AppFolio Property Manager Reviews (2024)

User Reviews Overview

About AppFolio Property Manager

Run your entire portfolio on one powerful platform. AppFolio’s intuitive and user-friendly experience gives your property management team the tools they need to provide excellent service to residents and owners. Whether you...

Learn more

Feature ratings

Value for Money

4.3

Features

4.3

Ease of Use

4.5

Customer Support

4.3

All AppFolio Property Manager ReviewsApply filters

Filter by:

Product Rating

  • (1275)
  • (437)
  • (109)
  • (39)
  • (33)

Company Size

  • Self Employed(62)
  • 2–10(856)
  • 11–50(589)
  • 51–200(164)
  • 201–500(33)
  • 501–1,000(12)
  • 1,001–5,000(13)
  • 5,001–10,000(2)
  • 10,000+(12)

Length of Use

  • Free Trial(6)
  • 1-5 months(177)
  • 6-12 months(202)
  • 1+ year(341)
  • 2+ years(1097)

Frequency of use

  • Daily(1582)
  • Weekly(43)
  • Monthly(60)
  • Other(85)

Industry

  • Real Estate(1394)
  • Commercial Real Estate(210)
  • Construction(35)
  • Accounting(32)
  • Management Consulting(17)
  • Retail(10)
  • Hospitality(9)
  • Nonprofit Organisation Management(8)
  • Consumer Services(7)
  • Investment Management(5)

Sort by:

1,893 reviews

Browse AppFolio Property Manager Reviews

1,893 of 1,893 reviews

All AppFolio Property Manager ReviewsApply filters

Filter by:

Product Rating

  • (1275)
  • (437)
  • (109)
  • (39)
  • (33)

Company Size

  • Self Employed(62)
  • 2–10(856)
  • 11–50(589)
  • 51–200(164)
  • 201–500(33)
  • 501–1,000(12)
  • 1,001–5,000(13)
  • 5,001–10,000(2)
  • 10,000+(12)

Length of Use

  • Free Trial(6)
  • 1-5 months(177)
  • 6-12 months(202)
  • 1+ year(341)
  • 2+ years(1097)

Frequency of use

  • Daily(1582)
  • Weekly(43)
  • Monthly(60)
  • Other(85)

Industry

  • Real Estate(1394)
  • Commercial Real Estate(210)
  • Construction(35)
  • Accounting(32)
  • Management Consulting(17)
  • Retail(10)
  • Hospitality(9)
  • Nonprofit Organisation Management(8)
  • Consumer Services(7)
  • Investment Management(5)

1,893 reviews

Sort by:

AppFolio Property Manager Reviews (1)

Benjamin

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

4

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 5/11/2020

Well-Rounded & Reliable

Appfolio has world class customer service with extremely quick response time. Implementing the software was as easy as it could have been. It still takes time and effort, but it is certainly worth it to be on such a streamlined software.

Pros

I love the ability to track collections, maintenance orders, and Tenant info/documents from my smartphone. This software gives me the option to have any staff work remote as needed and still do our jobs at 100% capacity.

Cons

Appfolio does a nice job at continuing to develop better features. One area that needs improvements is the ability to do inspections. It takes forever for photos to upload while at the property and uses a ton of data. Would be nice to be able to have the inspections saved locally to the phone and then upload all at once while on WiFi. This would speed up inspections drastically. Improving inspection templates is also needed.

Alternatives Considered

Propertyware

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

We used a bunch of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Data was easily messed up, and it offered no mobile features. It wasn’t specifically designed for real estate.

Switched From

Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

Appfolio had a sleek look and better support being offered.

Response fromAppFolio

Hi Benjamin, thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback!

Replied 21/4/2021

Mike

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 30/10/2023

AppFolio is the Apple of Prop Management Software

In general this is the best property management software on the market if you have a portfolio of 100 to about 1500 homes. Any smaller than that there might be simpler solutions that you could use in any larger than that you might need some customization that could be a little bit tricky to do an app folio. Before that midsize property manager this is the perfect product to really streamline your systems and give your residence and owners a great experience.

Pros

AppFolio simply works. Or should I say that it works simply. Whenever you're purchasing software the folks that are in charge of selling it will always tell you all the things that it can do. If I lined up at folio side by side next to various other property management software that I've used they all would check the boxes of doing all the things that you need them to do. However from using many of the different providers and have folio I can tell you that when our team turned on that folio it was far less training because everything just simply made sense. The screens look nice the reports made sense the dashboards made sense the flows were simple and easy to understand. It's very difficult to understand this type of nuance when buying software so I can only tell you that our experience was extremely smooth and running this especially when compared to using the competitors that we had done previously.

