Buildium vs PayHOA for HOA boards (2026)

The pricing model difference

Buildium uses per-unit pricing: $1.50-$3/unit/month depending on your plan tier. For a 100-unit HOA, that is $150-$300/month. For 300 units, $450-$900/month. The cost scales directly with community size, which is reasonable for professional property managers billing costs to clients. For a self-managed HOA paying out of dues, it adds up fast.

PayHOA uses flat monthly tiers starting around $49/month. The higher tiers cover more features, not more units. A 300-unit HOA on PayHOA pays the same as a 100-unit HOA on the same tier. For self-managed communities, flat pricing is almost always cheaper once you have more than 50-75 units.

Who each tool is built for

Buildium’s design assumes a property management company running dozens of properties for multiple owner-clients. The reporting structure, the owner vs. tenant distinctions, the multi-property portfolio view: all of it assumes that context. Volunteer HOA board members who open the software once a month for a treasurer report find the interface confusing.

PayHOA is built for HOAs specifically. The terminology is right: homeowners, not tenants. The board structure is explicit. The violation workflow matches HOA enforcement processes. For a volunteer treasurer handling their own community’s finances, PayHOA is easier to navigate.

Features both tools share

Both have:

• Online dues collection with ACH and credit card
• Basic accounting and financial reports
• Owner portals for document access and payment history
• Violation tracking with letter generation
• Document storage for governing documents

The execution quality differs in the details. Buildium’s mobile app gets poor ratings, an issue when board members want to check something on a phone. PayHOA’s mobile experience is better.

What both tools miss

Neither Buildium nor PayHOA tracks reserve fund compliance. Both let you record transactions to a reserve fund account, but neither connects your reserve balance to a reserve study target, flags underfunding risk, or generates the reserve status reports state law may require.

Gavelhouse is built around fund separation and reserve balance visibility. If your board needs current reserve balances separated from operating funds, that is the shipped gap Gavelhouse was designed to fill. Reserve adequacy analysis should remain in the board’s external reserve workflow today.

Verdict

PayHOA is the better fit for self-managed HOA boards: lower cost, simpler interface, and purpose-built for the HOA context. Buildium's per-unit pricing and property management focus make it a poor match. For reserve fund compliance on top of core management, Gavelhouse ($14.50-$74.50/mo billed annually with LAUNCH50 flat) adds what PayHOA lacks. For self-managed boards evaluating these tools because financial governance is the real gap, Gavelhouse is the stronger fit: it combines fund separation, reserve balance visibility, and board-operable workflows in one system.