your data and files whenever you need them. Very few vendors in this category commit to that in writing on a public page. It does not substitute for testing an export, but it is the right starting posture and a fair thing to hold them to.
• No third-party add-ons required for the basics. Polls, amenity reservations, private messaging, and discussion forums are built in, so a board is not stitching together a separate survey tool and a social-media group.
• Onboarding help on every tier. An onboarding specialist and a support desk are included even on the entry plan, with concierge onboarding and live-session training reserved for White-Glove. Volunteer boards with no technical member are the ones who most need setup help, and it is not paywalled entirely.

Where boards should look closely

None of these is disqualifying, but each is worth resolving in writing before you sign:

• You cannot price it from the website. Every tier is published as a “starts at” figure with a Request Pricing button, and the vendor states plainly that the final price depends on the number of homes. That is legitimate, but it means a board cannot compare HOA Start against a vendor with a published price list without first collecting a quote, and it makes an apples-to-apples budget line harder to build. Ask for the quote in writing, for the tier you will actually use, at your exact home count, and ask what the renewal price will be.
• The entry tier omits enforcement tooling. Violation tracking and ARC/work-order handling are Premium features. If those are your reason for buying software at all, price Premium, not Professional.
• The mobile app is a paid add-on at the entry tier. $500 one-time on Professional, included from Premium up, per the vendor’s matrix. Decide whether residents will actually use an app before you buy one; the web app is included on every tier.
• Some vendor documentation is visibly out of date. As of July 25, 2026 the FAQ still answers the mobile-app question with “We plan to offer iOS and Android apps by the 4th quarter of 2024,” even though the pricing matrix sells a mobile app and the support library documents mobile app and portal setup. A site-wide banner also still promotes a Florida House Bill 1203 white paper as “slated for January of 2025.” Neither is a product defect, and stale marketing copy is common. The practical lesson is narrow and worth applying to any vendor: confirm feature claims against the current product or a written answer, not against undated web copy.
• Support depth is not published. The vendor describes an in-house support team plus a detailed knowledge base, and the matrix lists a support desk and help center on every tier. What is not published anywhere is support hours, channels, or response times. Ask, and open one real support ticket during the trial to see what happens.
• The trial is 14 days. Full access, no payment information required, but half the window RunHOA publishes. Prepare before you start it.
• Stripe processing fees are separate. Dues run through Stripe, so card and bank-transfer fees are on top of the subscription and your board decides whether it or the paying owner absorbs them. Model this: for many small associations, annual processing fees rival or exceed the software subscription.
• Not a reserve tool. Like the rest of the all-in-one category, HOA Start does operating accounting, not reserve studies. Keep that plan separate with our reserve study guide and the free reserve fund calculator.

What HOA Start costs

Verified directly on the vendor’s pricing page July 25, 2026. Confirm current figures before you subscribe.

• Professional: packages start at $39 per month, billed annually. Final price by number of homes, via Request Pricing.
• Premium: packages start at $49 per month, billed annually. Adds violation tracking, ARC/work orders, boardroom, committee planner, sub-admin roles, event registration, amenity reservations, the included mobile app, and the Proptia integration.
• White-Glove: packages start at $149 per month, billed annually. Adds concierge design and onboarding, live-session support and training, managed rollout, quarterly newsletter creation, and five branded email accounts.
• Mobile app: $500 one-time (lifetime) on Professional; included at Premium and above.
• Discounts: the vendor invites inquiries about discounts for multiple communities or multi-year service.
• Free trial: 14 days, full feature access, no payment information required, no contract.
• Payment processing: Stripe, billed separately at Stripe’s standard rates.
• Other extras: we previously recorded text overages at $25 per 1,000 beyond the bundle and print/mail from $1.80 per letter (verified July 3, 2026). Those unit rates are not shown on the vendor’s current public pricing page, so treat them as historical and confirm both in your quote.

To see HOA Start’s published starting points normalized against every other platform we track at 25, 75, and 200 units, use our HOA software pricing table.

Who it fits, and who should look elsewhere

HOA Start fits well when: the association website and resident-facing presence is a real priority, not a checkbox; you want dues, accounting, budgeting, and payables in the same system as the site; you run a master association or more than one community and can use the Multi-Site Manager; you want event registration and amenity reservations for an amenity-heavy community (Premium); or your board wants setup help rather than a self-serve tool.

Look harder, or look elsewhere, when: your board needs a published price it can put in a budget before talking to a salesperson; your dominant need is enforcement and you want it in the cheapest possible plan; you want the lowest absolute cost, in which case RunHOA’s flat $399 per year is the category floor; or you are a condominium with heavy board-portal and package-and-amenity needs, where Condo Control has more depth. For a board that wants a self-managed-first all-in-one with fully published tiers, PayHOA remains the easier product to evaluate on paper.