Cons

Personally I find some of the accounting functionality to be a little bit challenging but that could be simply a part of me not being an accountant.

Alternatives Considered

Buildium

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

Hopefully it was simply the best option for the amount of homes that we had.

Switched From

Buildium

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

We use building them and it is a simple product that might work well if you have less than 100 homes but as you start to advance beyond that the flows and systems are simply not disadvanced is that folio and it's simply not as easy to use.

Obaid

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Monthly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Value for Money

N/A

Features

3

Ease of Use

2

Customer Support

3

3

Reviewed on 6/6/2024

I have seen better

Pros

I have used Appfolio in my previous employment and I was not very impressed. Using numerous other property management software, this was my lease favorite. It doesn't offer a lot of resources like Entrata does. I understand smaller companies tend to use Appfolio, and I believe it is due to cost.

Cons

prospect management, moving residents in, accounting, etc.

Top AppFolio Property Manager Alternatives

QuickBooks Enterprise

4.5(20236 Reviews)

Compare

ONEsite

4.3(25 Reviews)

Compare

QuickBooks Payroll

4.5(855 Reviews)

Compare

Yard Management Solutions

4.5(6 Reviews)

Compare

View all alternatives

AppFolio Property Manager Reviews (6)

Drew

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 20/12/2019

Amazing Property Manager for Small-to-Medium Companies

The biggest issue my company had was advertising vacancies. We were relying on walk-in tenants, which has not been a good source for 5-10 years. AppFolio is one-click to post to multiple free websites and syncs with Apartments.com if your company goes that route. Ease of use and great training/help files will keep us with them for years to come.

Pros

First and foremost, the value of the product. You get everything you need for cheaper than most of the other products out there. For my company, we transitioned from Buildium to AppFolio and instantly reaped the rewards. AppFolio provided us with an inexpensive company website, a quick and easy tool to post our vacancies to multiple websites, and great assistance during set-up.

Cons

I know some of the more expensive options offer more competitive pricing tools and a little more automation. Also, AppFolio had a few issues (like maintenance personnel not being able to see pictures on work orders using their mobile devices) that took AppFolio a while to start addressing.

Alternatives Considered

Yardi Voyager

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

Cost was a factor, but mostly not having good advertising with Buildium.

Switched From

Buildium

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

Cost vs. benefits. We are a medium size company (750 multifamily/single-family units) and did not need as many bells and whistles.

Response fromAppFolio

Dear Drew, thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review. We're happy that your transition to AppFolio was a good one and that you are already reaping the benefit!

Replied 30/12/2019

Toi

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

N/A

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

3

5

Reviewed on 6/2/2024

It’s Effective and Efficient

I love it! I prefer it over Yardi! It can be used as an accounting program, property mgr program, marketing program, affordable housing certification/ recertification. Communication with residents and leads.

Pros

Being able to market specific units by adding videos/ photos and an auto generated marketing description based on tags added to each individual unit based on its own unique floorplan

Cons

Sometimes different financial reports do not speak to each other so one report can be misleading from the other

Jim

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

3

Features

3

Ease of Use

3

Customer Support

1

3

Reviewed on 22/2/2024

Appfolio. Not A good Fit for Single Family

The lack of focus on single family managers and the poor customer service has become a problem. The only reason we have not moved on is the hassle of moving to a new system.

Pros

The database search function. The ability to search all categories whether they be owners, tenants, vendors, work orders, etc via the database search.

Cons

1) No focus on single family managers. New features seem to always be geared toward multi family.
2) Very poor to no customer service. Our business moves very quickly and when we have a problem we need answers quickly. There is never anyone to speak with directly at the company. They seem very proud of their bots and databases but that is no substitute for live customer service.

Leif

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Value for Money

3

Features

3

Ease of Use

1

Customer Support

4

4

Reviewed on 31/1/2024

Need to take a course to use the program

In general, a manual would be helpful, or a FAQ sheet. Wonderful customer support and help with any errors and questions, but it still took a long time to get used to all the information. In the end, the [sensitive content hidden]sold the property.

Pros

The financial part was amazing if you put the numbers in the right area.

Cons

I needed extra training to get everything up and running. There were two of us trying to learn how to work the program. We lost time in managing our other 93 doors trying to learn this system for managing 250 doors of private student housing for The University of Arizona.

Autumn

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 6/11/2023

A Life Saver

Pros

So many features to help with property management. Very easy to use.

Cons

I really don't have any complaints. Anything that I don't understand or need help with is easily fixed or understood through customer service which is outstanding.

