Innago shows up in Capterra’s HOA software results, but it didn’t start life as HOA software. It’s a free rent-collection and property management tool built for independent landlords and small rental operators, one that lists community associations as one of several use cases alongside residential rentals, commercial space, self storage, and military housing. Here’s how it actually compares to BoostHOA for a board running a homeowners association.
Who Innago is built for
Innago’s core audience is small to mid-size landlords managing a handful of rental units. Its feature set: online lease signing, automated rent reminders, tenant screening with credit and background checks, maintenance request tracking, and mobile-friendly payments, reads as landlord-tenant software first. Ninety-seven percent of its reviewers come from small businesses, and the large majority describe themselves as being in real estate rather than community association management. HOAs are on Innago’s list of served markets, but the product itself is organized around the landlord-tenant relationship rather than board governance, ownership records, or resident-to-resident rules enforcement.
Reviews: strong marks from small landlords, more mixed at scale
Innago holds an excellent 4.9 out of 5 rating on Capterra across 265 reviews, with 96.6% of reviewers saying they’d recommend it, one of the higher recommendation scores in the property management category. Reviewers consistently praise responsive customer support and an easy learning curve for non-technical users. The criticism that does show up centers on lease template editing (users report it can be cumbersome to format and customize documents) and occasional bugs like document misalignment or lag. Worth noting for a board evaluating it: reviews split noticeably by portfolio size. Landlords with 1–5 units tend to rate Innago five stars, while operators managing 20 or more units are more likely to land in the two-to-three-star range, a signal that the tool is tuned for small, simple portfolios rather than larger, more complex ones.
Pricing: free for landlords vs. no subscription for either side
Innago’s headline feature is its price: no monthly or annual license fee, for any number of units. The core toolset, rent collection, tenant screening, lease management, and basic accounting, is free to the landlord. Innago instead makes money on optional extras, like paid tenant screening reports and premium support, and on payment processing costs that can be passed along in the transaction rather than billed as a subscription.
BoostHOA works on a similar no-subscription principle but built around association dues rather than rent: no monthly fee for any number of properties, with the association paying only when money moves through the platform, 3.5% + $0.50 on card payments or 1% capped at $10 on ACH transfers. Property management, owner records, document storage, and online payments are included, not sold as add-ons.
Where the two overlap
Both platforms cover some of the same ground for collecting payments and managing requests:
- Online payment collection from residents or tenants
- Maintenance and owner requests submitted and tracked online
- Document storage tied to a property or unit
- A mobile-friendly experience for day-to-day use
Where they differ
Innago’s strength is being genuinely free and easy for a landlord managing a few rental units, and its review scores back that up for that audience. What it doesn’t have is HOA-specific governance tooling: board member management, architectural modification workflows, assessment schedules distinct from rent, or violation tracking built around community rules rather than lease terms. It’s a rental tool that can be pressed into service for an association, not one designed around how associations actually operate.
BoostHOA starts from the other direction: it’s built only for HOA and condo association management, so there’s no landlord-tenant workflow to route around, and the features on the page (dues, documents, owner requests, amenity reservations) map directly to what a board does.
The honest takeaway
If you’re a small landlord who also happens to self-manage a tiny HOA and want one free tool for both, Innago’s price and reviews make it a reasonable option to evaluate. If you’re a board looking for software organized around association governance, assessments, and owner communication rather than rent and leases, get started with BoostHOA for free and see how the fit compares for your community.