Stessa alternatives for short-term rental owners

Why short-term rental owners outgrow Stessa

Stessa is built for landlords. Its pricing page (checked November 9, 2026) spends most of its feature list on long-term lease work: tenant screening, rent collection, lease agreements and Zillow listing syndication. Short-term rentals get one line, in the description of the Manage plan, which is pitched at investors who want to "manage STRs."

The plans are Essentials (free), Manage at $12 a month paid annually or $15 monthly, and Pro at $28 a month paid annually or $35 monthly, per the same pricing page (checked November 9, 2026). All three include unlimited properties, bank feeds and mileage expense tracking. Smart receipt scanning stops at 5 receipts a month on Essentials and Manage. A host restocking two units can pass that in a week.

The Schedule E report is not on the free plan. Stessa's report list (checked November 9, 2026) marks Schedule E as Manage and Pro only, and the list names no Schedule C report.

Airbnb data comes in by file. Stessa's short-term rental guide (checked November 9, 2026) tells hosts to download a CSV from Airbnb's transaction history, upload it, then check for duplicates if a bank account is also connected. You then mark the unit as a short-term rental.

What we could not find anywhere on those pages is a log of the hours you work. Nothing on the pricing page (checked November 9, 2026) mentions hours, time or participation. That is the gap many hosts are trying to fill.

The two-tool matchup lives in DeductFlow vs Stessa. This guide looks at the seven tools hosts ask about most.

Seven alternatives, with prices checked November 9, 2026

The original vendor-page review was November 9, 2026. We rechecked QuickBooks mileage and time tracking, Landlord Studio billing, and Hurdlr's US app-store listing on November 14, 2026. We did not test the products ourselves. A missing feature below means the vendor's own page does not list it, and the product may still have it.

DeductFlow

Who it is for: hosts who do the work themselves and need the hours, the trips and the receipts to sit in one package for their CPA.

Price: Pro is $149 a year billed annually or $24 billed monthly, per our pricing page. The free plan covers 1 property, 50 expenses a year and 20 mileage entries total, with no hours, reports or exports. A seven-day desktop trial needs no card.

What it tracks: hours by timer or manual entry, each with the work date, person, activity, property, duration, notes and photos, and the server records when new entries are first received. Older records may predate server stamping; their original arrival time is not reconstructed. Trips carry the date, route, purpose, property and vehicle, priced at the IRS rate for that date. Expenses use 19 rental categories with a receipt photo or PDF. It keeps a depreciation schedule, stores an existing cost segregation study and imports Hospitable stays and Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com earnings files. The CPA package comes as a PDF and a CSV you can email.

The gap: no bank feeds, so card activity comes in by statement CSV. It is not double-entry accounting, with no invoicing, payroll or balance sheet, and there is no dedicated Schedule E form report. Mileage is entered by you, since there is no background GPS. DeductFlow does not perform cost segregation studies.

Baselane

Who it is for: owners who want a property bank account and the bookkeeping attached to it in one place.

Price: Core is $0 a month and Smart is $20 a month on an annual plan with a 30-day trial, per Baselane pricing.

What it tracks: Core lists property-level income and expense tracking, an accountant tax package and Schedule E reports. Smart adds auto-tagging into 120+ categories, receipt matching, balance sheet reports and cost segregation. Its short-term rental page advertises next-day payouts from Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com.

The gap: neither page lists a mileage log or an hours log. Much of the value assumes you move your rental money into Baselane accounts.

REI Hub

Who it is for: investors who want plain Schedule E bookkeeping at a low monthly cost.

Price: free for up to 3 units with minimal transactions. Professional is $9 a month billed annually or $15 billed monthly for up to 3 units, and $15 or $25 for up to 10 units. There is a 14-day trial with no card, per REI Hub pricing.

What it tracks: revenue and expenses with real estate categories, loan and fixed asset tracking, Schedule E and tax reports, automatic transaction import and a mileage log.

The gap: the pricing page lists no hours log, and nothing on it speaks to short-term rentals specifically.

Landlord Studio

Who it is for: owners with a mixed portfolio who also want tenant tools such as screening and online rent collection.

Price: Go is free for up to 3 units. The US plan comparison lists Pro at $15 a month and Pro Plus at $35 a month, each with 3 units included and $1.20 per extra unit. Landlord Studio pricing also shows annual totals of $144 for Pro and $336 for Pro Plus. Its room-rental page explicitly confirms Pro at $12 a month billed annually ($144 a year). Checked November 14, 2026; confirm the billing option and extra-unit total at checkout.

What it tracks: a mileage tracker and smart receipt scanner on every plan, bank feeds on paid plans (5 accounts on Pro, 20 on Pro Plus), and Schedule E and other tax reports.

