Finance & compliance
Flat-Rate Self-Managed HOA Desk
Flat per-association dues, violations, documents and owner portal for self-managed HOAs, with dues processing passed through on the community's own processor instead of per-unit…
In plain English
- What category is this?
- Companies buy to handle money and rules — payments, accounting, tax, audits. Here the focus is vertical SaaS.
- The idea, briefly
Build one flat per-association price covering unlimited units, owners, admins, documents and violations, with dues processing passed through on the community's own processor instead of a marked-up per-transaction take, aimed at self-managed small associations. Explicit caveat: RunHOA already sells a flat $399/year plan with unlimited units and users, so flat-per-account pricing is not novel; only the pass-through payment model and a published self-serve price (versus Condo Control's quote-only motion) are potentially differentiated, and both are copyable.
More ▾- What buyers expect
People comparing tools like PayHOA, RunHOA, Condo Control expect the basics to work without surprise fees or missing pieces. The loud complaints are: Payments are metered on top of the software; and self-managed pricing is opaque.
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- Sources
- 5
- Checked
- 5
- Competitors
- 4
- Gaps
- 4
- Page checked
- 5 · 100%
- Snippet only
- 0 · 0%
- Documented
- 7 · 64%
- Interpreted
- 4 · 36%
- pricing4
- market1
Competitors
4Parsed from public pricing blurbs (entry paid tier when available). Max in set: $49/mo.
| Competitor | From | Free tier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| PayHOA | $49/mo | Yes | payhoa.com✓ |
| RunHOA | Free | Yes | runhoa.com✓ |
| Condo Control | See notes | — | condocontrol.com✓ |
| HOA Express | Unverified | Yes | hoaexpress.com✓ |
What customers complain about
4| Gap | Src |
|---|---|
Payments are metered on top of the software. | |
Self-managed pricing is opaque. | |
The flat per-association position is already occupied. | |
Per-unit software pricing scales with size while small communities get few features; whether volunteer boards resent per-unit billing and hidden transaction fees is interpreted, |
Documented Interpreted
How competitors find customers
3| Tactic | Src |
|---|---|
| PayHOA: self-serve 30-day no-card trial plus a named onboarding specialist who imports units, owners and starting balances. | payhoa.com✓ |
| RunHOA: a 30-day free trial with no credit card and a single flat all-features annual plan as the entire offer. | runhoa.com✓ |
| HOA Express: lead with review-volume social proof hosted on its own site (Trustpilot, Capterra, Facebook ratings) and a free start. | hoaexpress.com✓ |
Your angle & pricing wedge
| Piece | Claim | Src |
|---|---|---|
| Angle | One flat per-association price covering unlimited units, owners, admins, documents and violations, | |
| Wedge | Mechanism: bill the association one flat annual fee and let it keep its own payment processor, |
How others got traction
3| Move | Why | Src |
|---|---|---|
| PayHOA bundles unlimited homeowners, admins, storage and messaging into every per-unit tier and pai… | Documented on the opened pricing page and FAQ: tiers are priced on unit bands with 'Unlimited' homeowners, administrators, | payhoa.com✓ |
| RunHOA sells a single flat $399/year plan with all features and explicitly 'Unlimited Units and Use… | Documented on the opened pricing page. a fixed annual price removes per-unit price anxiety for small self-managed boards; | runhoa.com✓ |
| Condo Control routes self-managed buyers away from published prices toward 'Custom quote' and a dem… | Documented on the opened pricing page, which shows 'Custom quote' for the self-managed tab and a 'Book a demo' call to action. | condocontrol.com✓ |
Market heat
PayHOA's opened pricing page sells tiered per-unit plans (about $49-$275/mo by unit band, and $0.55/unit/mo at 500+ units) and reports that 'thousands of communities trust PayHOA with their most important information' (company-reported).
More ▾RunHOA's opened pricing page advertises a single flat $399/year plan for all features with 'Unlimited Units and Users' (company-reported).
Condo Control's opened pricing page reports that 'Over 3.5 million residents use Condo Control to power their communities' (company-reported).
HOA Express's opened page reports 'Trusted by thousands of communities in 20+ countries across the globe' and '1,000+ ratings last 6 mo' (company-reported).
An opened Hacker News search surfaced an Ask HN describing over $3B allocated to buying services businesses and applying AI, and stating 'Long Lake reached $100M EBITDA in under two years in HOA management' - a market/roll-up signal about HOA management services, not direct HOA-software buyer demand.
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Revenue signals
5| Signal | Src |
|---|---|
PayHOA list pricing documented on its opened page: $54/mo (0-25 units; $49/mo yearly) rising to $275/mo (401-500 units; | payhoa.com✓ |
RunHOA list pricing documented: a single $399/year plan with unlimited units and users and a 30-day free trial (company-reported). | runhoa.com✓ |
Condo Control reports over 3.5 million residents on its opened pricing page and publishes only 'Custom quote' for self-managed associations (company-reported, | condocontrol.com✓ |
HOA Express reports 'thousands of communities in 20+ countries' and '1,000+ ratings last 6 mo' on its opened page (company-reported, not audited). | hoaexpress.com✓ |
Category list pricing spans $0 (free trials/free start) to $275/mo per association (PayHOA) and flat $399/year (RunHOA); | payhoa.com✓ |
Should you build this?
I could not verify direct board-level demand: the only demand search I opened (HN Algolia for 'HOA software') returned off-topic stories, and the PayHOA Reddit comment search was truncated and never parsed, so no buyer complaint is cited.
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All sources
5| Source | Kind | Status | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-10-05 |