AppFolio Property Manager Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
It’s robust yet easy to use, dependable, constantly evolving, their developers listen to their customer’s needs and if possible delivers, issues are handled quickly by their web based customer service team, and it’s affordable.

Cons
The layout of the property financial statements are subpar and difficult for our clients to understand; its not the best software choice to manage commercial or multi-family properties; it’s lack of customization

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The software is definetly the right product. It is intuitive and very easy to use. Having used Yardi for 10+ years this product is simply outstanding. It is definitely not even close to what you can do in Yardi, but for 90% of what most of us do, it is allot easier and quicker then Yardi.

Cons
The company is suffering from a very bad support team. When they sell you the product it almost seems that these guys mastered the art of eSupport and you can solve problems with a click. This couldn't further from the truth. For most of the "how to" problems they are quick to respond and usually send you a quick article on how to. The problem becomes when you have a real problem, like late fees simply not posting the correct amounts at the wrong dates, or bank account balances don't add up...in general bigger problems call for a "we will put our head in the sand and hope it goes away" mentality.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 5/10

Pros
This software is amazing. It has so many features from initial contact with prospective renters all the way through the rental process. It allows you to initiate online payments to vendors and owners. It is capable of creating HTML packets for posting to websites manually. It also posts automatically to about 30 other websites. It is awesome.

Cons
It has taken a lot of work to learn and I’m still learning a lot and I’ve been using it for 7 years. You have to treat it like learning a new language and dive in to understand each facet of the software.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
The system-wide search feature, ability to change dates & descriptions of items most of the time & expiration date on recurring JEs. So far, customer support has been great for me - very friendly & helpful.

Cons
-Reporting is awful. Columns can be added but report pdf process does not auto-adjust size to page, which means converting to Excel to adjust. There are reports that do not have totals so have to convert those, too.-The financial reports were inadequate, so had to "upgrade" Excel to use Connect Tool just to make the reports look like the ones in the old software.-Rent Roll does not show correct occupancy rate (based upon SF not units, obviously).-Tenants cannot choose what to pay via online portal which causes time-consuming reapps.-The Smart Scan feature disregards recurring invoices, which are at least 60% of invoices paid.-Credits are auto-applied so have to unapply those to provide tenants a stmt that shows the credit, which should be a setting option NOT default.-Modified Cash Basis is not an acctg method choice. -We were not allowed to choose how to set-up cash accounts & must have AF's assistance when transferring banks.-Basic fields are not programmed into the tenant's page. There should be a lease abstract form for comm tenants. We should have option to choose what type of tenant to pull up apropos fields (res, comm, ind, etc.) &/or choose fields to add to the tenant's page.-Items rvsd from tenant's account disappear. We should have option to show rvsd items, as with the GL. Instead, items have to be manually credited & limited to one credit per g/l code per date. So much time wasted w/all the credits required for hurricane dest, esp since AF auto-applies credits.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 1/10

Pros
Appfolio has not only a lot of functionality, but is easy to use across our entire organization. It has become the primary backbone of our property management business and we truly view Appfolio as a Partner, not a technology service provider.

Cons
Our primary critique with Appfolio is that they tend not to let other good real estate tech products plug into their software via API. In other words, they like to build new products/functions in-house instead of via partnership or integration. There are pros and cons, but in general I would like to see Appfolio play nicer with other prop tech products.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10