Isy

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 11/1/2024

The best Property Manager Software so far

Extremely satisfied with the ease of every task.

Pros

Our reason to switch to Appfolio was the ability to perform the accounting within the same software than the property management.

Cons

That there is no a phone number I can dial for assistance.

Katy

  • Industry: Nonprofit Organisation Management
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

4

Features

3

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 13/11/2023

AppFolio Review

I am happy for the switch, there are some things I wish could change, however overall I am happy.

Pros

It is very user friendly. It has great features and easy reporting.

Cons

The compliance feature is non usable as it is extremely out of date.

Lyman

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 10/9/2019

Appfolio & Me

I love it! I found the Appfolio program did save me time with all parts of property management duties I have.

Pros

Once I learned the program, Appfolio made the job easier. The owner statements were easy for my owners to understand. Love the ability to upload copy of invoices to owner statements, so they could see my deductions if there were any on the given month. This saved me time from answering calls from owners that had questions about the owner statement. The online features made it easy for Owners & Tenants to see everything related to their property.

Cons

Being a very small company it was a little more expensive than other programs out there. The learning curve was a bit tuff, but Help was always there to assist me if needed.

Alternatives Considered

Propertyware, Yardi Voyager and Buildium

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

My broker made the change to another software program, since the business started growing and the old program could not keep up.

Switched From

QuickBooks Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

In speaking with other Property Managers, most recommended Appfolio.

Jon

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

5

Ease of Use

4

4

Reviewed on 10/12/2019

Powerful - Easy to Use and Learn

AppFolio has been able to streamline and give so much more efficiency for day to day operations that we're able to scale our business at a much more dramatic pace.

Pros

The all encompassing ability to power a website to sophisticated accounting, maintenance controls, tenant/owner communications is all at your fingertips anywhere with a mobile device or computer.

Cons

If you're not a seasoned bookkeeper and you're managing somewhat sophisticated accounting of properties, you can dig yourself a hole real quick.

Alternatives Considered

Buildium

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

AppFolio had the capabilities that we needed that the previous software could not provide and are constantly improving the software. Appfolio has come a long way from 2 years ago!

Switched From

Property Boulevard

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

We got a better feeling with Appfolio and their sales team.

Response fromAppFolio

Hi Jon, thanks for taking the time to leave a review. We know transitions to any new software solution can be tough and we're glad you chose AppFolio to streamline your business!

Replied 30/12/2019

Shawn

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

4

Features

4

Ease of Use

4

Customer Support

4

4

Reviewed on 30/6/2020

Would recommend AppFolio

Automated reporting, and records management for property managers is efficient and works well.

Pros

Easy to use and understand at the site level in most respects. Reporting to various owners is automated. Includes free on line payments for our residents.

Cons

The marketing of vacant units to various advertisers was a real plus but this has gone downhill since we originally adopted use of AppFolio.

Alternatives Considered

Yardi Voyager

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

Training to many people is more efficient in Appfolio and automation of accounting report and owner reporting.

Switched From

ONEsite

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

AppFolio is better understood at the site level and over time AppFolio accounting features have become more robust.

Mario

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 201–500 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

4

Features

4

Ease of Use

4

Customer Support

4

4

Reviewed on 7/12/2020

Appfolio: An Overall Property Management Solution

Appfolio definitely makes up for any short comings with their innovation and user friendly interface. We like their attention to detail and their progressive attitude towards the future of online property management solutions. I've used other property management systems in the past and they all have significant downsides, whether lacking in their online integration, being too complicated, overkill or some other glaring issue. We like and have grown to depend on Appfolio. Even with it's slight flaws, which are minimal, but hey, no online property management software is perfect.

Pros

We love the ease of use, flow of the interface, and the online integration, the cost is inline with other comparable software, so you definitely get what you pay for. We wish we could make use of all of the features the software has to offer, as there is so much to choose from. Their customer services is upstanding, and we make good use of the 24 hour tenant maintenance support line. We've used Appfolio for 6 years now, and so far we've had a good experience.

Cons

The cons while important are minimal. We face underlying program issues, such as with rent charges. The system is set up for 1st of the month rent charges ONLY, but we have different rent due dates ranging from the 1st to the 15th. This causes havoc for us as some tenants with due dates other than the 1st get charged twice in the longer months. We have to pay them back and it can be very frustrating for them as they have to wait days for their funds. As well the tenant's online portal doesn't always show the correct amount owed as it automatically includes charges for the upcoming month, which confuses most tenants. The ease of use is also a double edged sword since if not careful, as with a lot of programs, you can make system changes, and data or journal entry mistakes that can be difficult to fix. While the customer support is helpful they are not always the end all, so you might be expected to fix your own problems if needed. In some cases customer service can only take you so far. If the issue is long lasting they may start to wane on their responses to you with assistance or be unable to help you. But this is explained when you begin orientation so you should take the responsibility of educating yourself on the system before using it.

