How much does AppFolio cost for a small property management company?

AppFolio’s pricing cards say get a quote. The same page’s product data, read 2026-10-09, lists Residential Core at $1.49 per unit per month with a 50-unit minimum, Plus at $3.20, and Max at $5.00. The minimum spend and onboarding sit on the quote, not on those cards.

This is for a small property-management office of about 50 to 300 doors, often still calling the entry plan Basic, that wants a number before the demo.

What the pricing page shows

AppFolio’s pricing page, read 2026-10-09, lists three Property Manager plans: Core, Plus and Max. Each card ends in Get a Quote. Core’s footnote is “Minimum spend and 50 unit minimum apply. Contact us for details.” Plus and Max say “Minimum spend and units apply. Contact us for details.” There is no dollar figure on those cards.

The same page embeds product data that the cards do not display. That data, read 2026-10-09, is the source of the per-unit figures.

	Core (offices call this Basic)	Plus	Max
On the card	Get a Quote. 50-unit minimum and a minimum spend	Get a Quote. Minimum spend and units apply	Get a Quote. Minimum spend and units apply
In the page’s product data	$1.49 per unit/month, 50 units minimum	$3.20 per unit/month	$5.00 per unit/month
AppFolio API	No	Yes, read only	Yes, read/write
Property accounting and reports	Yes	Yes	Yes
Owner statements and owner portal	Yes	Yes	Yes

The same product data lists Community Associations at $0.85 per unit per month. That is a different product line.

AppFolio does not publish the minimum spend or onboarding. Those numbers are on the quote. Multiplying 50 units by $1.49 is not the monthly bill.

What you pay for on each plan

Core is the entry plan, the one offices still call Basic. AppFolio’s pricing, read 2026-10-09, does not list a plan named Basic. Core includes property accounting and reports, standard Stack integrations and standard support. Owner ledgers, owner statements and the trust rec live here. You still export reports and close the month. A connector that needs an API key has nothing to attach to.

Does AppFolio Basic have an API? is the plan question. Plus is the floor for a read-only API and adds advanced budgeting and accounting. Max is the floor for write access and dedicated customer success. AppFolio does not publish what those upgrades cost.

AppFolio wins the in-app books. On its own ledgers, the rec works. How to do bookkeeping for a small property management company is that monthly cycle. If the CPA still wants QuickBooks, how to export AppFolio data to QuickBooks is the packet. Core can download those files without an API key.

What the per-unit figure leaves out

The product-data rate is one line. Last month’s invoice is several.

Line	On the pricing cards, 2026-10-09	Where the dollar is
Per-unit rate	Hidden. In product data: Core $1.49, Plus $3.20, Max $5.00	Product data, then the quote
Minimum spend	Named. Amount not printed	The quote
50-unit gate	Named on Core	The quote. Under 50, offices on r/PropertyManagement write they were refused or told to add vacant dummy units and still pay for 50
Onboarding	Not listed	The quote
Tenant payment fees	Not printed	The quote. Forum posts since 2023 describe an eCheck fee tenants see. Treat those amounts as unverified
Add-ons	Off the three cards	Screening, leasing assistants, sites and Stack apps. Get them as quote line items
API upgrade	Plus read only, Max read/write	A second quote. Core has no API line

How Buildium and Rentvine publish a number

These figures are from each vendor’s own pricing page, read 2026-10-09. They are not a ranked list. They do not replace AppFolio’s quote.

	AppFolio	Buildium	Rentvine
Public price	Cards: Get a Quote. Product data: Core $1.49, Plus $3.20, Max $5.00 per unit/month	Essential starting at $62/month, Growth starting at $192/month, Premium starting at $400/month	As low as $1.50 per unit. One plan, all features
Unit floor on the page	50 units on Core. Plus and Max: units apply, count not printed	No 50-unit minimum printed	No unit count printed. Priced per active unit
API	Plus read only. Max read/write. Core none	Open API on Premium	Open API included
Trust books and owner statements	Yes	Yes	Yes
Onboarding	Not published. On the quote	Not a dollar on the cards	One-time setup fee. Amount not published. Quote via demo

AppFolio wins the books for an office already on it. It also wins the 50-to-300-door shop that wants one system of record for owners, tenants and the trust rec. Buildium wins a published monthly starting price. Rentvine wins one plan with every feature, including the API, at a printed as-low-as rate.

A 70-door office on r/USPropertyManagement asking about leaving Buildium for AppFolio was told the minimums can make that jump overkill. Price both quotes on the same unit count.

When the quote is worth it, and when to wait

Office	Request Core?	Why
50-plus doors, books already close in AppFolio	Yes	You are paying for the system of record you already run
Need owner statements and the trust rec in one place	Yes	AppFolio wins those jobs on Core
CPA wants a QuickBooks packet, not a live sync	Usually	Core still exports. The API is a different purchase
Under 50 doors, or the demo will not quote Core	Wait	The 50-unit gate is on the card. Dummy units still bill as 50
Buying Plus only because a vendor asked for a Client ID	Get the Plus quote first	The connector is useless on Core, and the upgrade is unpublished
The only gap is QuickBooks	Stay on Core and export	AppFolio has no native QuickBooks button. A read-only API still does not post into QuickBooks

Wait for the quote when the only figure in the budget is $1.49, $3.20 or $5.00 times doors. The minimum spend is unpublished. The quote can be higher.

Four ways offices actually get a number

1. Request the Core quote and stay there

Right answer when the doors already live in AppFolio, or you clear 50 units and want the in-app rec. Ask for Core, the unit count you actually run, the minimum spend, onboarding, and what tenants pay to eCheck. Close the month in AppFolio. Email the CPA the exports if they need a packet.

2. Request Plus because you need the API

Plus is the first plan that lists an API, and it is read-only. A tool can pull records. It cannot write bills or owner draws back. AppFolio does not publish the step-up. Get that quote before you sign a connector.

3. Price Buildium or Rentvine if the 50-unit gate is the problem

Buildium prints starting-at prices. Rentvine prints as low as $1.50 per unit with all features, including the API, and a one-time setup fee on the demo. Both still win trust accounting and owner statements on their own books.

4. Keep AppFolio as the books, and close QuickBooks from the exports

Stay on Core. Run the general ledger, owner ledgers and deposit reports as of the statement date. Post a summary journal, or hand the files over. Some offices hire that month-end out. We make Propfina, which does this, so weigh that suggestion accordingly. Ask whether a tool writes back to AppFolio (it should not), whether QuickBooks posting can be undone, and whether it still works when the plan has no API.

How to tell this week

You have a real AppFolio number when the quote lists the plan name, the unit count, the monthly amount after the minimum spend, and onboarding as its own line.

Pull last month’s AppFolio invoice if you already subscribe, the quote if you do not, plus the general ledger, the owner-ledger export and the trust-account bank statement. Start with those files. They already show what you pay for and what still happens by hand.