Baselane vs Stessa vs SealedFolio: Which Landlord Tool Fits Your Portfolio?

Baselane vs Stessa: the short answer

Every Baselane and Stessa number in that answer was checked on October 6, 2026 against Baselane's pricing page and fee FAQ, Stessa's plan comparison and Stessa's rent collection fee article, last updated August 31, 2026. SealedFolio's plan details are on SealedFolio's brand facts page. Vendors change fees, so confirm the current rate before you move a portfolio.

Only deciding between Baselane and Stessa, with no third tool in the running? SealedFolio's shorter Baselane vs Stessa head-to-head on plans, rent fees and review complaints works through that two-way choice with a year-one cost example on five units.

Baselane, Stessa and SealedFolio in one line each

Baselane vs Stessa pricing, including the fees that are not on the pricing page

Baselane and Stessa both open at $0, and both make money when rent moves. Baselane Core includes Schedule E reports; Stessa Essentials includes a rent roll, with Schedule E on Manage at $12 a month billed annually and advanced reports on Pro at $28. SealedFolio charges a flat subscription and takes nothing from rent. The table below uses Baselane's fee table and Stessa's resident fee schedule as of October 6, 2026.

How the Baselane and Stessa rent fees add up on five units

Baselane and Stessa use almost the same rent fee model, and the difference is who pays. Five units paying $2,000 by ACH into an outside bank make 60 payments a year. On Baselane that is $120 a year at the $2 rate in Baselane's FAQ, or up to $300 at the top of its $2 to $5 range, and Baselane lets the landlord cover the fee or pass it to the tenant. On Stessa the same 60 payments cost $120, and Stessa's fee article says landlords never pay; the resident does. Move the rent into a Baselane account or a Stessa Cash Management account and the ACH fee disappears on either platform. Card rent is where tenants feel it: 3.49% of $2,000 is $69.80 a month on Baselane and 3% is $60 on Stessa. SealedFolio Portfolio is $297 a year for unlimited properties with Schedule E, T776 and a rent roll, and SealedFolio Pro is $179 a year for up to 3 properties. SealedFolio's breakdown of what free landlord software really costs runs the same arithmetic on a larger portfolio.

Baselane: banking first, bookkeeping second

Baselane is less a portfolio tracker and more a landlord-focused front end on a bank: checking accounts, a Visa debit card and rent collection in one product, with bookkeeping attached to whatever moves through those accounts. Baselane's own disclosure says it is a financial technology company and not an FDIC-insured bank, with banking services provided by Thread Bank. If you have ever run rent through a personal checking account and then spent a weekend untangling it in April, that is the problem Baselane was built around.

What Baselane does well

• Unlimited property-specific bank accounts, with banking services from Thread Bank, Member FDIC
• Online rent collection by ACH or card, with a tenant portal, autopay, reminders and late fees
• Accountant tax package and Schedule E reports on both Core and Smart
• Tenant screening from $24.99
• Visa debit card for property expenses
• Separate accounts per property or entity, so the money is split and not just the report
• External bank accounts and credit cards can sync through Plaid into Baselane's bookkeeping
• iOS and Android apps

Baselane's limitations

• 3.49% on debit or credit card rent, paid by the tenant, which on a $2,000 rent is $69.80 a month per unit
• $2 to $5 per ACH rent payment unless the rent lands in a Baselane account
• Core deposits rent in 5 business days; the 2-day deposit is a Smart feature
• Balance sheet reports, custom categories, cost segregation and shared access sit on Smart, not Core
• $15 per outbound domestic wire, waived at a $50,000 combined balance, $15 for a checkbook, $2 per mailed check and $5 a month for rent reporting
• No T776 report for Canadian rentals
• No local storage, all data on Baselane's cloud servers

Baselane pricing

Baselane runs two tiers as of October 6, 2026, per Baselane's pricing page. Baselane Core is $0 a month with no minimum balance and no monthly maintenance fee. Baselane Smart is $20 a month on an annual plan, after a 30-day trial, and adds AI auto-tagging into 120+ categories, auto-receipt matching, balance sheets, cost segregation, 2-day rent deposits and priority support. The rest of Baselane's revenue comes from movement: 3.49% on card rent paid by the tenant, $2 to $5 per ACH rent payment into an outside bank, $15 wires, $30+ a month for split rent payments through Livble, and $5 a month for rent reporting to the credit bureaus.

