PayHOA Alternatives for a Small Self-Managed Association

Last verified: October 28, 2026 · See updates

PayHOA publishes every number a board needs, so it is the one platform on this list you can total before you talk to anyone. Totalled properly, two things change the answer: an AI assistant that is switched on by default and starts billing in month four at half the plan rate, and payment fees that cost more than the software at almost any size.

What PayHOA costs once the default add-on starts billing

PayHOA sells one plan with every feature, priced by unit count. All nine bands were read on the vendor's pricing page on October 28, 2026 and are unchanged from our September and October reads. What is new since our last read on October 1 is a second recurring line.

Gable AI is the vendor's AI assistant. The pricing page states that it “Comes switched on with every new account”, that the first three months are free, and that you can turn it off from the subscription page. From month four it bills alongside the plan. The vendor publishes a figure for each band but does not publish the pattern, so this is ours: Gable AI is priced at exactly half the plan rate in every one of the eight banded tiers, in both the monthly and the yearly billing columns. Above 500 units the plan is $0.55 per unit a month and Gable is $0.27, which is just under half.

For a 25-unit association that is the difference between $588 a year and $882 a year, a rise of 50 percent on a line the board did not choose. On the monthly billing column the same pattern holds: the plan is $54 and Gable is $27.

Two limits on what we can tell you. The page states “Already a PayHOA customer? You get 3 free months of Gable too”, so existing accounts get the free period, but the page does not say whether an existing account has Gable switched on without being asked. We are not going to guess. If your association is already on PayHOA, open the subscription page and look. Second, we have not tested Gable AI, so nothing here is a judgement about whether $294 a year buys your board anything. The point is narrower: it is a recurring charge that arrives by default, and three months is long enough for a volunteer treasurer to stop watching for it.

The alternatives, priced against PayHOA

Every platform in our directory that publishes a rate card is below, with PayHOA as the baseline. Rates were read at each vendor's own pricing page on the date shown; the annual figures are ours. This is subscription only. Payment fees are the next section and they are usually larger.

The Condo Control row needs a sentence of its own. Its unit-band selector offers a 0 to 99 band at $67.50 a month, but the card for that band alone is headed “Starting price for under 50 units”, and that band alone routes to “Get quote” where the four bands above it say “Get Started”. So the one band that covers most self-managed associations is the one band the vendor will not sell at a fixed published figure. A 60-unit board should treat $810 a year as a floor and ask for its own number. The higher bands, read the same day, are firm: $135 a month for 100 to 199 units, $270 for 200 to 299, $405 for 300 to 399 and $540 for 400 to 499.

Two other cautions on this table. KindHOA's free Good Neighbor tier is a real published $0, but it carries the higher of the two payment-fee schedules, so it is cheapest only where online payments are rare. And Neigbrs by Vinteum publishes no minimum charge, which cuts in a small association's favour at 25 units, where Basic is $237 against PayHOA's $588, and against it as the community grows, because a per-unit rate keeps climbing while PayHOA's band price holds. At 150 units Neigbrs Standard is $1,782, above PayHOA's $1,548 plan and below its $2,322 plan-plus-Gable figure.

The payment fees are bigger than the software

This is the part that decides the answer, and it is the part most comparison tables leave out. A 150-unit association whose owners each pay monthly by bank transfer sends 1,800 payments a year. On PayHOA's published $2.45 per bank transfer that is $4,410 a year in payment fees against a $1,548 subscription. The software is the small number.

Three platforms publish a payment rate a board can use. PayHOA charges a flat fee per bank transfer. KindHOA charges two stacked percentages and publishes both layers, stating that “Every online payment carries both Stripe processing and KindHOA's platform fee”. Condo Control publishes card fees away from its pricing page, recorded in our normalized pricing table on October 6, 2026: Stripe at 2.9 percent plus $0.30 and a $2.00 Condo Control service fee, with the resident paying, and no bank-debit rate published at all. TownSq, Neigbrs by Vinteum, HOA Start and RunHOA publish no rate, so a board cannot total them from public information. RunHOA names Stripe as its gateway without publishing a rate and without saying whether it adds a fee of its own, so treat its $399 as a floor and ask for the payment fee in writing.

The dues figure where a flat fee starts to win

A flat fee and a percentage cross at one point, and the crossing is easy to compute from the published rates. On bank transfers, KindHOA's two layers total 1.6 percent of the payment, so they equal PayHOA's $2.45 at $153.13. Below that a percentage is cheaper; above it the flat fee is. On a $300 monthly assessment the same payment costs $2.45 through PayHOA and $4.80 through KindHOA. Both of KindHOA's caps bind at $625, so on a $1,200 quarterly assessment PayHOA charges $2.45 and KindHOA charges $10.