Alternatives Considered

Yardi Breeze, Propertyware and Buildium

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

Yardi was sufficient in the past, pre-2008, but somewhere along the line they changed the format to be more complicated, to add they didn't even include online capabilities. So when we "upgraded" to Yardi Genesis it proved to be less user friendly than it's predecessor. The functions were clunky and just not intuitive, our accountant had to take class after class and read the entire manual over and over again to finally get it. Simple things such as charging late fees, rent receipts and even just looking up a tenant or owner statement was a process. The data back up was also a hassle, being that we had to have onsite servers holding the data. They finally rolled out their online solution which was a third party software company and it was very lacking, not to mention an added cost.

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

Besides being seemingly overall better than the others, they were the best at describing the data migration process, as this was one of our main concern at the time. Some other software systems had trouble migrating data from Yardi, and Appfolio specialized in it, which made us feel much more comfortable. They also have a lot of features we needed, such as report generation controls, online systems, and ease of use. Again at that time the data migration was a big issue as we were having problems with our current software company concerning our data.

Michael

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Value for Money

4

Features

4

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

3

4

Reviewed on 25/1/2021

Better than expected

Pros

The ease of use and mobile app make this software very useful for property managers. For leasing, the application and lease signing process is pretty seamless once set-up. The Online Portal is also great as it helps cut down on unnecessary emails or calls to the office. Residents can pay rent, submit requests for maintenance, and sign lease renewals all through their Online Portal. The lease renewal interface is one of my favorite features as it has really cuts down on the amount of time I spend drafting and preparing renewals. This software offers a lot and they are always pushing out updates and new features which is great.

Cons

The biggest problem is customer support. Some requests take days or weeks to hear back from someone and in property management, we typically don't have days or weeks to wait for a fix to a problem we are experiencing. However, when someone does help, they tend to always be able to resolve our problems. I would also like to see more customization to the software. Little things like being able to add my own "reasons for move-out" to the drop down when selecting a reason for a move-out. Also adding the option for management to select "preferred/available times" when entering a maintenance request for a resident. Residents have this option when submitting via the online portal, but management does not if they are entering a request on behalf of a resident. The work around is just writing it in the access notes, but that seems disconnected since user submitted requests will show the preferred times in a different section so maintenance staff may overlook it since it will be in a different spot than usual.

Alternatives Considered

Yardi Breeze

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

The Yardi Genesis software was not web based and only worked on 1 single computer and could not be used remotely. We needed software that was more inline with the times.

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

AppFolio seemed to have the most feature rich content and interface. Yardi Breeze was too new and lacked many basic features at the time we were looking to adopt new software. We needed to hit the ground running with all of the necessary features so we decided AppFolio was the right choice.

Response fromAppFolio

Hi Dennis, thank you for taking the time to leave a review - we appreciate your feedback.

Replied 21/4/2021

Vivianq

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

N/A

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 16/6/2022

If you are in Property Management AppFolio is the best choice!

We all love using AppFolio!

Pros

The program is super user friendly and quality life changes are being made regularly to make the software better. Between adding features and their support system makes workflow with AppFolio easier than ever. They take suggestions made from customers/users and do their best to implement them. Training new employees to use AppFolio has gone from taking months to get someone able to use to just a few weeks.

Cons

They do make changes behind the scenes that sometimes effects the way you have something set up and you don't know it until it gets brought to someones attention.

Alternatives Considered

Yardi Voyager and Buildium

Reasons for Choosing AppFolio Property Manager

The program was not user friendly at all.

Reasons for Switching to AppFolio Property Manager

AppFolio had the best price at the time for the features they provided.

Dean

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

4

Features

5

Ease of Use

4

Customer Support

4

5

Reviewed on 25/9/2018

Top 5 Things Tenants Don't Want You to Know About Using Appfolio and Why It Costs You.

I wouldn't manage property without it.

