Twelve HOA software options, priced for a board like ours

Our HOA is a self-managed townhome community in Milton, Georgia, and I chair its maintenance committee. Before we built neighborPOP we ran on three tools that did not talk to each other (here is what that cost us), so I have read a lot of pricing pages.

Search for self-managed HOA software and nearly every result is a list written by one of the vendors on it. Most give the price for 25 homes and stop, and none of the ones we read say what homeowners pay to pay their dues online. This page gives both, for every product a small board is likely to look at. One thing to know first: neighborPOP is ours. Every price below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked on October 6, 2026, and where we are the worse buy, we say so.

What a self-managed board needs from software

Five jobs, roughly in the order they cause trouble:

• Collecting dues online and by check, with a record of who has paid.
• Repairs: a neighbor reports something, the board decides, a vendor fixes it, and the whole story can be found two years later.
• Reaching everyone by email, in inboxes rather than spam folders.
• Records that stay with the association when board members change.
• The books: a general ledger, bank reconciliation and year-end reports, unless a bookkeeper already does them.

No product on this list is the best at all five. The useful question is which two or three your board struggles with now.

What each one costs at 50 and 150 homes

Prices are per month, billed monthly. Most of these take 10 to 14 percent off for paying a year ahead; ours is 12 months for the price of 10, or $790 a year. The first 25 communities on neighborPOP pay $59 a month for as long as they stay. Two more products price only on request: HOA Start, which prices by the number of homes and says it has no long-term contract, and Smartwebs, which quotes after a demo.

What homeowners pay to pay online

This is the number most comparisons leave out, and it lands on your neighbors. Here is the processing fee on a $300 dues bill, from each vendor's published rates:

Ours is 0.8% by bank transfer, rounded up to the dollar and never more than $5, which is $3 on $300; by card it is 2.9% plus 30 cents, plus a little more so the fee does not come out of the dues, which is $9.27 on $300. PayHOA charges a flat $2.45 by bank and 3.5% plus 50 cents by card. HavenHOA charges 0.85% by bank, with a $2 minimum and a $5.50 maximum, and 3.5% plus 50 cents by card. On a $300 bill, PayHOA's bank fee is lower than ours. On a bill of $248 or less, ours is $2 or less, and lower than theirs.

PayHOA and HavenHOA let the association decide who pays the fee. On neighborPOP the homeowner who pays online covers it, and the association banks the full dues. EasyHOA, ManageCasa, HOA Express and TownSq do not publish their payment fees on their pricing pages.

Who each one is for

PayHOA is the accounting choice. It keeps double-entry books with bank reconciliation, mails letters for $1.25 and vendor checks for $2, sells bookkeeping from $199 a month, and sends email, texts and automated phone calls. Repairs come in through request forms. Under 25 homes it costs $54 a month, less than we do. If the treasurer's job is the hard one on your board, start here. We ran a full trial and wrote up how it compares with neighborPOP.

EasyHOA sells one plan per size band, from $49 a month up to 25 homes to $99 at 101 to 150, and lists a website, an accounting module, email and text, violation tracking, voting and a phone system as included, with no add-ons. For a board that wants one bill at a known price, it is worth a look. We have looked through its demo account, not run a community on it.

ManageCasa covers HOAs and rental properties in one product. Its Base plan is $45 a month up to 25 homes when billed yearly, and lists online dues, owner and board portals, violations, architectural review and maintenance. Bookkeeping is an add-on from $175 a month. Its own list of the best self-managed HOA software ranked first when we searched; read that list knowing who wrote it, the same way you should read this one.

HOA Express is built around the community website, and it has the lowest prices here, plus a free plan that shows ads. Its Engage plan adds email and text announcements, online payments, forms and surveys, at $29 a month for 50 homes billed yearly. Its plans list no work orders, violations or accounting.

HavenHOA charges by the home: 55 cents a month each, with a $39 minimum. That includes online dues and autopay, double-entry books with QuickBooks Online sync and bank reconciliation, and digital elections, with no contract.

TownSq sells to management companies and the boards they serve. Pro is $90 a month up to 300 homes, with announcements, a website, requests and task assignments. Architectural review needs the $145 Advanced plan or a $20 a month add-on, violation tracking is $20 a month, and digital voting is $250 a vote. You start by booking a demo. Our TownSq comparison goes further.

HOALife starts at $199 a month, sets the final price on a 30-minute demo, and says it serves communities from 100 homes up. It is not built for a small board.

Buildium is property management software for companies that manage rentals and associations for a living. It starts at $62 a month and charges $2.35 for each incoming bank payment. It does more than a volunteer board needs, and less of it is aimed at one.

Wild Apricot is membership software for clubs and nonprofits, $66 a month for up to 100 contacts. Our HOA used it for years for the directory and email, and it has nothing for repairs. Here is our guide to leaving it.

neighborPOP, ours, is built for repairs and communication. A neighbor reports a problem by email or a form, the board approves the spending from an email link, the vendor marks the job done from a link, and the cost lands in the budget. It also collects dues and special assessments, keeps the directory, handles violations, architectural requests and polls, and plans reserves. It does not keep double-entry books, mail letters or run formal elections. At 50 homes, five products on this list cost less than we do. At 150 homes, only HOA Express does.

Three questions that decide it

1. Which job hurts? If it is the books, buy for accounting: PayHOA, HavenHOA or EasyHOA. If it is repairs nobody followed up on and neighbors who never heard back, buy for operations. More on that split.
2. Who will open it on a Tuesday? A volunteer who logs in twice a month needs software that explains itself. Take the free trial and have your least technical board member try it alone.
3. How do you leave? Ask what exports, in what format, before you sign. Month to month beats a year that renews itself.

How we checked

Every price and fee here comes from the vendor's own pricing page on October 6, 2026, at the monthly rate unless we say otherwise. HOA Express and ManageCasa show their prices through a slider, so we read them from the price tables those sliders use. We ran a full PayHOA trial in August 2026; everything else comes from what the vendors publish, not from running a community on their software. Prices change. If one of these is out of date, email hello@neighborpop.com and we will correct it.