Frequently asked questions
Straight answers about pricing, rent collection, lease e-signature, tenant screening, inspections, and data security. Written for US landlords managing 1–20 rental units who want a clear picture before signing up.
Product basics
What is Landlord Copilot?
Landlord Copilot is rental property management software for US landlords with 1–20 units. It combines online rent collection (Stripe ACH and card), bilingual lease e-signature (English, Spanish, Chinese), tenant screening (TransUnion SmartMove pass-through), move-in / move-out inspections, AI maintenance triage, AI email replies, NOI analytics, and Schedule E tax reports into one dashboard. The goal is to replace the typical small-landlord stack — Venmo for rent, a Google Sheet for expenses, a notebook for maintenance — with a single ledger.
Who is Landlord Copilot for?
Independent landlords managing 1 to 20 rental units in the United States. Most users are self-managing owners who want their evenings and weekends back — without paying a property management company 8–12% of gross rent for the privilege. Whether you have a single rental house or a portfolio of small multi-family buildings, Landlord Copilot replaces the mess of spreadsheets, paper receipts, Venmo requests, and 11pm tenant emails with one calm dashboard.
How is it different from TurboTenant, Avail, Hemlane, or Innago?
Three practical differences. First, bilingual leases — English, Spanish, and Chinese side-by-side on the same signed PDF, useful in CA, TX, FL, NY, and other markets with mixed-language tenant bases. Second, AI-native workflows: photo-based maintenance diagnosis, email categorization with draft replies, and receipt parsing. Third, a flat $19/month price with no per-unit, per-application, or per-payment surcharge, and zero platform fee on rent collection — only Stripe's standard processing rate applies.
What does the dashboard show me first?
The dashboard opens to an "Action Items" card that lists what needs your attention today — overdue rent, open maintenance requests, unread tenant messages, leases waiting for signature, and inspections needing your countersign. When nothing's pending, you see a clean "All caught up" state. Below that, four KPI tiles (properties, tenants, monthly revenue, open maintenance) link directly to their respective pages, and a Quick Actions row shortcuts the most common daily operations.
Pricing
How much does Landlord Copilot cost?
Free is $0 / forever, no credit card required: 1 active property, all features included (lease e-signature, online rent collection, tenant screening, move-in / move-out inspections, maintenance), with a soft cap of 10 AI uses per month across email triage, maintenance, and receipts. Pro is $19/month or $179/year — the annual plan saves 21% — and lifts every cap: unlimited properties, unlimited tenants, unlimited AI usage, plus priority support. All amounts are in USD.
Is there a free trial?
No trial because there's no need — the free tier is free forever for 1 active property, including all features and 10 AI calls per month. Try the full product without a credit card, and only upgrade to Pro ($19/month or $179/year) once you outgrow the single-property limit or the monthly AI cap.
What is included in the Pro plan?
Unlimited properties, unlimited tenants, unlimited documents, unlimited AI calls (photo diagnosis, receipt parsing, email categorization, draft replies), online rent collection with no platform fee, bilingual lease e-signature with audit trail, unlimited move-in / move-out inspections, TransUnion SmartMove tenant screening pass-through, Schedule E-ready tax reports, NOI analytics, an encrypted document vault, the bilingual tenant portal (English / Spanish / Chinese), and priority email support.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. Cancel any time from the Manage Subscription portal — no phone call, no retention chat. Monthly subscriptions stop renewing at the end of the current billing cycle; annual subscriptions run through the period already paid for. There is no cancellation fee. Your data stays accessible during the wind-down so you can export leases, tax reports, and payment history before access ends.
Rent collection
Does Landlord Copilot support ACH rent payments?
Yes. Tenants can pay rent by ACH bank transfer or by credit or debit card. Both are processed through Stripe Connect, so the funds land directly in the landlord's connected bank account on Stripe's standard payout schedule. ACH is the recommended default for recurring rent because the per-transaction fee is fixed (typically a few cents per payment) instead of a percentage, which matters at rent amounts of $1,000 and above.
Does Landlord Copilot charge a platform fee on rent?
No. Landlord Copilot does not take a cut of rent payments. The only deduction is Stripe's standard processing fee, which the landlord can absorb or pass through to the tenant. There is no $2 per payment, no 1% slice, and no per-tenant surcharge — the $19/month Pro subscription is the entire cost on the landlord side, regardless of how many tenants pay rent through the platform.
How are rent payments processed?
Rent flows through Stripe Connect. Each landlord connects (or creates) a Stripe Express account, which lets Stripe verify identity, handle KYC, and disburse funds to the landlord's bank account. Tenants pay through a secure payment link or the tenant portal. Funds settle to Stripe immediately, and Stripe pays them out to the connected bank account on a rolling schedule. Landlord Copilot never holds rent funds at any point.
When do I receive the rent money?
Card payments typically settle to your bank account 2 business days after the tenant pays. ACH payments take 3–5 business days, depending on Stripe's holding period for newer accounts. Once your Stripe Connect account has a payment history, payout speed improves. Landlord Copilot does not hold rent money at any stage — Stripe routes payment from the tenant directly to the landlord's connected bank account.
Lease e-signature
Are the e-signatures legally binding in the US?
Yes. Electronic signatures are legally binding in all 50 US states under the federal ESIGN Act of 2000 and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), which has been adopted by 49 states. Landlord Copilot's lease e-signature flow captures the signer's name, timestamp, IP address, and the signed document hash as an audit trail. The signed PDF is generated client-side via jsPDF and stored in the encrypted document vault.
What languages do you support for leases?
