Porchyard vs Avail
Avail helps you find and onboard tenants. Porchyard picks up afterwards: categorized transactions per property, leases, and invoices for the owners you manage for.
Avail is aimed at the DIY landlord filling a vacancy. Syndicated listings, online applications, tenant screening, a state-specific lease to sign, then rent collected through the platform. It is a well-shaped answer to "I have an empty unit". It also assumes you are the owner. If you manage a property for someone else, there is no owner to attach it to and no statement to produce.
Porchyard is aimed at the months in between. Every transaction imported and categorized against the property it belongs to, so you can see what each one actually earns. Leases recorded against the unit, with the renewal date where you will find it in two years. And if you manage for someone else, a statement showing what they are owed after your fee.
| Feature | Porchyard | Avail |
|---|---|---|
| Online Rent Collection | No | Yes |
| Maintenance Tracking | No | Yes |
| Tenant Screening | No | Yes |
| Lease Creation | No | Yes |
| Lease Tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Management Invoicing | Yes | No |
Import statements by CSV, categorize each transaction against the property it belongs to, and read income, expense and cash-flow totals for each property rather than one lump figure.
Each billing period drafts its own owner invoice. Review it, send the PDF, and see what is outstanding, overdue or paid across every property.
Attach owners to their properties, calculate your management fee from each billing period's income, and send each owner an itemized invoice.
Porchyard does not list vacancies, take applications, screen tenants, or provide lease templates, and it has no tenant portal or online rent collection. Avail covers all of that. Porchyard records the lease you signed elsewhere; it does not help you sign it.
If your immediate problem is an empty unit -- getting it listed, screening applicants, signing a compliant lease and collecting the first rent -- Avail does all of that and Porchyard does none of it. Choose Porchyard once the unit is filled and the work becomes books, invoices and, if you manage for other owners, reporting to them.
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