How we test real estate investor software
What we check, what we refuse to state, and what we have got wrong.
We have not subscribed to these tools
That is the most important sentence on this page, so it goes first rather than in a footnote. We do not buy a subscription to every tool in order to write about it, and we are not going to imply that we did.
What we do instead is read.
- Prices and terms Pricing pages and the terms of use behind them.
- Help centres Where what a company will actually do for you is usually buried.
- Rating platforms Every rating each independent platform holds, including the platforms holding none.
- App store reviews The reviews people leave on both app stores.
- Vendors’ public replies The replies vendors post in public to their own unhappy customers, which are often the most revealing documents of the lot.
So when a review says
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A phone app is rated 3.07
That is a figure you can go and check today.
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Four of ten reviewers complained about stale phone numbers
Someone read ten reviews and counted.
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Nothing on how a tool feels after six months of daily use
That is because nobody here has used it for six months, and we would rather leave the gap visible.
What happens before a review is published
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See it on a review
A fact sheet is built first, and the page is built from it
Every tool gets a research file before it gets a page. Prices, plan limits, metered extras, trial terms, ratings and complaints all land there with a source URL and the date they were read. The published page can only state something that appears in that file. It means a price can never be typed from memory, and a figure can always be traced back to where it came from.
The sources behind the PropStream review
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See it on a review
The vendor’s claims and the reviewers’ claims are kept apart
In the research file they are literally separate sections, so marketing copy cannot quietly become a finding. When a vendor advertises a rating on its own site, we say so and put the independently checkable number beside it.
REsimpli’s own rating, set beside G2’s
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See it on a review
Complaints are counted, not characterised
"Some users report" is not evidence. We read a fixed set, usually the first page of reviews on a platform and the most recent ones on each app store, and we report how many raised each theme out of how many we read. If a tool has one unhappy customer rather than a pattern, the page says one.
BatchLeads’ complaints, each with its count
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See it on a review
Empty review platforms are shown, not hidden
If a tool has no G2 listing or a Capterra page with zero reviews, that slot still appears and it reads None. The absence tells you something real about how much independent scrutiny a product has had, and dropping it would make thin evidence look thorough.
DealMachine’s empty G2 and Capterra slots
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See it on a review
Every review must name what the tool is bad at and who should not buy it
Those two sections are structural rather than optional. They cannot be left out without editing the template that builds every review, which is deliberate.
What Carrot is bad at
Rules we will not bend for a better page
Three of them, and none has an exception.
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A rating is only used when it plainly belongs to that product
Review sites surround a product with competing ones, in sidebars and related panels, and those carry ratings that look exactly like the one you came for. So a number is only used when the page it sits on is unmistakably about the tool being reviewed. If a figure could belong to a neighbour, it does not go on the page.
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Commission never touches ranking order
Where a tool pays us more, it does not move up. Where a tool pays us nothing, it does not move down. One of the products reviewed here is free, and it is recommended wherever it genuinely beats the paid ones, which is the only honest test of whether the rest of the page means anything.
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When something is unknown, the page says unknown
One tool’s FAQ mentions two plans above the top one it prices, and no page we read says what either costs. So the review names them and says they are not priced, because any figure we put beside them would be a guess.
What we earn, and what it does not buy
What we earn
Some links here are affiliate links. If you subscribe through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. That is the whole of it, and it is the only thing about our arrangements that appears anywhere on a review.
What it does not buy
- A place in a ranking
- A softer verdict
- Removal of a complaint
- The absence of a competitor
No vendor sees a review before it is published, and no vendor has been given the chance to respond to one privately. If a tool is the wrong purchase for you, the page you are reading is supposed to say so plainly, and several of them do.
The free tool in this category is reviewed with the same care as the ones that pay, and it is recommended wherever it genuinely wins.
Prices move and pages change
Every figure on this site carries the month it was read, because these vendors reprice often and at least one of them serves different prices to different visitors as a test. If you find something here that no longer matches what you are being shown, that is worth telling us, and it is worth checking the vendor’s own page before you buy either way.