TenantFort vs. Avail: Free Landlord Software or a Screening-First Platform? (2026)
Avail by Realtor.com offers free landlord software with tenant-paid TransUnion screening. TenantFort offers flat-rate AI fraud detection. Here is an honest look at pricing, features, and fit.
Two Platforms With Different Starting Points
Avail, part of Realtor.com, is landlord software first and screening second. Its free plan covers a striking amount of ground: listing syndication across major rental sites, rental applications, tenant-initiated TransUnion screening reports, state-specific leases with digital signing, online rent collection, and maintenance tracking. Screening exists inside that workflow as a set of bureau reports the applicant typically pays for.
TenantFort is screening-first. Its core product is the screening itself — AI analysis of uploaded documents for fraud, automated employer and landlord verification, configurable scoring, and a Fair Housing audit trail — with property management arriving at the Manage tier. The comparison, then, is really between a broad free toolkit with standard bureau screening and a paid platform whose screening goes materially deeper. Both positions are legitimate; they serve different landlords.
Avail Pricing (as of July 2026)
As of July 2026, Avail publishes two plans. Unlimited is $0 per unit and includes listings on top rental sites, applications and screening reports, state-specific leases with digital signing, online rent collection, maintenance tracking, and a tenant portal. Unlimited Plus is $9 per unit per month and adds FastPay faster deposits, waived ACH fees (on the free plan, tenants pay $2.50 per bank transfer), custom application questions, lease template customization and cloning, a branded property website, and priority support. Credit and debit card rent payments carry a 3.5% processing fee on both plans.
Screening on Avail is tenant-initiated through TransUnion and covers credit, criminal history, and eviction reports. Avail states the cost of screening reports can be covered by the tenant — the most common arrangement — or the landlord. Avail publishes its current report fees on its pricing page, and those fees can vary by location and report bundle, so check the live numbers rather than relying on third-party summaries.
TenantFort Pricing
TenantFort's plans are flat monthly rates rather than per-unit: Screen at $99 per month with 20 screenings included ($5 each after), Manage at $349 per month with 60 included ($4 after) plus rent collection, lease generation with e-signatures, state-specific templates, maintenance workflows, and a tenant portal, and Enterprise from $799 per month with 150 included ($3 after) plus API access and integrations. Screening fees can be absorbed or passed to applicants, depending on your preference and local law.
A TenantFort screening is a different object from a bureau report: AI vision review of every uploaded document for tampering and fabrication, font and math and metadata analysis, a sex offender registry check from free public records, web cross-referencing, automated employer and landlord verification, criteria-based scoring with plain-language explanations, and a PDF report. Credit, criminal, and eviction reports are not included — if your criteria require them, you bring your own on finalists.
Where Avail Wins
For a landlord with one to five units, Avail's value is honestly difficult to argue with. The free plan covers listing, applying, screening, leasing, and collecting rent — the entire lifecycle — at zero subscription cost, with screening fees most commonly paid by applicants. Even Unlimited Plus at $9 per unit is $18 a month for a duplex. If your priority is running a small rental at minimal cost with everything in one place, Avail is a strong default, and the Realtor.com listing network is a real distribution advantage.
Avail's per-unit pricing also scales down gracefully in a way flat subscriptions cannot. TenantFort Screen at $99 per month only makes sense if you are actually screening; a landlord with a long-term tenant and no turnover has nothing to screen. Avail costs that landlord nothing while still handling rent collection and maintenance requests.
Where TenantFort Wins
Screening depth is the core difference. Avail's published screening consists of TransUnion credit, criminal, and eviction reports — valuable history, but document fraud analysis is not among its listed screening features as of July 2026. A fake pay stub attached to an application passes untouched through a bureau-report workflow because bureaus report credit behavior, not document authenticity. TenantFort's entire screening layer exists for that gap: forensic document analysis, independent employer and landlord verification, and consistent scoring with an audit trail.
Pricing crosses over at scale. Unlimited Plus at $9 per unit reaches $351 per month at 39 units — above TenantFort Manage's flat $349, which includes 60 screenings plus rent collection, leases, and maintenance tools. Below roughly that size, Avail is cheaper on subscription cost; the question is whether standard bureau reports are enough screening for your applicant pool, or whether fraud detection and workflow consistency justify paying for the screening layer itself.
