What Innago actually sells to small landlords
Independent landlords in the United States still collect a surprising amount of rent by paper check, Venmo, or a spreadsheet that breaks the first time a tenant is late. Innago is a cloud platform built for that group rather than for a 5,000-unit regional manager. Dave Spooner and Yasir Drabu founded the company in 2017 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The public pitch is blunt: no monthly landlord fee, no setup fee, no contract, and no credit card required to open an account. Features that paid tools put behind a per-unit price — online rent, applications, screening, e-signature, a tenant portal, maintenance tickets, and basic income and expense tracking — sit in the same free login. That is only free for the owner. Tenants still see transaction and screening charges unless the landlord absorbs them.
The software is US-only and available in all fifty states. Property types on the official FAQ go beyond a single-family rental: multifamily, commercial, student housing, self-storage, marinas, mobile homes, parking, and mixed portfolios. That breadth is useful if you collect recurring occupancy payments. It is not a claim that Innago replaces a full commercial real-estate accounting stack. You can add properties, invite tenants, and start collecting in the same afternoon if banking verification cooperates. One-on-one onboarding demos are offered on request. Support is weekday Eastern time by phone, email, and live chat, with a help center for self-serve articles. A mobile app exists for both landlords and tenants on iOS and Google Play.
Rent collection, holds, and the fee toggle
Tenants can pay by ACH bank transfer, credit or debit card, or offline cash and check that you log by hand. Autopay can be switched on from the tenant portal. Innago’s own FAQ, last updated mid-2026, states ACH payments carry a 2 dollar transaction fee and cards carry a 2.99 percent fee, charged to the tenant by default. Landlords can flip a setting to absorb those fees. That toggle is the real pricing decision. Passing a 2 dollar ACH fee is cheap relative to a lost check. Passing 2.99 percent on a large rent payment is not cheap, and tenants notice. Screening reports are described as 30 to 35 dollars to the applicant by default, covering credit, criminal, and eviction history, with income verification adding 10 dollars. Listing vacancies and collecting applications is stated as free for the landlord.
Deposit timing is where free software stops feeling abstract. Innago says most payouts arrive in one to two business days, with processing Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern, excluding weekends and holidays. First-time payments, or the first use of a new funding source, are held for three business days for fraud checks. A failed payment resets that hold. Expected deposit dates show on each payment. For faster access, Innago partners with Accelerent on instant withdrawal / rent-advance style options; those are a separate product, not the default ACH rail. Some landlords still report longer waits than the FAQ’s one-to-two-day baseline. If your mortgage draft hits on the first of the month, keep a cash buffer until your own payout history is boring.
- Landlord software access with no monthly subscription, setup fee, or contract, according to Innago’s FAQ
- ACH rent at a 2 dollar tenant fee by default; cards at 2.99 percent; landlord can absorb fees
- Applicant-paid screening typically 30–35 dollars, plus 10 dollars for income verification
- Tenant portal for rent, lease view, maintenance photos, messages, and optional credit-bureau rent reporting
- E-sign leases under the ESIGN Act, plus move-out and security-deposit workflows
- US coverage only; headquarters in Cincinnati with weekday Eastern support hours
Screening, leases, maintenance, and the rest of the stack
Screening is sold as the three data points most owners actually read: credit, criminal background, and eviction history. Innago’s FAQ says reports usually come back in minutes through a third-party provider, named there as Experian in the screening section. Local law still matters. Some jurisdictions restrict how criminal or eviction records may be used, and the product lets landlords turn those components off. Digital leases can start from on-platform templates or an uploaded file, then collect legally binding e-signatures. REI Grove, Innago’s free resource hub, publishes additional templates and checklists. That is not a substitute for a state-specific attorney. Landlord-tenant statutes differ sharply, and a generic PDF will not save you in a housing court that expects local addenda.
Maintenance tickets let tenants submit photos and descriptions from the portal. Owners get notifications, can assign work, log vendor cost, and keep a history per unit. Automatic late fees can follow a grace period and a flat or percentage rule, with reminders before due, on due, and after due. Invoices cover rent, utilities, or one-off charges. Listing syndication can push vacancies to sites such as Realtor.com, Zumper, and Apartment List. Integrations include QuickBooks and Ledgre for owners who outgrow the built-in ledger. Viaffinity is the named renters-insurance partner. An API exists for custom connections. Team logins allow co-owners or a part-time manager with limited access. Tenants can opt in to report on-time rent to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
Open Innago without a credit card, add one property, and inspect fee toggles, screening, and payout timing before you invite every tenant.