Pros

1. When Money is collected electronically you never have to think about who's paid and who hasn't.
- Even with a handful of units, it's time consuming to collect checks and deposit them on a regular basis. This causes sloppy book keeping and helps tenants get away with not paying timely.
2. When a computer keeps track of payments late fees are always charged.
- late fees get charged automatically. This trains tenants to pay automatically. No more not paying late fees. " It's already charged and it's part of your lease ".
3. When communicating with tenants electronically, there's a record of the conversation.
- " I didn't say it was my fault ". This is no longer an argument. Every text, email, and even notes from phone conversations are stored in the tenant profile.
4.Utility billing can become a profit center instead of a nightmare.
- When incorporating RUBS or just paying for the water bill, when done with the correct process, unpaid utilities can legally incur late fees which makes tenants pay them instead of sticking the owner with them at the end of the lease.
5. It's much easier to protect a property through liability insurance.
- By using the automatic liability insurance module, there is much less of a chance in lapsing renters insurance and the property has a better chance of recuperating losses due to " I fell asleep while the stove was on ". Yes, this has actually happened.

Cons

Appfolio is not something you plug into your current systems. To do it correctly and efficiently you'll need to rework your processes around it. This can be good or bad. Depending on if you like creating systems. When you're done, you'll have an employee that never sleeps and takes care of a ton of your management tasks.

Response fromAppFolio

Hi Dean, thank you for taking the time to provide this feedback. It's great to hear that AppFolio is integral to running your property management business. We appreciate your partnership!

Replied 16/1/2019

Bill

  • Industry: Commercial Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

4

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 28/5/2019

A "looking forward" Solution

This software has made our lives easier, and more productive. I have been able to send funds to a client who needed them desperately from the deck of a cruise ship. We are all very happy with our choice of AppFolio.

Pros

We have been using AppFolio for five years now. In that time, the features and adaptability of the software have increased significantly. When adopted the software, it really wasn't really geared toward commercial properties or owners associations. Since that time, they have really made it a great solution for us in those segments of the property management profession.

They listen. They make changes/additions to the features based on feedback from the users. They can't satisfy every individual firm's specific method of handling an issue, but they really pay attention to providing a feature for the vast majority of users.

One amazing feature they added was at a customer conference. At the beginning of the conference, they took a poll of what one feature would the users like. The overwhelming majority selected a calendaring feature. The initial roll out of that feature was released by the end of the two day conference. Since then, the calendar feature has become very robust and a great management tool.

Back-up issues are no longer a worry.

Cons

Nothing so far.

Another Pro: Another example occurred shortly after the first conference I attended. I was sitting at one of the outstanding mixers. A gentleman sat down next to me, said that he was with AppFolio. He asked if I had any suggestions as a new user. I said that as a data entry convenience (I'm an old programmer from the '60s), I was all about reducing keystrokes. I mentioned that it would be nice if you were in a date field that you could change the date by tapping the + or - keys. Turns out that he is one of the leaders of the firm, and the feature was activated in most date fields by the end of the week.

Response fromAppFolio

Thank you so much for leaving a review, Bill and for continuing to partner with AppFolio. We look forward to continuing to work together!

Replied 2/7/2019

Janee

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

4

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

4

5

Reviewed on 24/9/2019

Great product overall! Highly recommend!

Overall, I am very satisfied with AppFolio Property Manager. We run a tight organization and I attribute much to this software.

Pros

This software keeps me organized and on top of managing a large inventory of properties and clients.
-It has a strong financial reporting side that encompasses everything necessary to operate and deliver to owners as well as tenants.
-We receive great feedback from the tenants as this software provides a very seamless experience from application process all the way through move outs.
-User friendly, easy to navigate.
-Reports to Experian credit bureau and now RentBureau.
-I also love that on the property page, tenant page, owner page we can add activity reminders.
-The options of reports are great and the customization of them are endless.
-Owners, tenants, vendors all have portals to work in giving them access to their information/accounts.
-AppFolio is always working to improve features and add new services that could benefit property management companies.
-Newer feature is an app for tenants to use to pay online and schedule maintenance. Love it!
Many pros. You won't be disappointed.

Cons

Overall, I don't have many cons and really had to think up what our biggest frustrations are with the software. Not bad if this is all I could come up with. We work around it because overall we are very satisfied with the product.
-Small improvements that need to be made based on user experiences are seemingly overlooked as not important. Example, you can now email tenants/owners from their page. If the email does not go through there is no notification so we are unaware that tenants/owners did not receive our communication. So for now, I do not use that feature if it is something I need to be certain is received by other party.
-There is also a sensitivity with the new showings feature that if a booked party does not reply exactly with CONFIRM, then the booking will automatically cancel. It creates many headaches daily. Cannot reply with YES, CONFIRMED, OK, I'LL BE THERE, etc.
-Owners would like real time details in their owner portal, not just past monthly reports to review.
All of these items have been suggested to AppFolio to review for tweaking by many users.