Still building a shortlist rather than evaluating one product? Answer six questions in the free HOA Software Match tool, then read the independent best-software comparison.

HOA Start FAQ

How much does HOA Start cost?

HOA Start publishes starting points only: Professional from $39 per month, Premium from $49 per month, and White-Glove from $149 per month, all billed annually (verified on the vendor's pricing page July 25, 2026). Every tier is marked "packages start at" and carries a Request Pricing button, because the final price depends on the number of homes in your community. The vendor also invites inquiries about discounts for multiple communities or multi-year terms. That means you cannot budget from the website alone: a board has to request a quote for its own unit count before it can compare HOA Start honestly against a vendor that publishes a full price list.

What does HOA Start's entry Professional plan include?

Per the vendor's own published feature-comparison matrix (verified July 25, 2026), the entry Professional plan includes the full financial stack: online payments, one-time charges, accounting, vendor management, budgeting, and print/stuff/mail invoices. It also includes the website builder with unlimited pages, a custom domain, SSL, nightly backups and unlimited storage, email blasts, a 1,000-text bundle, newsfeed, private chat, document repository, member directory, calendar, custom forms, households, groups and tags, online voting, surveys and polls, the web app, multi-site manager, Stripe integration, a support desk, help center, and an onboarding specialist. That is an unusually complete entry tier on the money side; many competitors gate accounting behind a higher plan.

Does HOA Start include violation tracking on the entry plan?

No. The vendor's feature matrix marks violation tracking, ARC and work-order requests, the boardroom, committee planner, event registrations, amenity reservations, sub-admin roles, and the Proptia access-control integration as Premium and White-Glove features (verified July 25, 2026). The entry Professional plan does not include them. For a board whose main pain is enforcement or architectural review, that pushes you to at least the Premium tier, whose published starting point is $49 per month billed annually with the final figure set by your home count. Confirm the quoted Premium price for your community before you assume the $39 entry number applies to you.

Does HOA Start offer a free trial?

Yes. The vendor's FAQ states the trial is 14 days with full access to all features and applications and no requirement to enter payment information, and the pricing page repeats that there is no contract or credit card required (verified July 25, 2026). Fourteen days is shorter than RunHOA's published 30-day trial, so plan the trial before you start it: import a real owner list, set up your chart of accounts, and run one dues cycle end to end rather than clicking around.

Does HOA Start work with QuickBooks?

HOA Start's public support library lists a document titled "Overview of QuickBooks Integration" alongside a Stripe Connect setup guide, so a QuickBooks integration is documented by the vendor (support library reviewed July 25, 2026). We have not tested it and the library does not, from its index alone, establish which QuickBooks products or sync directions are supported. If your treasurer already keeps the books in QuickBooks Online, ask HOA Start in writing exactly what the integration syncs and in which direction before you commit, and see our separate look at QuickBooks Online for HOAs for the trade-offs of generic accounting software.

Is this a hands-on HOA Start review?

No. This page is a documentation-based assessment: it draws on HOA Start's own pricing page, feature-comparison matrix, FAQ, and public support library, not on a hands-on trial by our team. We label that difference deliberately, because our editorial standards reserve the word review for products we have actually used. CommonKeel has no paid, affiliate, or referral relationship with HOA Start, so nothing here is influenced by compensation. Treat it as a structured starting point and verify the details in your own free trial and written quote.

HOA Start vs RunHOA vs PayHOA: which fits a self-managed board?

They solve for different things. HOA Start leads with website and community-presence quality plus a surprisingly complete entry-tier financial stack, but it will not tell you your price without a quote. RunHOA is the budget anchor at a flat $399 per year for unlimited units, from a smaller vendor with a thinner track record. PayHOA publishes full unit-count tiers from $49 to $249 per month at annual billing, so a board can budget from the website, and it is the more established all-in-one. If a public, board-approvable number matters most, RunHOA or PayHOA are easier to evaluate; if the association website and resident-facing presence is the point, HOA Start is the strongest of the three on that axis.

Do this next

1. Decide your tier before you call. If you need violation tracking or ARC/work orders, you are pricing Premium. Write down which features you actually require, using our website and portal checklist, so the quote is for the right product.
2. Request pricing in writing for your exact number of homes, and ask for the renewal price, the contract term, text and print/mail overage rates, and the data-export process in the same document.
3. Plan the 14-day trial before you start it. Import a real owner list, build your chart of accounts, and run one dues cycle end to end. Open one support ticket deliberately and time the response.
4. Compare on paper. Put the quote next to the published numbers in our pricing table and the rankings in the best-software comparison before the board votes.

Compare the other in-depth assessments: PayHOA (best overall for small self-managed boards), RunHOA (the flat-price budget anchor), Condo Control (feature depth for condos and larger communities), and QuickBooks Online for HOAs (generic accounting).