The gap: Go has no bank feeds, and the pricing page lists no hours log. For a closer look at how it stacks up with Stessa, see Landlord Studio vs Stessa vs DeductFlow.

Tallybreeze

Who it is for: hosts and managers whose books already live in QuickBooks or Xero and who want each reservation posted there in detail.

Price: monthly pricing starts at $32 with the first 2 listings included and a 7-day trial, per the pricing block on the Tallybreeze site.

What it tracks: Airbnb, Vrbo and Guesty reservations, split into revenue, taxes, host fees, cleaning fees and commissions per listing, synced into QuickBooks or Xero.

The gap: it is a sync tool, so you still pay for and run QuickBooks or Xero. Its site lists no mileage log, hours log or receipt capture.

QuickBooks Online

Who it is for: hosts who run the rental as a business with a bookkeeper or CPA already inside QuickBooks.

Price: Simple Start is $38 a month, Essentials $85, Plus $140 and Advanced $340, each shown at 50% off for 3 months, per QuickBooks pricing. A Free plan connects 1 bank account and has no accountant access.

What it tracks: full double-entry books with bank connections and automatic transaction matching. Paid plans include access for 2 accountants, or 3 on Advanced. Its mileage page confirms automatic GPS tracking, manual trips and mileage reports. Essentials and higher also list employee time for invoices. Checked November 14, 2026.

The gap: general business time tracking is not the same as a rental-specific participation log. QuickBooks has no rental-specific setup out of the box.

Hurdlr

Who it is for: self-employed people who mainly want mileage and expense capture on a phone.

Price: Premium is advertised at $99.99 a year or $9.99 a month in Hurdlr's US App Store listing, checked November 14, 2026. Its older help article rounds the annual plan to $100. Confirm the offer in the app before subscribing.

What it tracks: the free version has unlimited semi-automatic mileage, manual finance tracking and tax estimates. Premium adds automatic mileage, automatic finance tracking, expense rules and Work Hours.

The gap: the App Store listing names Airbnb hosts, but does not describe a Schedule E report or a per-property view.

Comparison table

Every row links to the page we read. Prices are the lowest paid tier we could confirm, or the free tier where one exists.

Pick by situation

A two-unit host with a cleaner

Picture two condos in one building. A cleaner turns both after every checkout, and the owner handles guests, restocking and repairs. When the CPA asks how the owner's hours compare with the cleaner's, bank transactions cannot answer it.

DeductFlow logs each entry against a person, an activity and a property, so the owner's repair visit and the cleaner's turnover land as separate records. Hurdlr lists Work Hours on Premium. QuickBooks also lists employee time for invoices on Essentials and higher. Check whether a tool can organize hours by person, activity and rental property before choosing it.

A self-manager who drives 1,200 miles a year

This host lives forty minutes from the cabin and drives out for check-ins, a broken dishwasher and the spring deep clean. That comes to about 1,200 miles a year over two dozen round trips.

Stessa, REI Hub, Landlord Studio, QuickBooks Online, Hurdlr and DeductFlow all list mileage tracking. QuickBooks Online and Hurdlr Premium support automatic phone tracking. DeductFlow has no background GPS, so you enter each trip with its route and purpose and it applies the IRS rate for that date. Its free plan allows 20 mileage entries in total, which this host would pass partway through the year. The Baselane and Tallybreeze pages reviewed list no standalone mileage log.

A host whose CPA wants detailed exports

Ask your CPA which reports and fields they need before choosing software. This comparison covers recordkeeping features, not which tax form or treatment applies.

Stessa, Baselane, REI Hub and Landlord Studio build their tax reports around Schedule E, while QuickBooks Online keeps general business books. DeductFlow has no Schedule E or Schedule C form report. It hands the CPA a PDF and a CSV of every expense, trip and hour, and the CPA maps them to the form they file.

A host who already pays for QuickBooks

If a bookkeeper already closes your month in QuickBooks, a rental app means two sets of books. Tallybreeze posts reservations into the books you have. QuickBooks already includes mileage tracking. Before adding a separate tracker, check whether its time features meet your needs for organizing work by rental property and person. DeductFlow offers those fields alongside receipts and trips in its CPA package.

Still comparing more widely? Our 2026 roundup of STR tax tracking tools covers more apps, and DeductFlow pricing lists what the free plan and Pro include.

About Doug Adams

STR Owner & Founder of DeductFlow

Doug Adams is a short-term rental owner and the founder of DeductFlow, software that helps hosts organize expenses, mileage, participation hours, and supporting records. As the owner of Skyfall Chalet in Colorado, he brings firsthand hosting experience to the practical challenges of keeping rental records organized throughout the year. His guides focus on helping owners understand their tracking options and maintain clear documentation for their tax professionals.

Disclosure: Doug founded DeductFlow, one of the products compared in this guide.