What landlords say about Baselane

The Baselane iPhone app held a 4.8 out of 5 rating from 669 ratings on the Baselane App Store listing on October 6, 2026. The friction points landlords raise are the ones in Baselane's own FAQ: the ACH fee when rent leaves the Baselane ecosystem, the 3.49% card charge tenants push back on, and the 5-day deposit on Core. SealedFolio sidesteps all three by not touching rent at all, which is also SealedFolio's biggest gap if you want collection built in.

Best for: US landlords who want all-in-one banking and rent collection and don't mind cloud storage. SealedFolio's SealedFolio vs Baselane comparison goes deeper on the fee arithmetic and on what Baselane's cloud model means for your rent roll.

Stessa: the free baseline

Stessa is a free income and expense tracker for rental owners that grew into rent collection, leasing and Cash Management accounts. JLL's technology division owned Stessa from January 2018 until Roofstock bought it. JLL's press release of March 3, 2021 says Roofstock "purchased Stessa," and Stessa's co-founders told customers that "Roofstock has acquired Stessa" in a Stessa blog post dated March 2, 2021. The same JLL release put Stessa at "more than 170,000 properties on the platform representing over $45 billion in assets" at the time. That ownership is what turns most Stessa conversations into a data question rather than a feature question.

What Stessa does well

• Unlimited properties and automatic bank feeds on every plan, including free
• Basic financial reports, tenant ledger and rent roll on the free Essentials tier
• Schedule E report from the Manage tier up, CapEx in the Pro tax package
• Online rent collection, tenant screening, tenant applications and Zillow syndication on every tier
• Maintenance requests and maintenance tracking on Essentials
• Cash Management accounts through Thread Bank, up to 2.02% APY on Essentials and Manage and up to 3.49% on Pro
• Full data export on every plan
• iOS and Android apps

Stessa's limitations

• Owned by Roofstock, which runs a marketplace for buying and selling rental homes; in JLL's release Stessa's CEO tied Stessa to Roofstock's proprietary data and to buying and selling properties through Roofstock's marketplace
• Schedule E is not on the free tier, it starts on Manage at $12 a month billed annually
• Advanced reports, budgeting, pro-forma and unlimited chart history sit on Stessa Pro at $28 a month billed annually
• Smart receipt scanning is capped at 5 a month below Pro
• 60+ legal forms and eSignatures require Manage or Pro; Essentials pays $15 per state lease template
• No T776 report for Canadian rentals
• No local storage: data sits on Stessa's cloud servers, encrypted there with AES-256 at rest per Stessa's security page, not on your own computer

Stessa pricing

Stessa pricing on October 6, 2026, per Stessa's plan page: Essentials is $0. Manage is $12 a month billed annually or $15 month to month and adds the Schedule E report, one eSignature a month and accelerated rent payments. Stessa Pro is $28 a month billed annually or $35 month to month and adds all advanced reports, unlimited portfolios, budgeting and seven eSignatures a month. That is $144 a year for Schedule E or $336 a year for the advanced reports, compared with $297 a year for SealedFolio Portfolio with unlimited properties.

What Stessa users say

Stessa's iPhone app held a 4.8 out of 5 rating from 5,266 ratings on the Stessa App Store listing on October 6, 2026. The complaint that comes up in Stessa's own forum is bank feeds: in an April 2026 Stessa Community thread about connected accounts no longer refreshing, one Stessa Pro user said they had already moved two of five properties to Baselane to test it, and another said they were migrating out of Stessa that week. If bank feeds are the reason you are shopping, SealedFolio's CSV, OFX and QIF import on Portfolio means you can work from files your bank produces instead of a live connection.

Best for: A beginner landlord with 1 or 2 properties who wants to track income and expenses without spending money on software. SealedFolio's SealedFolio vs Stessa comparison covers what changed after the Roofstock purchase and how to move a portfolio off Stessa without retyping three years of transactions.