On cards the two sit much closer, and the crossing is at $50 exactly. PayHOA's 3.5 percent plus $0.50 beats 3.9 percent plus 30 cents on any card payment above $50, and loses below it. On a $250 payment PayHOA's card fee is $9.25, which is also the figure the vendor's own calculator returns for that amount, so our formula and the vendor's agree.

Cards are the expensive route on both platforms, and by a wide margin. If every owner in a 60-unit association paid a $300 assessment by card every month, PayHOA's published rate produces $7,920 a year in card fees. The same payments by bank transfer produce $1,764. The single largest saving available to most self-managed boards is not a cheaper platform, it is moving owners from cards to bank transfer, and both vendors let the board decide who carries the fee.

What the total looks like at three sizes

Below is subscription plus bank-transfer fees for a full year, on the assumption that every owner pays monthly by bank transfer and nobody pays by card or check. KindHOA's figure includes its published bank sync at $89 a year for two accounts, because an association running a ledger needs it. This is the comparison that reverses the subscription ranking.

The pattern is the same at all three sizes. With Gable AI switched off, PayHOA becomes the cheaper total once monthly dues pass about $195 at 25 units, about $223 at 60 units and about $193 at 150 units. Leave Gable on and those thresholds move up to about $256, $274 and $220. A board with $400 dues and 150 units pays $5,958 on PayHOA and $11,908 on KindHOA, which is the exact reverse of what the $588 against $299 subscription comparison suggests.

Read that as a method, not a verdict. Your own numbers decide it, and three of them matter: your monthly or quarterly assessment, how many owners pay online rather than by check, and whether the association absorbs the fee or passes it to owners. If owners carry the fee, the association's own total is close to the subscription alone and this table stops driving the decision, though the fee still lands on your members.

Where PayHOA is still the right answer

A board that leaves PayHOA on price should know what stops being available. Five things it publishes and prices have no priced equivalent anywhere else in our directory. That is a statement about what vendors publish, not a claim that no rival can do the work.

Because no competitor publishes one, the bookkeeping rate card is reproduced in full here, read at the vendor's bookkeeping page on October 28, 2026. The base is set by community size: $199 a month at 1 to 100 units, $249 at 101 to 200, $299 at 201 to 300, $349 at 301 to 400, $449 at 401 to 500, and a quote above 500. On top of the base: one bank account is included and each additional account is $25 a month, with the page noting that certificates of deposit can count as one; 50 transactions a month are included and each additional 50 is $25 a month; cash basis is included and accrual is $50 a month. The service carries a one-year commitment and the software plan is billed separately. A 60-unit association with an operating account, a reserve account and about 80 transactions a month would therefore run $199 plus $25 for the second account plus $25 for the second transaction block, which is $249 a month or $2,988 a year, and that sits on top of the $1,188 software plan. The arithmetic in that example is ours.

Three points a board should weigh with that table. First, the bookkeeping rate card has a structure to read before you assume $199: an association with an operating account, a reserve account and a certificate of deposit is already past the single included account, and a busy month past the included transaction block. Our bookkeeping comparison prices that decision against hiring independently.

Second, the mail rates are the quiet advantage. A board that sends a statutory notice to every owner twice a year in a 150-unit association sends 300 letters. At $1.25 that is $375; at KindHOA's $3.99 it is $1,197, or about $1,101 with the published 8 percent discount applied, which is our calculation and not a figure KindHOA publishes. For an association with a violation or collection process that runs on certified mail, this line can outweigh the subscription difference by itself.

Third, the free lockbox has a condition attached. It is free when the association banks with Western Alliance Bank, so it saves nothing unless the board is willing to move or open an account there. Moving an association's operating account is a board decision with its own controls, signatories and reconciliation consequences, not a software setting.

What to get in writing before you switch

PayHOA publishes enough that most of these are already answered for it. Ask any vendor that quotes instead:

• The per-payment fee for bank transfer and for card, with any cap. Five of the platforms here publish neither. Without both numbers you cannot total the year, and the total is usually dominated by them.
• The charge for your exact unit count, and the minimum if you sit below a band floor. Condo Control's smallest band is quote-gated and labelled for communities smaller than most self-managed associations.
• Whether any add-on is switched on by default, and when it begins billing. PayHOA's AI assistant is free for three months and then bills at half the plan rate. Ask every vendor the same question and get the answer in the order confirmation, not the sales call.
• The one-time implementation or onboarding fee. PayHOA publishes that setup, onboarding and data import are free. Neigbrs by Vinteum publishes a white-glove onboarding fee that varies by community size and gives no figure.
• The term, the year-two price, and the export format for the owner ledger and document library. A platform you can leave is worth more than a discount. Ask how long you keep access after cancelling, so you can close the fiscal year on the old system if the new one slips.

