Five PayHOA alternatives for a self-managed HOA

The list

1. 1.

   HOA Express

   Best for: Leaving for the website, the blasts and the mailed notices, at a fraction of the price

   If what your board actually used in PayHOA was the communication — email and text blasts, mailed letters, a website and documents — HOA Express does that for less, free under 50 households. On Engage, members can still pay dues online, with the fee passed to them if you choose. What you give up is everything to do with the books: its pages claim no general ledger, no per-owner balance, no bank reconciliation, and no violations, architectural review, amenity booking or elections. Web only, like PayHOA.

   Cost: Free for up to 50 households, with a website, documents, a calendar and news. Paid plans are priced by households: Inform from $15/mo billed yearly and Engage from $21/mo billed yearly, both for up to 25 households. Online payments, email and text blasts, surveys and mailed letters are Engage features; mailed letters start at $1.05 plus $0.15 a page. No setup fee, 30-day trial with no card.

2. 2.

   Chickadee Bandit

   That's us

   Best for: A small board whose dues already arrive by check or bank transfer

   Not a replacement for PayHOA's payments or accounting: we collect no money, keep no general ledger and reconcile no bank account. It is the board's workspace instead. Dues & Contributions lists each member's status per billing period and posts each recorded payment to the right reserve fund; the reserve dashboard shows every fund to all members; violation notices are answered or disputed in the app with a trail per unit; architectural requests go to a committee vote and a written decision; elections run on a secret ballot; and adopted minutes are frozen with every director's roll-call vote. Each board member keeps their own household private beside it. A space holds up to 20 people, so it fits a board or a small building, not an association where a hundred owners log in. iPhone, Android and the web.

   Cost: $6/mo or $60/yr for one household on the Family plan, 30-day free trial with no card. One board member sponsors the association's space and everyone else joins free. A Family plan's space holds up to 8 people and 10 apps; Organization ($30/mo or $300/yr) sponsors three spaces of up to 20 people and 14 apps each.

3. 3.

   Condo Control

   Best for: A condo building that needs a front desk more than a ledger

   Sold to self-managed communities as well as management companies, with iPhone and Android apps PayHOA does not have. Its depth is building operations — package logs, visitor parking, guest passes, incident reports, security patrol and key tracking — on top of a resident portal, online payments, maintenance and architectural change requests. The processing fee is charged to the resident rather than the association. Accounting is an integration, included on the Modern and Premium plans and a paid add-on on Standard, and amenity booking and violation tracking are add-ons on Standard too.

   Cost: From $67.50/mo for under 50 units on its Self-Managed tab; larger communities are not priced on the page. Its three plans (Standard, Modern and Premium Living) carry no published price. Its current payments FAQ charges the resident 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment plus a $2.00 service fee. No free trial or free plan is published.

4. 4.

   TownSq

   Best for: Owners who want a phone app to pay and book

   The most-installed homeowner app on the HOA round-up, which is exactly what PayHOA lacks: owners pay assessments, see their balance, book amenities and read announcements on their phone. It is written mostly for managed communities, its homeowner FAQ assumes a management company, and full association accounting is an Enterprise feature, so a self-managed board leaving PayHOA for it keeps its books somewhere else. Violations and architectural review are add-ons on the Pro plan.

   Cost: Priced by units: Pro is $90/mo for up to 300 units, $180/mo for 301–900, $270/mo above that; save 10% paying yearly. Violations and architectural review are $20/mo each on Pro, and a binding vote is $250 per voting event plus a $25 one-time setup fee. Owners pay a $2.95 convenience fee per online payment, plus 3.5% on a card; a mailed check or direct debit costs nothing.

5. 5.

   HOALife

   Best for: A larger association whose hard problem is enforcement

   Built around violations and architectural review: drive-by inspections from a phone with GPS, automated notice letters by First-Class or Certified mail, and a collaborative ARC review. It keeps no ledger of its own and syncs both ways with QuickBooks Online, so leaving PayHOA for it means moving the books to QuickBooks. It has no free trial and does not refund fees paid, and its pricing page describes communities of 100 homes and up.

   Cost: From $199/mo; the final price is quoted after a 30-minute demo, based on community size. No free trial or free plan, month-to-month agreements, and fees paid are not refunded. Its pricing page describes communities of 100 to 5,000+ homes. Card and bank processing fees are billed to homeowners; the amounts are not published.

Prices and features are restated from our head-to-head comparison pages and reflect each product's published pricing as of September 2026. Products change — always check the other product's site for current details.

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