English, Spanish, and Chinese. Leases can be generated as bilingual PDFs — English on the left and the second language on the right, side by side on every page — so the landlord and tenant sign one document that they both fully understand. The full tenant portal (payment notices, maintenance requests, lease signing, inspection review) is also translated, so tenants can use the entire app in their preferred language.
Can tenants sign a lease on their phone?
Yes. The e-signature flow works in any phone browser without an app install. The tenant receives a secure link, reviews the lease in their language of choice, draws or types their signature, and submits. The signed PDF is generated and stored automatically, and both landlord and tenant receive an email copy. No DocuSign account, no Adobe Sign account, no per-document fee.
Tenant screening
How does tenant screening work?
Landlord Copilot integrates with TransUnion SmartMove. The landlord sends an applicant a screening invitation from the dashboard; the applicant fills out the application directly with TransUnion and pays the screening fee. Once complete, the landlord sees the credit, criminal background, and eviction history report inside the dashboard. The landlord never handles the applicant's SSN or payment info directly, which keeps you outside of FCRA fee-passing rules.
Who pays the tenant screening fee?
The applicant pays the screening fee directly to TransUnion. This is the standard pattern used by professional landlords and is why no cost flows back to the landlord. You still control the screening criteria and the income-to-rent ratio, but the actual transaction for the report happens between the applicant and TransUnion. The typical applicant fee is about $40 for the full bundle.
What is included in a screening report?
The TransUnion SmartMove report includes a TransUnion credit report and ResidentScore (tuned for rental decisions rather than auto loans), a national criminal background check, and a national eviction history search. Because the applicant authorizes the report through TransUnion's own portal, the landlord receives an adverse-action-ready packet — which matters for FCRA compliance when declining an applicant.
Move-in / move-out inspections
What are move-in / move-out inspections?
A photo-documented record of the property's condition at the start and end of a tenancy. The landlord (or tenant) walks each room, captures photos against a checklist, and notes existing damage. At move-out, the system shows a side-by-side comparison of the same room at move-in vs. move-out — so it is obvious which damage is new and which was pre-existing. Both inspections can be e-signed by the tenant inside the tenant portal.
Why are move-in inspections important?
Move-in inspections are the primary defense against security deposit disputes. Most state landlord-tenant laws require the landlord to itemize damage withholdings within 14–30 days of move-out and to prove the damage was not pre-existing. Without timestamped, signed move-in photos, landlords often lose small-claims cases on weak evidence. A signed move-in inspection turns the dispute from a he-said-she-said into a direct visual comparison.
Do tenants sign the inspection?
Yes. Tenants review each inspection inside the tenant portal, can disagree with any line item (which triggers a counter-disagree exchange with the landlord), and finally e-sign. The signed PDF, photos, and full audit trail are saved to the property's record. If a tenant declines to sign, the inspection is still saved with that status recorded — which is itself useful evidence later.
Security & data
Is my data secure?
Yes. All data lives in Supabase (a managed Postgres provider) with row-level security (RLS) enabled on every tenant, lease, and payment table. RLS means an authenticated user can only see their own properties, tenants, and documents — enforced at the database level, not just in the application code. Passwords are hashed by Supabase Auth. Uploaded files (lease PDFs, inspection photos, receipts) are stored in Supabase Storage with private, signed-URL access.
Where is my data stored?
Data is stored in Supabase's US-region infrastructure, which runs on AWS. Files (lease PDFs, inspection photos, receipts) are stored in Supabase Storage, also in the US region. Payment data is handled by Stripe and never lives in Landlord Copilot's database — only Stripe customer IDs and payout references. Tenant screening data is held by TransUnion under their own retention policy.
Do you use my data to train AI models?
No. Landlord Copilot does not use customer property data, tenant data, lease content, or message history to train AI models. The AI features (photo diagnosis, email categorization, draft replies, receipt parsing) call third-party APIs — Google Gemini and similar — with per-request payloads only. We use business-tier APIs that contractually do not train on submitted data.
Practical questions
Can I track income and expenses with monthly summaries?
Yes. The income and expense ledger is included on every plan, free and Pro. Paid rent (via Stripe) auto-imports as income; completed maintenance with a receipt auto-imports as expense. You add other expenses manually — insurance, mortgage interest, property tax, HOA, utilities, etc. Categories map directly to IRS Schedule E line items, so your tax report rolls up at year end with one click. Free users can record unlimited transactions; the 10 AI calls/month soft cap applies only to AI-assisted features like email drafting and receipt photo parsing.
Can I import data from another tool?
Properties and tenants are added through the standard add flow inside the dashboard, and existing lease PDFs from another tool can be uploaded directly into the document vault. There is not yet a one-click CSV importer for TurboTenant, Avail, Hemlane, or Innago exports — a dedicated import tool for portfolios coming from those platforms is on the roadmap. Until then, the manual add flow takes about a minute per property and per tenant.
Do tenants need an account to use Landlord Copilot?
Tenants do not need to sign up for anything to pay rent or sign their first lease — both happen through secure links sent by the landlord. For ongoing access (maintenance requests, payment history, inspection review, lease re-download), tenants create a free tenant portal account that is bilingual (English / Spanish / Chinese). The tenant portal is free for tenants forever — there is no charge to the tenant for using the system.
What about state-specific landlord-tenant laws?
Landlord Copilot does not generate state-specific lease clauses automatically. Landlords still need a lease template that matches their state's rules (notice periods, security deposit caps, late-fee maximums, mandatory disclosures). The platform handles the surrounding workflow — e-signature, payment history, inspection records — which is what most state laws require landlords to keep on file. For state-specific lease language, consult a local attorney or use a state-specific lease template.
Still have questions?
Start free with one property — all features included, 10 AI calls per month, no credit card required.