SealedFolio: portfolio books that stay on your device

SealedFolio starts from a different premise than either Baselane or Stessa: your real estate financial data is sensitive, and it belongs on your own Mac or Windows PC rather than on a cloud server. SealedFolio has no hosted portfolio database to breach, subpoena or shut down, and the vault is encrypted on the machine you installed it on.

What SealedFolio does well

• Portfolio analytics: ROI, cap rate, cash-on-cash, equity tracking and occupancy
• Schedule E (US) and T776 (Canada) on both paid plans, plus income statement, balance sheet, general ledger, cash flow, rent roll, depreciation schedules and mileage summaries, with CapEx and SREO on Portfolio
• Mortgage comparison, up to 3 scenarios side by side
• What-if scenario analysis and budgets on the Portfolio plan
• On-device AI document scanning for mortgages, receipts, leases and tax bills
• Legal form templates, tenant profiles and per-tenant payment ledgers
• Encrypted local vault on macOS or Windows, with core workflows working offline
• Bulk file import of CSV, OFX and QIF on the Portfolio plan, with optional Plaid bank import on either plan
• Multi-profile shared access with owner, manager and viewer roles

SealedFolio's limitations

• No built-in online rent collection: tenants keep paying by Venmo, Zelle, check or your bank, and you record it or import the file on Portfolio
• No banking product; optional Plaid import requires your own Plaid credentials
• Desktop only, macOS and Windows, with no mobile app and no web app
• No free tier; a paid plan is required

SealedFolio pricing

SealedFolio is a paid desktop application for macOS and Windows on flat SealedFolio plan pricing. SealedFolio Pro is $19 a month or $179 a year, handles up to 3 properties with full dashboards, Schedule E and T776 reports, document scanning and ROI calculations, and activates on 2 computers. SealedFolio Portfolio is $39 a month or $297 a year for unlimited properties, everything in Pro, bulk file import (CSV, OFX, QIF), custom tags, advanced analytics (SREO, CapEx, budgets, scenarios) and 3 computer activations. Every plan is paid at checkout with a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first payment. No transaction fees, no cut of rent, and no charge that scales with how much money moves through your portfolio.

Best for: Investors with 3+ properties who care about data privacy, want deeper analytics and tax reports, or need Canadian T776 support. Baselane Core already includes Schedule E at $0, and Stessa Essentials includes a rent roll at $0, so SealedFolio earns its $297 a year on Portfolio through local storage, T776 and analysis rather than through basics the other two give away.

Baselane vs Stessa vs SealedFolio: full feature matrix

Baselane, Stessa and SealedFolio split across three jobs: moving rent, tracking a portfolio, and producing tax output. This matrix groups the rows that way so you can read only the group you care about, and SealedFolio is scored honestly, including the rows where SealedFolio loses. Baselane and Stessa cells come from each vendor's pricing page on October 6, 2026; "not listed" means the feature does not appear there.

Baselane vs Stessa banking: what each account actually is

Baselane and Stessa both put deposits at the same partner. Each one's disclosure says it is a financial technology company and not an FDIC-insured bank, with banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. Baselane builds the whole product on those accounts: unlimited property-specific accounts, a Visa debit card, and no fee on ACH rent that lands there. Stessa treats Cash Management as an add-on to the tracker, with an APY tied to your plan: 0.57% to 2.02% on Essentials and Manage and 1.44% to 3.49% on Pro, depending on balance, at rates Stessa lists as effective September 17, 2026, and up to $3,000,000 in FDIC coverage through Thread Bank's deposit sweep program. SealedFolio offers no account of any kind, so your money stays at the bank you already use and only the records come into the SealedFolio vault.

Baselane vs Stessa at tax time: what actually comes out

Baselane Core generates Schedule E reports by property and entity at $0 a month, with balance sheets added on Smart. Stessa includes a basic tax package on Essentials, then adds a Schedule E report on Manage at $12 a month billed annually and CapEx on Pro. Neither offers T776 for Canadian rentals. SealedFolio generates Schedule E and T776 reports from your categorized transactions on both paid plans, alongside a general ledger, income statement, balance sheet, rent roll and depreciation schedules, with a CapEx report on Portfolio. Check each report against your records before filing.