What we could not establish

• Whether existing PayHOA accounts have Gable AI switched on without being asked. The page gives existing customers three free months and does not say how it is enabled for them.
• What Gable AI is worth. We have not used it, and this page makes no judgement on the product, only on the billing.
• Any bank-transfer rate for Condo Control, and any payment rate at all for TownSq, Neigbrs by Vinteum, HOA Start or RunHOA. None is published, and we will not estimate one.
• Condo Control's firm price for a 50 to 99 unit association. The band exists in the selector at $67.50 and the card for it is labelled a starting price for under 50 units.
• Whether KindHOA's published 8 percent postage discount applies to certified mail as well as First-Class. The page states the discount without restating a base for each class.
• Whether any of the quote-only vendors would price below the published platforms at a given size. A quote can beat a rate card, and we cannot test that without posing as a board, which we do not do.

Frequently asked questions

How much does PayHOA cost in total?

At 25 units the plan is $49 a month billed yearly, which the vendor states as $588 once a year. Gable AI comes switched on, is free for three months and then bills at $24.50 a month on that plan, so the recurring figure from month four is $882 a year unless the board turns it off. Dues collection is billed separately at $2.45 per bank transfer or 3.5 percent plus $0.50 per card payment. A 25-unit association whose owners all pay monthly by bank transfer adds $735 a year in payment fees, which is more than the plan itself. All figures read at the vendor's pricing page on October 28, 2026.

What is the cheapest alternative to PayHOA?

On subscription alone, KindHOA Board Automation at $299 a year and RunHOA at $399 a year are the lowest published flat prices, against $588 a year for PayHOA at 25 units. On the total a board pays, the order can reverse, because KindHOA charges two stacked percentages on each online payment while PayHOA charges a flat $2.45 per bank transfer. Taking published rates only, PayHOA with the AI add-on turned off costs less in total than KindHOA Board Automation once monthly dues pass about $195 at 25 units, about $223 at 60 units and about $193 at 150 units.

Is PayHOA's AI assistant optional?

Yes, but it is on unless you switch it off. The pricing page states that Gable AI comes switched on with every new PayHOA account, that the first three months after sign-up are free, and that it can be turned off from the subscription page. Its price is exactly half the plan rate at every published band, from $24.50 a month on the $49 plan to $124.50 a month on the $249 plan, and $0.27 per unit a month above 500 units against the plan's $0.55. The page also states that existing customers get three free months of Gable. It does not state whether an existing account has it switched on without being asked, so a current PayHOA board should check its own subscription page.

Which PayHOA alternatives publish a bookkeeping price?

None of them. PayHOA publishes a full bookkeeping rate card: a base by community size from $199 a month at 1 to 100 units up to $449 at 401 to 500 units, one bank account and 50 monthly transactions included, $25 a month for each extra bank account, $25 a month per additional 50 transactions, and $50 a month for accrual instead of cash basis, with a one-year commitment and the software plan billed separately. Condo Control publishes a Managed Accounting tier and HOA Start publishes Financial Bookkeeping, both without a price. Community Financials, a bookkeeping service rather than software, publishes no dollar figure either. RunHOA, KindHOA, Neigbrs by Vinteum and TownSq do not offer the service on their pricing pages.

Should we leave PayHOA to save money?

Decide it on the total, not the subscription, and start by checking whether the AI add-on is billing. For a board whose owners pay monthly dues above roughly $200, the flat per-payment fee is the part of PayHOA that is hard to beat, and the subscription difference is the smaller number. For a board with low dues, a high unit count, or owners who mostly pay by card, the percentage-based alternatives can cost less. Four of the platforms in our directory publish no payment-processing rate at all, so for those the total cannot be worked out before a call.

Does PayHOA charge a setup or onboarding fee?

No. The pricing page states that setup and onboarding, data import, extra admins and homeowners, unlimited storage and cancelling are all free, and that onboarding specialists import units, owners, starting balances and custom fields at no charge. It also publishes a 30-day free trial with no credit card. Of the alternatives, Neigbrs by Vinteum is the one that publishes a one-time onboarding fee, and it does not say what the fee is.

Text on this page is licensed CC BY 4.0. Suggested citation: CommonKeel, “PayHOA Alternatives for a Small Self-Managed Association”, https://commonkeel.com/software/payhoa-alternatives/, verified October 28, 2026. Based on the published pricing, bookkeeping and product pages of PayHOA, KindHOA, RunHOA, Neigbrs by Vinteum, Condo Control, TownSq, Smartwebs, HOA Start and Community Financials, each read at source on the date shown beside its figure. The annual totals, the per-payment comparisons, the half-rate finding on the AI add-on and every crossover point are our own arithmetic on those published rates. Not legal, tax or accounting advice.