Choosing a tool
Most small owners are not choosing between maintenance products, they are choosing between a full back office platform, an all in one leasing suite, and a tool that only handles the repair.
A landlord with nine units and a day job has a narrow problem. A tenant texts a photo of a stain on the ceiling at 9pm, you forward it to a plumber, the plumber goes out Thursday, and four months later nobody can say what date the report came in or what the invoice covered. That is the gap LeakTicket fills: one reporting link per unit, photos required at intake, a dispatch you can send to any vendor, and a dated repair history that stays attached to the unit long after the tenant moves out.
The products below are all real and all worth a look, but they were built for different operators. One assumes you keep a general ledger and issue owner statements. One assumes your main event is filling a vacancy. One assumes you employ maintenance coordinators. Read each comparison as a fit question about how you run your buildings, not as a scorecard. If you already have accounting you like and only want the repair side to stop living in your text messages, LeakTicket costs $19 a month under 10 units, $49 on Portfolio and $119 on Manager.
LeakTicket vs Buildium
Buildium is for operators who want leasing, accounting and owner reporting in one system, while LeakTicket is for the owner who already handles the money and just needs maintenance to stop living in text messages.
LeakTicket vs TurboTenant
TurboTenant suits the landlord whose recurring work is filling vacancies and signing new tenants, while LeakTicket suits the landlord whose recurring work is the water heater, the no heat call and the deposit argument at move out.
LeakTicket vs Property Meld
Property Meld is aimed at management companies whose maintenance work is a staffed department, while LeakTicket is aimed at the owner who is the entire department.
Free tools
Two numbers decide whether your maintenance operation is healthy: what it costs per door and what it costs you in hours.
Working document
One page per work order that captures the four dates and the two photos a deposit case, a code file or an insurance question will ask you for.
Rows in a table cannot tell you how a tenant behaves with a reporting link taped inside a kitchen cabinet door. Book twenty minutes and we will set up one of your addresses, send the link to a phone and file the ticket while you watch. Bring the shortlist and whatever your bookkeeper has said about leaving the accounting where it already runs.