To sanity check the numbers before you commit to any of the three, SealedFolio's free Schedule E calculator runs rental income, expenses and depreciation through the actual form lines in your browser, and the SealedFolio depreciation calculator works out the 27.5-year figure that lands on line 18. SealedFolio's Schedule E guide for 2026 walks through each line and what belongs on it.

What your CPA gets from Baselane, Stessa and SealedFolio

Your preparer may need a per-property income and expense summary, a way to tie totals back to bank statements, and documents behind unusual entries. Baselane lists an accountant tax package and Schedule E reports on both plans, with balance sheets on Smart. Stessa Essentials provides a basic tax package, tenant ledger and rent roll; Manage adds Schedule E, and Pro adds CapEx and advanced reports. SealedFolio exports Schedule E and T776 to PDF or CSV, and the general ledger, income statement, balance sheet and rent roll to CSV, from a vault on your own Mac or Windows PC, so you can hand those files to your accountant without giving them a portal login.

Baselane can sync transactions from external bank accounts and credit cards connected through Plaid and include them in bookkeeping and reports. Manually connected accounts do not import transactions, so your CPA may still need statements or CSV records for those accounts. SealedFolio keeps the books on your device and accepts CSV, OFX and QIF files on the Portfolio plan.

Which devices Baselane, Stessa and SealedFolio run on

Baselane and Stessa are cloud platforms, so both open in any browser on Windows, macOS, ChromeOS or Linux, and both ship iOS and Android apps for checking a balance from a parking lot. SealedFolio is the opposite trade: a desktop application you install on macOS or Windows, with the encrypted vault on that machine and 2 computer activations on SealedFolio Pro and 3 on Portfolio. That means no SealedFolio phone app and no SealedFolio web login, which is the honest cost of not having a hosted portfolio database. If you check rent from your phone all day, Baselane or Stessa will suit you better. If you do the real work at a desk and would rather your rent roll never left it, SealedFolio's local property management software page explains how the offline side works.

Baselane, Stessa or SealedFolio: which matches your investor profile?

Choose Stessa if you are a beginner with 1 or 2 properties

Stessa fits the landlord who just closed on a first or second investment property, wants income and expenses tracked without paying for software, and wants bank feeds so nothing gets typed in by hand. Stessa Essentials does that job at $0, with a tenant ledger, rent roll, rent collection and tenant screening included. The rent roll sits on Stessa's servers. The basic tax package is free; the Stessa Schedule E report starts on Manage at $12 a month billed annually.

Choose Baselane if rent collection is the bottleneck

Baselane fits the landlord who wants rent pulled automatically by ACH or card, separate bank accounts per property, a debit card tied to property spending, and tenant screening in the same login. Baselane Core costs $0 a month to do it. Model the fees first. Card payments carry 3.49%, paid by the tenant, which is $69.80 a month on a $2,000 rent and a real reason tenants push back. ACH is free into a Baselane account and $2 to $5 into an outside bank, so the Baselane fee mostly measures how committed you are to moving your banking across.

Choose SealedFolio if you have 3+ properties and want the analysis, not the plumbing

SealedFolio fits the investor with a growing portfolio, an annual tax report that has become real work, and a habit of modelling scenarios before buying. SealedFolio also fits anyone uneasy about uploading a full net worth to a vendor's servers. SealedFolio gives you Schedule E, T776, a general ledger and balance sheet, mortgage comparison across 3 scenarios, on-device document scanning and an encrypted vault on your own Mac or Windows PC, from $19 a month, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first payment. The honest catch: SealedFolio collects no rent, so you keep using Venmo, Zelle, check or your own bank, and bring transactions in by CSV, OFX or QIF file import on Portfolio. There is also no SealedFolio mobile app.

Choose SealedFolio if your rentals are Canadian

SealedFolio is the only one of the three that produces T776, the Statement of Real Estate Rentals, for a Canadian return. Neither Stessa nor Baselane offers T776, which usually ends the Baselane vs Stessa question before it starts for anyone with property north of the border.

