Property managers use property management software to optimize and automate important tasks they conduct daily. There are several property management solutions in the market, which can make it tough to determine the best solution for your business.

This guide will help you choose between Buildium and Cozy, two of the most popular solutions currently available. We will highlight the differences, including a closer look into their unique features, and make it simpler for you to decide which tool is best for you.

Comparison Summary

Buildium and Cozy are two popular property management solutions. Both include tools to syndicate property listings, screen tenants, automatically collect payments, and manage maintenance requests.

When comparing the two solutions, it's important to focus on the specific tools offered by each vendor, and the corresponding subscription price. Here's a quick test to determine which solution is best for you:

Table of Contents

• Comparison Summary
• Buildium & Cozy Price Comparison
  • Buildium Pricing
  • Cozy Pricing
• Buildium & Cozy Feature Comparison
  • Buildium's Unique Features
  • Cozy's Unique Features
• Bottom Line

Buildium & Cozy Price Comparison

Buildium’s pricing starts at $50 per month and increases depending on which plan you purchase and the volume of units you manage. Buildium offers a 10% discount if you pay annually. Cozy is completely free to use, but offers a paid service for expedited payment processing.

Buildium Pricing Details

Buildium’s pricing depends on the volume of units you manage and the plan you choose. For simplicity’s sake, we will ignore Buildium’s most expensive enterprise-level plan best suited for those managing more than 150 units. If you manage more than 150 units, Cozy is likely not robust enough to meet your needs, and our AppFolio vs Buildium comparison guide will be more valuable to you.

Cozy Pricing Details

Cozy is a free to use solution, and fees for tenant screening and payment processing are covered by your tenants. Cozy offers Express Payouts that will accelerate payment processing time to 3 business days. However, for $2.99 per unit per month, this fee makes Cozy more expensive than Buildium as you scale. If fast payment processing is a must-have feature for you, we recommend choosing Buildium.

Buildium & Cozy Feature Comparison

Buildium and Cozy both offer a wide range of features to help property managers market and manage their portfolios. Both platforms include tools to syndicate property listings, screen tenants, automatically collect payments, and manage maintenance requests.

Although there is an overlap between the two solutions, Buildium offers a broader suite of features than Cozy. As you can see in the table below, Buildium has a variety of features including customizable applications, custom marketing websites, electronic leases, two-texting, emailing, and reporting.

For a full analysis of their features, read our Buildium and Cozy reviews.

Buildium's Unique Features

Buildium has a variety of features not found in Cozy. These features are the most important factors to determine if you should pay for Buildium, or opt for Cozy’s free plan.

Automatic Listing Syndication

Both Buildium and Cozy allows property managers to automatically syndicate their property listings to a variety of property listing websites. However, Buildium is partnered with an extensive network of websites, whereas Cozy only syndicates to two. Here are the property listing websites that these vendors are partnered with:

Two-way texting and Emailing

Both Buildium and Cozy allow property managers and tenants to communicate through their in-app messaging chat box. However, only Buildium has two-texting and emailing built into its platform. Buildium also provides customizable templates and bulk messaging.

Marketing Website

Buildium provides a marketing website where you can post all of your property listings. This is a useful marketing resource to share with your prospective tenants, and applicants can apply for listings directly in the website.

Accounting

Both Buildium and Cozy offer an accounting module to track and manage expenses. However, Buildium’s accounting module is far more robust.

Company Financials: The company financials module helps track financial metrics and offers a quick breakdown of your company cash, unpaid bills, and net income. It also summarizes the capital distribution in your different accounts.

General Ledger: Buildium’s general ledger tracks your accounts receivable & payable, revenue, and expenses, and has filtering and search capabilities to help you organize statements. All payments sent or received are automatically updated in the general ledger.

Automatic Bank Reconciliations: Buildium accelerates bank reconciliations by automatically inputting and matching banking and transaction information. This is much faster than manually pouring through statements, and lowers the chance for human error.

1099 eFilling: Buildium’s 1099 eFilling feature helps you quickly and accurately complete your taxes. With this feature, you can verify tax numbers, track recipients with missing tax information, confirm that your 1099s were sent, and track summary forms.

Reporting

Buildium’s reporting allows you to view and analyze performance metrics. Here are some of the reports you can generate in Buildium: Financial: balance sheet, cash flow statement Rental: delinquent tenants, rent roll, leases ending Association: association owner statement, recurring charges, violations Property: appliances, meter readings Transaction: bank transactions, scheduled EFTs, unpaid bills by property Compliance: bank account balance breakdown, bank reconciliation Task: open tasks, tasks performance Administrative: audit log

Cozy's Unique Features

Cozy does not offer any unique features in their platform. This is to be expected from a free-to-use solution versus a paid product. As we will discuss further in the section below, Cozy is the better choice depending on the volume of units you manage.

Bottom Line

Buildium and Cozy are both useful property management systems used by thousands of property managers to manage their residential portfolios. Both are equipped with a core set of features that optimize and automate a variety of important tasks.

Determining which solution is best for your business will likely come down to your budget and the features you desire:

Both companies offer free trials. Visit Buildium or Cozy today to get started.