DoorKeeping vs Stessa: rental bookkeeping and beyond

What Stessa is built to do

Stessa's accounting page describes its core: connect banks, lenders, credit cards and property managers, and Stessa "securely imports, categorizes, and indexes all your expenses". Receipt scanning, dashboards and tax reports sit on top. Around that core it has added rent collection, tenant screening through RentPrep, listings, lease templates with DocuSign e-signing, maintenance tracking and landlord bank accounts held through Thread Bank, Member FDIC, according to its home page.

In short, Stessa is where many investors look first when the question is "what did my rentals actually make?". That is also one of the main questions DoorKeeping answers, so the comparison comes down to how you want to get the answer and what else you need around it.

The pricing math

Stessa's pricing page says every plan includes an unlimited number of properties. Essentials is free. Manage is $12 a month paid yearly or $15 paid monthly. Pro is $28 a month paid yearly or $35 paid monthly. Essentials and Manage include one portfolio; Pro allows unlimited portfolios.

Example a made-up owner with 60 units in five LLCs who wants each LLC as its own portfolio. Stessa Pro, the plan with unlimited portfolios, costs $28 x 12 = $336 a year. DoorKeeping costs 60 x $2 x 12 = $1,440 a year. For a 12 unit owner on Pro, it is $336 against DoorKeeping's 12 x $2 x 12 = $288.

So Stessa is cheaper at 60 units on every plan. At 12 units, DoorKeeping costs less than Stessa Pro and more than Manage or the free plan.

Bookkeeping and operations, side by side

Stessa facts from its pricing, accounting, leasing and rent collection pages on 2026-10-29. Its pricing page says interest rates are variable and effective as of 09/17/2026.

Where Stessa is ahead

Stessa's free plan is the biggest practical difference. Transactions flow in on their own and Stessa sorts them, at no cost. Stessa also has a free plan with real bookkeeping, receipt scanning, budgeting and pro formas on Pro, interest-bearing accounts, and a leasing stack: listings syndicated to Zillow's sites per its leasing page, RentPrep screening and attorney-drafted state lease templates. And if you want to hand the whole job over, Stessa points to full-service management through Mynd.

Where DoorKeeping is different

DoorKeeping starts from a rule many apartment owners already follow: one LLC owns one property. Each property therefore gets its own ledger, its own bank account, its own record of security deposits held and its own P&L, and the owner sees all of them together. That is a structure, not a report filter, so a building's books are always ready for its own tax return.

The second difference is the way you work. Instead of opening a dashboard, you ask Claude or ChatGPT, which DoorKeeping connects to, and get answers from the books: "show me the P&L for the Maple LLC this year", "which tenants have not paid October?". When an answer needs an action that moves money or takes a legal step, it waits in the web app for your one-tap approval.

• Rent goes straight to the property's bank; DoorKeeping never holds it and sends a payment only when you approve it.
• Tenants get a memo like 12B SMITH and an exact amount with its own cents, so deposits are easy to match by eye.
• Price is $2 per unit per month with every feature included, and no setup fee or minimum.

Which to pick

If you mainly want to see income and expenses across a few rentals and pay little or nothing, Stessa is a strong fit. If you own apartment buildings in separate LLCs and want to run them, not just report on them, by asking an AI app with approvals in place, DoorKeeping is built for that. You can see it in the demo or read the pricing.

Why switch from Stessa

• Lower cost: about $336 a year less than Stessa Pro at 40 units, from the published prices above.
• Tenants pay $0 to pay rent by bank transfer. A credit card payment carries a 3% card fee. Credit cards only. At Stessa: 3% of the payment (credit or debit).
• Every feature on one plan. On Stessa's Pro plan, full accounting (ledger, p&l, balance sheet), budgets and budget vs actual need a higher plan or cost extra.
• Run your buildings from the Claude or ChatGPT you already use; money and legal steps wait for your one-tap approval.
• Rent goes straight to your own bank. DoorKeeping never holds your money.

Switch to DoorKeeping

What one year costs: Stessa and DoorKeeping

Example math, not a quote: Stessa's Pro plan, billed the cheapest published way, plus the published fee for a tenant paying rent by bank 12 times a year per unit. Balance sheet is on Pro only, so Pro is used: $28 a month billed yearly is $336 a year, unlimited properties. Essentials is free with rent collection, general ledger and P&L but no balance sheet. Tenant ACH is up to $2, free into a Stessa Cash Management account.

Feature by feature: Stessa and DoorKeeping

22 of 32 features are included on the plan above at Stessa, and 32 at DoorKeeping. Read from Stessa's own pages on Oct 30, 2026; "Not stated" means we could not find it on Stessa's own site.

Every fee: Stessa and DoorKeeping

Everything Stessa publishes that an owner, a tenant or an applicant pays, next to DoorKeeping, read from Stessa's own pages (www.stessa.com/pricing/, support.stessa.com/en/articles/6202921-stessa-rent-collection-for-tenants, www.stessa.com/leasing/). "Not published" means it is not on Stessa's own site.

Sources

1. Stessa, Pricing, read Oct 29, 2026
2. Stessa, Accounting, read Oct 29, 2026
3. Stessa, Leasing and tenant screening, read Oct 29, 2026
4. Stessa, Rent collection, read Oct 29, 2026
5. Stessa, Home page, read Oct 29, 2026

Questions

Is Stessa free?

Stessa's Essentials plan is free with unlimited properties. Manage is $12 a month and Pro $28 a month when paid yearly, per its pricing page.

Does DoorKeeping import bank transactions like Stessa?

Yes. Bank feeds bring in each property's transactions, and deposits are matched to rent. You work with the books through your AI app.

Can I keep separate books for each LLC?

In DoorKeeping, yes: one LLC owns one property, with its own ledger, bank account, deposits and P&L. Stessa groups properties into portfolios, and its Pro plan allows unlimited portfolios.