Sherrie w/ Professional

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

5

Ease of Use

4

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 9/4/2019

My Opinion of the Pros and Cons of Appfolio

For the most part I am very happy with Appfolio. We still are not using it to it's fullest potential. It seems that I have always had people that I train that are resistant to change. So I have to slowly change things that seem little changes at the time so that they don't realize it and are more willing participants.

Pros

I do accounts payable, plus deal with Owners and basically put out little fires that arise. Since using Appfolio I have reduced my work load or should I say the time that is necessary to do my job. By being able to do ACH's and emailing and texting. End of month statements was reduced down to a few hours from 2 days. The world we live in now does a lot of texting and emailing and that is always nice to be able to do when you are slammed. More than 50% of my Owners are retired or semi retired and are older so I find that it is important to have that conversation with them over the phone for that personal relationship that they like. I am friends with a lot of my Owners even though I have never laid eyes on them. So we need to balance things for good PR.

Cons

I don't have many, and I am at a loss right now to specifically point any particular problem. It is those times when you run into a situation that you rarely do and have problem figuring it out. The instructions are not real clear. As example off the top of my head. I have a problem right now with my Diagnostic under the Non-Zero Security Clearing Account Balances. I think that I have done it correctly after following the instructions and then I find my diagnostic with a problem that I will need help from Appfolio with. Right now I haven't had the time to contact Appfolio to help me due to my own personal issues, medical, vacation etc.

Pamela

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

5

Ease of Use

5

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 10/7/2019

Always evolving to keep up with or ahead of the customer!

Loved it then, loving it even more now, hope to never stop using it.

Pros

Most people don't like change, need change and can't get it or can't get it quick enough. Appfolio is so user friendly, allows you to train yourself, reach out for support when needed or allows you to interact with other users in a forum. They say it takes a village sometimes and Appfolio has created that village atmosphere. You have options and so many paths to take but without the feeling of getting totally lost to get to where you need it's almost adventure time every time I log on. I love all the updates for things I didn't even know I needed until they put it out there. They don't just change things and hope you catch on, they notify you of all the updates with an explanation and guide in advance. I've seen them put changes into action that other users have asked for and voted on (yes that's a thing, got to love democracy and what software platform allows it's clients to even have a say on a daily basis? Appfolio does.) If anyone in the relationship is doing wrong by the other it would be our office for not using all that Appfolio has to it's fullest extent. Thank you for allowing us to thrive now and strive towards the ever evolving future of Property Management.

Cons

There have been a few work arounds or new features we didn't quite get it to work the way we wanted but most of it is personal pickiness or just not having the time to train and find a way to make it work. The inspections I know are being updated and getting there but really hoping to be able to do inspections onsite, pictures, notes, having tenants sign electronically off on move in and out condition notes as well as sending them copies at completion as we've seen with some other apps and software programs outside of Appfolio.

Scott

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Value for Money

1

Features

1

Ease of Use

2

Customer Support

1

2

Reviewed on 18/2/2020

Appfolio Overview

Potential is good, staff is nice and patient. Unfortunately, accounting and reporting capabilities of the software is extremely limited. As a result, the staff has difficulty keeping up with issue resolution and you wait days to speak with someone that can help.

Pros

Search function and integration with most online posting services is good. Staff is nice and try hard to answer your questions and navigate around limitations of the software. Unfortunately, they are overworked and the issues with the software (e.g. reporting and accounting primarily) make it very difficult for them to service their customers effectively. Mobile app is good (considering the accounting and reporting issues).

Cons

Accounting features are limited. Examples: Management Fees for non rent items (e.g. parking, storage, commercial rent) are deducted from income rather than calculated as an expense. It makes it look like you are hiding fees from owners. Option is to enter a series of JE's each month to correct.

Reporting capability is very poor: You can not set up batch reports that update monthly. You can set up owner reports, but, they do not necessarily update (e.g. prior month and YTD rolling). Extremely limited in formating reports. GL's for year are over 400 pages due to spacing and limited control on what to report. Example: P&L Options are only "Detail" or "Summary". Summary lumps all utilities into one line items and Detail prints "Non Posting" items.

Increased application fee cost within first year by 30% with virtually no notice and no options. Response was to "pass it on to your customers". I just received another notice 14 months after conversion that my web services fee was increasing 98%. Again, virtually no notice and no options.

Unfortunately, the staff is stretched so thin, I can not get a response to an issue logged over a week ago. I call daily, text and email. The response is: "We will expedite and prioritize. I will notify your case worker." Unfortunately, no call or email follows to help. I had to hire CPA's to force my financials to be accurate in order to get reports to my Federal Investor. Still waiting on that expedited call.....