How to move from Stessa or Baselane to SealedFolio

Moving a portfolio from Stessa or Baselane into SealedFolio takes an afternoon if you do it in this order:

1. Export your history. Stessa lists full data export on every plan, including free Essentials. For Baselane, or for any period an export does not cover, download CSV or OFX statements from the bank that holds the account.
2. Buy SealedFolio and install it on your Mac or Windows PC. Your first payment includes a 30-day money-back guarantee. Choose Portfolio if you plan to bulk import files or own more than 3 properties.
3. Recreate each property, unit, lease and tenant, then import the CSV, OFX or QIF files. On either plan you can connect banks through optional Plaid import instead.
4. Run last year's Schedule E (or T776) in SealedFolio and compare it with the return you filed. Fix categories until the totals match.
5. Keep the old Stessa or Baselane login, read-only, until you have filed one return from SealedFolio.

Can you run Baselane and SealedFolio together?

Baselane and SealedFolio can work together: Baselane for banking, rent collection and Schedule E reports; SealedFolio for local portfolio analytics and T776. Bring Baselane transactions into SealedFolio monthly as a CSV or OFX file with file import on the Portfolio plan, or through optional Plaid import on either plan. The same pattern works with Stessa's Cash Management accounts if you already have those set up, and SealedFolio's offline rent roll software page shows how the rent roll side looks once the data is local.

Baselane vs Stessa vs SealedFolio: frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Baselane and Stessa?

Baselane is a landlord banking platform first: business checking, debit cards and online rent collection, with expense categorization built around those transactions. Stessa is a portfolio tracker first: bank syncing, income and expense categorization and tax-season reporting, with rent collection and Cash Management accounts added on top. Baselane moves the money, Stessa reports on it, and SealedFolio analyzes it inside an encrypted vault on your own Mac or Windows PC rather than on a vendor's server.

Is Baselane free for landlords?

Baselane Core costs $0 a month with no minimum balance, so the banking and bookkeeping side really is free. Rent collection is where the money appears: ACH rent is free when it lands in a Baselane account, Baselane's fee table lists $2 to $5 per payment when it lands in an outside bank account, card payments carry 3.49% paid by the tenant, and the Baselane Smart tier runs $20 a month on an annual plan after a 30-day trial. SealedFolio charges a flat $19 a month on Pro or $39 on Portfolio, takes no percentage of rent, and backs your first purchase with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

How much does the Stessa app cost?

Stessa Essentials is free and includes a tenant ledger, rent roll and basic tax package. Manage costs $12 a month billed annually or $15 month to month and adds a Schedule E report. Pro costs $28 a month billed annually or $35 month to month and adds CapEx and advanced reports. Stessa Pro costs $336 a year, while SealedFolio Portfolio costs $297 a year and keeps the books in an encrypted vault on your own Mac or Windows PC.

What is the best alternative to Stessa?

The best alternative to Stessa depends on which part of Stessa you want to replace. If the gap is rent collection and banking, Baselane is the closest swap. If the gap is that Schedule E sits behind the $12 a month Manage tier, or that your rent roll and financials live with a Roofstock company, SealedFolio holds the same portfolio data in an encrypted vault on your Mac or Windows PC and includes Schedule E, T776, a general ledger, income statement, balance sheet and rent roll on both paid plans.

Who owns Stessa?

Roofstock owns Stessa. JLL announced on March 3, 2021 that Roofstock had purchased Stessa from JLL Technologies, which had owned it since January 2018, and Stessa's co-founders announced the same news on Stessa's blog on March 2, 2021. Your Stessa books therefore sit with a company that also runs a marketplace for buying and selling rental property, which is the main reason some investors move to SealedFolio's encrypted vault on their own Mac or Windows PC.

SealedFolio's sources for the Stessa ownership answer: JLL's March 3, 2021 press release and Stessa's own announcement post.

What are people saying about Baselane banking?

On the Apple App Store the Baselane app held a 4.8 out of 5 rating from 669 ratings on October 6, 2026, and the Stessa app held 4.8 from 5,266 ratings. The trade-offs landlords run into are spelled out in Baselane's own fee FAQ: ACH rent incurs a $2 fee unless it lands in a Baselane account, tenants paying by card are responsible for a 3.49% convenience charge, and Core deposits rent in 5 business days against 2 on Smart. SealedFolio offers no banking at all, so none of those fees apply to SealedFolio.

SealedFolio pulled the ratings from the Baselane App Store listing and the Stessa App Store listing; the fee wording is from Baselane's pricing page and FAQ.