Create a free Innago account →Who Innago fits, and who should pick a paid suite
Innago fits a DIY owner with one unit to a few dozen doors who wants rent, applications, and a paper trail without a per-door SaaS bill. It also fits mixed oddities — a parking pad, a storage locker, a salon chair — if the core job is invoicing an occupant. It is a weak fit if you need deep trust accounting, owner draws for a large investor group, or international properties. It is a weak fit if your tenants will revolt at any payment fee and you refuse to absorb ACH costs. It is a weak fit if you already live inside Buildium, AppFolio, or a property-manager’s stack and only wanted a cheaper rent button. Competitors such as TurboTenant and Avail occupy the same independent-landlord aisle; Innago’s distinguishing claim is that the landlord seat stays at zero dollars while the catalogue of modules stays unlocked.
Free landlord software is never free in the cash-flow sense. Innago is honest about tenant fees and payout holds; the owner still has to decide whether those mechanics are acceptable to residents and to the mortgage calendar.
— Sophie Winters
- Map every unit, even storage and parking, before inviting tenants so ledgers do not start messy
- Decide in writing whether you absorb ACH fees; surprise 2.99 percent card fees create disputes
- Require screening inside the application so you are not chasing PDFs in email
- Set late-fee rules to match the lease, including grace days required by your state
- Watch the first three payouts before you stop keeping a rent-float buffer
- Export leases and ledgers periodically; your data is portable, but only if you download it
Honest limits: accounting depth, apps, and float
Innago’s own users and third-party reviews keep repeating the same caveats. The ledger is fine for rent in and repairs out, and weaker if you need a true profit-and-loss with odd income such as coin laundry. That is why the Ledgre partnership exists. Mobile apps for any rent product collect complaints about logins and glitches; plan to keep a browser bookmark. Security claims include bank-level encryption, PCI-compliant processing via services such as Authorize.net, an SOC 2–compliant data center, and Auth0-backed multi-factor options. Those are the right labels for a payments product. They do not remove the operational risk that a first ACH sits in a three-day hold while your own bills are due. There is no minimum unit count and no cancellation fee; if you stop logging in, you have stopped using it. Export before you walk away.
FAQ: fees, payouts, and leaving Innago
Is Innago really free for landlords?
Innago’s July 2026 FAQ states there is no landlord subscription, setup cost, or contract, and that the company earns money from tenant-side payment fees and screening reports. Landlords may absorb those fees. There is still a cost if you absorb ACH or cards, and there is a relationship cost if tenants dislike the default 2 dollar ACH charge. Compare that with paid tools that bill the owner 50 to 300 dollars a month, which Innago cites as the typical competitor range. Free does not mean you skip bookkeeping, tax software, or a lawyer for your state lease.
How long until rent hits my bank?
The company says one to two business days in most cases, with a three-business-day hold on a tenant’s first payment or first use of a new bank or card, and the same hold after a failed payment. Processing does not run on weekends or US holidays. Innago shows an expected deposit date on each payment. Instant options via Accelerent are optional and separate. If a tenant pays after 5:00 p.m. Eastern, processing starts the next business day. Build your own calendar around that, not around the first-of-month folklore that digital rent is instant.
Can I use Innago outside the United States?
No. The FAQ is explicit: all fifty US states, US market only, not international. If you own a flat in another country, look at local tools. Tenants also cannot open Innago on their own to pay a landlord who is not on the platform; access starts with an owner invitation. That invitation model keeps the graph of who is a resident under the landlord’s control, and it means you cannot tell a tenant to just download Innago unless you have already added the unit and the person.
Does screening replace my judgement or my local law?
No. A credit, criminal, and eviction packet is a data input. Fair housing rules, city source-of-income ordinances, and limits on criminal-history use still apply. Innago lets you disable report modules where the law requires it. Default applicant-paid pricing does not make a screening policy legal. Income verification is an add-on, not a substitute for checking that the numbers match paystubs you actually requested. Keep your written criteria identical for every applicant, store the reports with the application, and ask a local attorney if your city has extra rules on how those records may be used.
What happens to my documents if I leave?
Innago says your data belongs to you and that you can export records before closing an account. Download executed leases, payment history, and financial reports on a schedule, not on the day you are angry at a payout delay. E-signed files should live in your own drive as well as in the portal. If you add team users, decide who can export. There is no lock-in contract, which is a feature, and also a reason to keep offline copies so a forgotten password does not become a missing lease.
Walk through rent settings, screening, and the tenant portal on Innago before you move live payments off checks or another platform.
Compare Innago workflows →A practical verdict for independent owners
Innago is a serious option for US do-it-yourself landlords who want professional-looking rent collection and files without a monthly SaaS bill. The trade is transparent: tenants (or you) pay for rails and screening, first payouts can sit in a fraud hold, and accounting will not match a dedicated real-estate general ledger. If that trade is acceptable, the unlocked feature set — portal, e-sign, maintenance, listings, late fees — is the reason to try it on one property before migrating the whole portfolio. If you need same-day cash without fail, or you operate outside the United States, this is the wrong product regardless of the zero subscription.