The Fraud Problem Bureau Reports Do Not Solve
Industry data consistently shows fraudulent documents in a meaningful share of rental applications, and the tooling keeps getting cheaper — pay stub generators, statement editors, and AI-generated documents are a search away. The dangerous applicant is not the one with visible collections; it is the one whose credit file is genuine but whose income is invented. That applicant clears a credit, criminal, and eviction check cleanly and stops paying rent three months in.
This is not a criticism unique to Avail — it applies to every screening workflow built purely on bureau data, including SmartMove and RentPrep's base packages. It simply defines what each tool is for. If your market sees competitive applications and high rent-to-income pressure, a document verification layer stops being optional. TenantFort analyzes every uploaded document by default on every screening rather than as an upsell.
FCRA Notes for Both Platforms
Avail's TransUnion reports are consumer reports, so the FCRA applies in full: you need a permissible purpose (an actual rental transaction), the applicant's authorization — Avail's tenant-initiated flow handles consent and identity verification cleanly — and, if the report contributes to a denial or less favorable terms, the two-step adverse action process with a pre-adverse notice, a waiting period, and a final notice naming the agency.
Whichever platform you use, your strongest compliance asset is written criteria applied identically to every applicant. TenantFort bakes that in with its configurable scoring engine and Fair Housing audit trail; on Avail, you should maintain and document your criteria yourself. Denials based solely on first-party verification findings, with no consumer report involved, fall outside the FCRA notice requirement — but consistency obligations under Fair Housing law apply everywhere, always.
How to Decide (and Why Some Landlords Use Both)
Choose Avail if you have one to ten units, want the full landlord lifecycle handled for free or nearly free, and are comfortable with standard bureau reports as your screening depth. Choose TenantFort if screening quality is your bottleneck — steady application volume, fraud-prone documents, or a need for defensible, consistent scoring — and step up to Manage when you want screening and management under one roof at 50 or more units.
There is also a practical middle path: keep Avail's free plan for listings, leases, and rent collection, and run applicants through TenantFort for the fraud and verification layer before pulling any bureau report on your finalist. The two products do not conflict; they cover different failure modes.
See What Your Applications Look Like Under a Fraud Lens
If you have never run real applications through document-fraud analysis, the results are clarifying either way. TenantFort's 14-day free trial includes 5 free screenings — $0 due today, cancel anytime before the trial ends — enough to screen a live applicant pool next to your current Avail workflow and see whether anything surfaces that a bureau report would have missed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Avail really free for landlords?
Yes — as of July 2026, Avail's Unlimited plan is $0 per unit and includes listings, applications, screening reports, state-specific leases with digital signing, rent collection, and maintenance tracking. The model is sustained by tenant-paid screening fees, a $2.50 tenant-paid ACH fee on the free plan, card processing fees, and the $9 per unit per month Unlimited Plus upgrade.
Who pays for tenant screening on Avail?
Avail states the cost of screening reports can be covered by the tenant — the most common arrangement — or by the landlord. Reports are tenant-initiated through TransUnion. Current report fees are published on Avail's pricing page, and some jurisdictions restrict passing screening costs to applicants, so check your local rules.
Does Avail check for fake pay stubs or altered bank statements?
Avail's published screening consists of TransUnion credit, criminal history, and eviction reports as of July 2026; document fraud analysis is not among its listed screening features. Bureau reports verify credit and court history, not the authenticity of documents an applicant hands you. Landlords concerned about fabricated pay stubs typically add a document verification layer such as TenantFort.
When does TenantFort cost less than Avail?
On pure subscription math, Avail is cheaper for small portfolios — its free plan costs nothing and Unlimited Plus at $9 per unit stays under TenantFort Manage's $349 flat rate until about 39 units. TenantFort's case is about screening value rather than being the cheaper subscription: 20 screenings for $99 with fraud detection included, versus paying per bureau report or accepting screening without document analysis.
Can I use Avail and TenantFort together?
Yes, and some landlords do exactly that: Avail's free plan for listing syndication, leases, and rent collection, with TenantFort handling the screening layer — document fraud analysis, employer and landlord verification, and consistent scoring — before any bureau report is pulled on a finalist. They address different failure modes and do not conflict.