Wes

  • Review Source

Value for Money

N/A

Features

2

Ease of Use

3

Customer Support

4

2.5

Reviewed on 30/10/2013

This program is seriously lacking compared to some of its competition. Our company had to switch from another system after the California DRE decided to crack down on anybody they found out was using it due to the way in which that system handled e-payments (e-payments passed through a clearing account before settling in the destination account).

I am extremely computer literate and have no difficulties learning new software quickly. I've used this program long enough (three months) to say that there are multiple aspects of its design that I think are unintuitive; I find it to be terribly lacking in advanced functionality; it is devoid of any form of flexibility in how it allows users to handle processes. I could not be more disappointed with this program.

There are flaws with its design which I find simply inexcusable, such as not being able to generate an email list of all tenants (all tenants that are not primary simply have their names listed as "additional" in the tenant directory) or that paying owners is divided among each property separately (including properties owned by the same owner), and the owners name is not listed in the process.

There have been multiple other issues that I've been able to work around that I don't care to list. This program feels underdeveloped to me. Its like the base model of a real property management program. They claim that they are a "Property Based" program. Please understand that this means that every single bit of data is both kept and displayed at the property level. Properties are treated as entities and people are treated as references. If you wish to see a report for an owner you will have to combine data for each of that owner's properties because all information is kept on the property level regardless of ownership. Our large owners with 15+ properties receive a 15+ page owner statement each month: a statement for each property. They have no ability to tell from their statement what amount they were paid, how much income they received, or expenses they paid out unless they combine the data from each property they own because AppFolio does not have an option to summarize or combine all data for an owner or property group.

Almost nothing in the program is live; reports must be generated to view info for most tasks then drilled down to get to what you are looking for. If you are a small scale operation or aren't very computer savvy, then this is the software for you. But if you run a mid-to-large scale operation, are tech savvy, or want some bells and whistles with your software, I highly suggest looking elsewhere. The only good things I can say about this program are that it's fast and reliable. My firm manages 360 units for 154 owners, and I'm the accountant and head of property management.

Response fromAppFolio

Wes, we appreciate you taking the time to write a review. We know switching software can be arduous, and, since all available solutions differ greatly, there is a learning curve associated with the shift in paradigm. For example, you are right in saying that AppFolio is property-based and report-centered, which is probably much different than what you were used to using. The goal of our reports is to provide the flexibility to search, group, and filter your data based on your viewing preferences, and we also provide a universal search for quick access to records and common tasks.

Running reports at the owner level is just as easy as running them at the property level. Specifically, you can opt to send any owner a consolidated owner statement, which would combine transactions from all properties owned by that owner. Our services team will get in touch with you to address a couple of items you mention here, and assist you through setting up the reports you need.

Replied 31/10/2013

Christine

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

5

Features

4

Ease of Use

4

Customer Support

5

5

Reviewed on 19/7/2017

Took a bit to get the hang of it, but would NEVER go back!

Pros

1. It has what I want from a property software,and if they don't have it, they will if you ask!
2. The customer service is spot on, they really love their customers and it shows!
3. Notes for EVERYTHING with PICS! No more tenants claiming they don't know what you're talking about or not knowing what they are trying to tell you is wrong with their units!
4. It makes it easy to keep track of all the data we have, literally everything has a place to be put.
5. I really love how in depth the help pages are and the fact that there are forums for the users to talk to each other about what they deal with and how they have worked around issues. It can take some time to find the right thing sometimes, but you can always find a way to make things work. Appfolio is very adaptable and it feels like there is no one way to use it. It works with each person in their own way!

Cons

1. The accounting took awhile to get used to and can be a little clunky and confusing at times (and I have an accounting degree).
2. Customer service can take up to 24 hours to get back to you, while that is still a good response time, when you have accounting questions, it can seem like forever.
3. Having the option for so much data can make it hard to remember WHERE your data for a particular item got placed. Was it the unit page? Owner page? Tenant notes? Vendor notes? Maintenance notes? Who knows! It would be great to see a system that links together notes a little better with catch words or a notes search option by date etc to make finding the large volumes of data we collect a little easier. But it is STILL a far better system than anything we have used before.

Response fromAppFolio

Dear Christine, thanks for sharing your review! We appreciate your thoughtful feedback and are happy to see that appfolio has been a significant improvement from your last solution. We look forward to always improving our software for your use!