What are the key differences between Baselane and QuickBooks for property management?

Baselane treats rental property as the native unit: properties, units, leases and tenants are built-in objects, and the banking and rent collection sit in the same login. QuickBooks is general business accounting, so a landlord models each property as a class or location and assembles the rental reporting by hand, and QuickBooks has no lease, tenant-screening or rent-roll features, so a tenant pays rent only through an ordinary QuickBooks invoice by card or ACH rather than a landlord workflow. SealedFolio sits between the two, with property-level books, Schedule E and T776 on your own machine and no bank account attached to the software.

SealedFolio's Stessa vs QuickBooks comparison for landlords works through the accounting side of that trade in detail, including what a class-based QuickBooks file costs you in setup time.

Does Stessa offer banking?

Stessa offers Cash Management accounts for holding rent and property funds, with banking services provided by Thread Bank and an APY that rises with your plan tier: up to 2.02% on Essentials and Manage and up to 3.49% on Pro, at rates Stessa lists as effective September 17, 2026. Baselane's banking product runs on the same partner bank and goes further, with unlimited property-specific accounts and a debit card. SealedFolio has no banking product at all and expects you to keep banking where you already bank, then pull transactions in by CSV, OFX or QIF file import on the Portfolio plan or by optional Plaid import on either plan.

Does Baselane report to the IRS?

Platforms that process rent payments, Baselane included, can be required to issue IRS information returns. Confirm current thresholds with Baselane and your accountant. Rental income is reportable whether or not a form is issued. Baselane Core includes Schedule E reports by property and entity, Stessa adds a Schedule E report on Manage, and SealedFolio builds one from your categorized transactions.

Can I use Baselane or Stessa with multiple LLCs?

Baselane is built around opening distinct banking accounts per property or entity, which separates the actual money and not only the reporting. Stessa groups properties into portfolios, one on Essentials and Manage and unlimited on Pro, so the reporting can be split by entity while the banking stays wherever you hold it. SealedFolio separates entities inside the local vault and runs each report per property or per entity, and your bank accounts stay exactly where they are.

What is the best bookkeeping software for landlords?

Stessa Essentials covers basic bookkeeping and a rent roll at $0, with Schedule E starting on the $12 a month Manage tier. Baselane Core combines banking, rent collection and Schedule E reports at $0 a month, with fees for some payment methods. For local reporting, SealedFolio runs the general ledger, income statement, balance sheet, rent roll and Schedule E on your Mac or Windows PC from $19 a month.

Which landlord software is best for Schedule E tax preparation?

Baselane Core includes Schedule E reports by property and entity at $0 a month. Stessa adds a Schedule E report on Manage at $12 a month billed annually. SealedFolio generates Schedule E and T776 reports from your categorized transactions on both paid plans. Whichever tool holds your books, check the totals against your own records before you file.

Can I use Baselane or Stessa on a Windows PC?

Baselane and Stessa are cloud platforms you reach in any browser, including on Windows, and both also ship iOS and Android apps. SealedFolio is a desktop application for macOS and Windows, and the encrypted vault lives on that machine, with 2 computer activations on Pro and 3 on Portfolio. SealedFolio has no mobile app and no web app, so you cannot open a SealedFolio portfolio on a phone.

Bottom line on Baselane vs Stessa vs SealedFolio

Stessa Essentials is a free choice for tracking a portfolio and keeping a rent roll; Schedule E requires Manage at $144 a year. Baselane Core is a free choice for banking and Schedule E reports, with ACH rent free when it lands in a Baselane account. Both charge for ACH rent into an outside bank and for card rent, per Baselane's fee table and Stessa's fee article. SealedFolio fits investors who want local storage, T776 for Canadian rentals and deeper analysis: on a 5-unit portfolio SealedFolio Portfolio costs $297 a year, against $336 for Stessa Pro's advanced reports. SealedFolio's case for keeping rental data on your device explains the privacy tradeoff.

Want to see how Baselane, Stessa and SealedFolio stack up against DoorLoop, TenantCloud, Buildium and AppFolio? SealedFolio's full ranking of the best rental property software in 2026 covers the whole field, including when an operations platform beats a portfolio tracker.