HOA Software Pricing Comparison 2026: Aldea HQ vs PayHOA vs TownSq vs Buildium

If you're on an HOA board and you've spent the last hour comparing software pricing pages, you've probably noticed that nobody actually tells you what it costs. TownSq says "request a demo." Buildium routes you to a sales line. PayHOA publishes nine tiers and a transaction fee schedule that fills half a page. By the time you've waded through it, you've forgotten what you came to find out: which platform is actually the best deal for your community? This guide is the math nobody else publishes.

All competitor pricing verified May 2, 2026. PayHOA · Buildium · TownSq pricing not published.

How much does HOA management software cost?

The honest answer to how much does HOA management software cost depends almost entirely on three things: (1) how many homes you have, (2) whether the platform charges a flat subscription or scales per home, and (3) what each platform's own transaction fees add when you collect dues online. To make this concrete, we ran the math at four community sizes using each platform's published rates (verified May 2, 2026) and a consistent set of assumptions you can verify. Numbers below use Aldea Pay at its upper bound (1.5%) — the worst-case Aldea price — and PayHOA's published tier rates including their published per-transaction ACH and card fees.

Subscription + each platform's own published transaction fees, captured 2026-05-02 from aldeahq.com/pricing and payhoa.com/pricing. Stripe processing fees pass through to the merchant on both sides — we exclude them from both columns to keep the comparison apples-to-apples on each platform's own quoted rates. Assumptions: $150/mo per home in dues; 80% ACH / 20% card payment mix; ~1.5 members per home for Aldea's per-member tier mapping. Verify on competitor sites before deciding. (This methodology matches our /vs/payhoa deep-dive comparison.)

Self-managed HOA software: pricing built for volunteer boards

Volunteer boards run on tight budgets and shorter attention spans for vendor sales calls. The right self-managed HOA software should match that reality: published pricing, no per-home tax that punishes growth, and a learning curve a new treasurer can clear in an afternoon. Boards turn over every one to two years; the next person to inherit your password shouldn't also inherit a pricing surprise buried in a tiered structure nobody re-evaluated.

Aldea was built for self-managed boards specifically. The flat-rate plans start at $49/mo and never charge by the home, so a 30-member townhome HOA and a 150-member single-family neighborhood pay the same predictable subscription. Every feature ships on every plan — no paywalls between you and dues collection, the digital handbook, or automated reminders. If you want to see exactly how this pattern applies to your community, built for HOA boards covers the operational fit, and running an HOA without a management company walks through the day-to-day workflow.

Already using a management company? Here's what to compare.

Management companies typically charge $10–$25 per home per month plus assessments, which on a 100-home community lands somewhere between $1,000 and $2,500 each month before any software is involved. If you're evaluating whether to keep that arrangement or take more of the day-to-day in-house, the software question gets bigger fast — a flat-rate platform that does the operational heavy lifting changes the math considerably.

Even if you stay with your management company, Aldea works alongside one: members log in to a single branded portal for dues, news, documents, and tickets while your manager keeps handling vendor coordination and accounting in their own system. The for small communities page covers what a hybrid setup looks like in practice.

PayHOA alternative: is Aldea HQ a better fit for your HOA?

PayHOA earns real credit for being the only competitor that publishes HOA pricing top-to-bottom. That kind of transparency is itself a confidence signal — they aren't hiding the math, and that deserves acknowledgment. PayHOA's strengths are deepest in full general-ledger accounting, 1120-H tax filing, and finance workflows that overlap with what a CPA expects to see. If your board needs double-entry bookkeeping inside the HOA platform itself, PayHOA is a reasonable answer.

The honest PayHOA alternative case for Aldea is the cost shape: PayHOA charges by the home, and that per-home rate compounds as your community grows — at 800 homes, PayHOA's subscription alone is over $400/mo before a single dues payment is processed, while Aldea Business stays at $199/mo flat. For self-managed boards that don't need full GL accounting and would rather pay a predictable subscription, the gap is real and grows with you. For the full PayHOA comparison including feature parity tables and a switching guide, the deep-dive is the next read.

TownSq pricing: why it isn't published (and what to ask if you call sales)

TownSq pricing isn't on their website — every HOA evaluating TownSq has to book a sales call before they can find out what it costs. That pattern usually means tiered-by-account-size with custom margin layered on top, which is exactly the wrong shape for self-managed boards: it favors larger professionally-managed portfolios and leaves smaller boards subsidizing the sales motion. Aldea publishes everything because we believe boards deserve to know the price before they spend an hour on a demo call. The full breakdown of what TownSq does and doesn't publish — plus the tier-by-tier comparison once you have a quote — lives at the full TownSq comparison.

What about Buildium for HOA management?

Buildium is best known for rental property management, where they do publish pricing — Essential at $62/mo, Growth at $192/mo, Premium at $400/mo on the rental side. For HOA / community association management, Buildium routes you to a sales line (877-396-7876) and HOA-specific tiers aren't public. Add-on fees mount fast: ePay transaction fees, eSignature $1–$5/doc, tenant screening $17–$20, property inspections at $99 setup plus $40–$95/mo, and 1099 e-filing at $50 + $4.50/form.

Buildium's strengths are large-portfolio property management and a full feature suite that overlaps minimally with what a self-managed HOA actually uses week to week. For a self-managed board evaluating Buildium, the honest framing is that it's likely overkill — you'll pay to find out, and the per-home math at any meaningful community size starts looking expensive once the add-ons land. If full-suite property management is your real requirement, Buildium is a serious tool; if community operations and dues collection are, a flat-rate platform like Aldea is the lighter fit.

HOA software for volunteer boards: what flat-rate pricing actually buys you

The deeper case for HOA software for volunteer boards isn't the dollar amount on the invoice — it's the certainty. Volunteer board members aren't full-time admins; every minute they spend administering software is a minute pulled from their day job, family, or actual community work. Flat-rate pricing means no quarterly budgeting surprise, no per-home creep when a few homes get built next year, and no hidden trigger when you cross a tier threshold mid-year.

Aldea is built so a brand-new treasurer can pick it up in under 15 minutes — invitations go out, dues come in, and the previous treasurer doesn't need to walk anyone through a 60-page handover doc. The 14-day free trial requires no credit card. If you're ready to see it in your own community, start a free trial gets you set up.

The Bottom Line

Pricing comparisons can get noisy fast, but the question is simple — does the platform charge you proportionally to your size? Aldea's flat-rate model means you pay once for the platform and only transaction fees scale with what you're actually collecting. Per-home competitors charge you twice for growth: once on the subscription line, again on the transaction line. Sales-call-gated competitors charge you both money and time before you can find out what either of those numbers will look like.

Self-managed boards from 30 to 2,000+ members are who Aldea is built for. If that's you, we'd rather show you the math than make you book a call to ask. Start your free trial, or see all pricing first — both are on the public site, no demo call required.