Replied 25/7/2017

Todd

  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Value for Money

1

Features

1

Ease of Use

3

Customer Support

1

2

Reviewed on 5/3/2018

Wall Street Greed and Arrogance Abound at Appfolio

Run don't walk from this software. Read the reviews on other sites to get 'the rest of the story'!

Pros

The UI is simple and easy for new staff members to learn. The features are 'simple' and provide entry level functionality to get tasks done.

Cons

Since signing up with Appfolio in 2010, they've lost their consumer focus - and replaced it with what can best be described as 'Wall Street Arrogance':
- selling 'value add' services to our clients without our prior consent
- adding a maintenance call center that is a joke and an embarrassment
- their suppressed fees feature is a nightmare to use, requiring hours of extra labor to ensure it works
- coming out with simple versions of software 'improvements' that don't compare or compete with online alternatives

That last point is why I am actively searching to leave Appfolio.

Instead of letting me connect Appfolio to Docusign, they develop their own lousy lease writer which noone likes or uses.

Instead of letting me connect Appfolio to TenantTurner or other showing softwares, they insist on making us wait for their 'simple' (less powerful) version to come out.

Instead of letting me connect my Appfolio to SalesForce or Hubspot or Infusionsoft, they say 'who needs a CRM anyways'? Mind you they use Salesforce to grow Appfolio... but we can manually add new clients versus importing them from our CRM

Instead of letting me connect my Appfolio to Podio or Asana or another workflow management software, they say 'use paper checklists, or maintain a dual database' if you want to get your work done with the latest cutting edge software tech. Folks - THIS MATTERS, and means you will spend TONS of extra hours doing labor that could easily be automated otherwise.

Instead of letting me connect my Appfolio to Survey Monkey, they make us use a dual data base, and miss the chance to survey our clients. Appfolio surveys us all the time, but apparently we don't deserve to use an integrated survey feature.

Instead of letting me connect my Appfolio to PropertyMeld, they want me to use their Model 'T' version of a workorder system. So I went with PropertyMeld, and deactivated the Appfolio maintenance portal so I could replace it with PropertyMeld's portal. We now run far more efficiently - no thanks to Appfolio.

I recently used a competing call center to answer our maintenance lines, and received a 'cease and desist' style letter from Appfolio?! They said that 'for the safety of my data', I was to no longer use any 3rd party services!? I shook the tree long and hard and they retracted that statement. A thinly veiled attempt to shut down a competitor. Shameful actually.

When Appfolio went public, I told my Stock Broker 'you should buy it, cuz I know it will go up'. Their share price tripled over the past two years, but I refused to buy their stock. Why? I HATE that Wall Street Greed and Arrogance has entered our industry, and refuse to support them.

An open source API solves all of the above 'connection' issues, and is what's best for the customer. But Appfolio will not release their API. So folks, before considering moving forward with Appfolio, remember that the folks who play God with your data will decide WHAT improvements to bestow upon us at THEIR leisure. They'll decide what products to sell to our clients WITHOUT our knowledge or consent.

I'll leave you with a closing thought - why would Appfolio decide to shut down live support while their share values triple? One would think that escalating share values means they could afford to give us excellent live support... apparently the shareholder is now more important than the customer at Appfolio.

Response fromAppFolio

Hi Todd, thank you for providing this feedback. We are sorry for your poor experience with AppFolio. We work to provide an all in one solution to meet needs across your business and we created an online leasing flow that allows for the automation of your move-in processes and the ability to e-sign a lease. We also launched the ability to survey your tenants directly from AppFolio and we welcome your feedback regarding other features that you believe could be improved. We would be happy to disable the ability for tenant's to purchase renters insurance through their portals and to clarify, we launched this as a feature offering to help property managers mitigate risk. In regards to our customer support, our Customer Success team's first priority is your success, and they work hard to help improve each situation. Our team has also created an online Help Center that can provide step-by-step assistance in time of need, it is a great place to start when you have a question. We take your experience seriously and hope that we are able to provide you with excellent service moving forward!

Replied 9/3/2018

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 76
  • >

1,893 reviews

AppFolio Property Manager Reviews (2024)

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Eusebia Nader

Last Updated:

Views: 6644

Rating: 5 / 5 (60 voted)

Reviews: 91% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Eusebia Nader

Birthday: 1994-11-11

Address: Apt. 721 977 Ebert Meadows, Jereville, GA 73618-6603

Phone: +2316203969400

Job: International Farming Consultant

Hobby: Reading, Photography, Shooting, Singing, Magic, Kayaking, Mushroom hunting

Introduction: My name is Eusebia Nader, I am a encouraging, brainy, lively, nice, famous, healthy, clever person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.