What software do small letting agents use?

The short answer

A small agency’s software has to cover four kinds of work: the letting (adverts, applicants, viewings, referencing, the agreement), the tenancy (rent, arrears, repairs, renewals, certificate dates), the landlord client (statements and the money held for them) and the agency itself (staff, redress and client money protection). Most small agencies do best with one system that covers the lettings and management side properly, plus whatever they already use for sales and accounts, rather than the biggest platform on the market.

LetCompliance is built for that lettings and management side, at one flat price for the whole agency.

When the question comes up

A one-branch agency managing 80 to 150 properties on spreadsheets and a shared inbox, where the landlord statements take two days at each month end. Or a sales agency adding lettings and finding that the lettings side of its system is not what its staff want to use day to day. In each case the question is less “which brand” than “which jobs, and who does them”.

How to choose, whatever you buy

List the jobs your team does in a week and who does each one
Decide how rent moves: through your client account, which means client money protection, or straight to the landlord
Decide whether you need adverts fed to the property portals from the same system
Compare per-property pricing with a flat price at the size you expect to be in two years
Check how your landlords, tenants and certificate dates come in: a CSV import or weeks of typing
Make sure every member of staff has their own login and that the system records who did what
Trial it with real records from three or four of your own landlords

The options, compared

Spreadsheets and a shared drive. No licence fee. At volume they cost staff time instead: statements built by hand, reminders that depend on one person, and no record of who changed what.
Estate agency software covering sales and lettings together. Reapit, for example, describes itself on its own homepage as estate agent software that brings sales, lettings and property management together (read 20 October 2026). That suits an agency whose sales side drives the business and which wants one platform for both.
Lettings and property management software. Built around the tenancy and the landlord client rather than the sale. LetCompliance’s Agency plan is £129 a month, or £1,290 a year, with unlimited properties, branches and staff and no VAT added.
Accounting software alongside. Most agencies keep their own accounts package for the business itself, whatever they use for lettings.

How it works in LetCompliance

Landlord clients: each client has a fee agreement, terms, an onboarding checklist and a page showing rent received, commission, arrears, certificates and statement history
Documents in the landlord’s name: agreements and notices name the client landlord, not the agency, and an agent signs a Section 8 notice as Agent
Landlord statements: draw them for every client for a month in one go, and email each with its PDF and itemised rent
Client money: a Client Money Protection reconciliation report showing the balance for each landlord
Staff: roles of owner, admin, manager and viewer, branches with their own property permissions and a branch comparison, and a team activity log of who did what
The letting: a vacancies pipeline, adverts with an Apply button, applications, viewings, referencing ordered per check, and the tenancy agreement signed online
The tenancy: rent recorded and arrears worked out, repairs from the tenant portal, renewals coming up with the decision and the fee, and every certificate date with reminders
The agency itself: your own redress, client money protection, ICO and insurance renewal dates
Moving in: one CSV import, which takes the landlord’s name, email and phone and the branch on each row

A one-person agent with no staff yet can start on Professional, at £49 a month for any number of properties, and move to the Agency plan when colleagues, branches and client money reconciliation are needed.

The law, where it touches the software

Redress. Anyone doing lettings agency work in England must belong to a redress scheme, and so must anyone doing property management work (the Redress Schemes for Lettings Agency Work and Property Management Work (Requirement to Belong to a Scheme etc) (England) Order 2014, articles 3 and 5, legislation.gov.uk, read 20 October 2026). An agency that manages as well as lets is covered by both.
Client money protection. A property agent who holds client money must be a member of an approved or designated client money protection scheme (the Client Money Protection Schemes for Property Agents (Requirement to Belong to a Scheme etc.) Regulations 2019, regulation 3, legislation.gov.uk, read 20 October 2026).

Software can hold the dates and produce the reconciliation; the membership and the obligations stay with the agency.

Common mistakes

Buying for a portfolio three times your size and paying for modules nobody opens.
Underestimating the move: landlords, tenancies, deposits and certificate dates all have to come across, and the first statement run is where gaps show.
Sharing one login across the office, so the activity log says “the office” did everything.
Building statements by hand from a bank export when the system already holds the rent.
Choosing a system whose way of collecting rent does not match how your client account works.

What is the best software for letting agents in the UK?

It depends on what the agency does. If sales drive the business, a combined sales and lettings platform makes sense. If lettings and management are the business, software built around the tenancy and the landlord client usually fits better and costs less.

Is there free letting agent software?

Spreadsheets are the free option. LetCompliance has no free agency plan; the Agency plan is one flat monthly price whatever the number of properties or staff.

How do landlords get their statements?

Each statement is drawn for the month and emailed to the landlord client with its PDF, itemised by rent received.

Can an agency move in from spreadsheets?

Yes. One CSV brings in properties, tenants, landlord clients and branches, and importing the same file again later updates the records instead of duplicating them.

The honest limits

There is no Rightmove, Zoopla or OnTheMarket feed. Adverts go on LetCompliance’s own listings or a link, with the text and photos ready to copy into a portal.
There is no Direct Debit rent collection inside an agency workspace. Rent is recorded and matched, not collected through LetCompliance.
LetCompliance holds no client money.
It is not a sales CRM. An agency selling homes keeps its sales system for that.
There is no white-label version, single sign-on, API or SLA.
Branch permissions cover properties, not every kind of record.
Making Tax Digital updates cannot be sent for landlord clients, and accountant links and read-only seats are for landlord accounts, not agency workspaces.