What does your letting agent actually cost you a year?
A management fee is a percentage of your rent, so the answer depends entirely on your rent — which is why it is worth working out with your own figures rather than an example. Set the sliders below and the page shows both annual totals and subtracts one from the other, with the working underneath.
It is arithmetic, not a promise. What you would actually save depends on what your agent does for you today and how much of it you are willing to do yourself — and the part of the job software cannot take over is set out below the calculator.
Your figures
These start somewhere plausible rather than somewhere true. Put your own numbers in — ideally off your last agent statement, which is the only place the real ones live.
Everything below is applied to each of them, so use your average where they differ.
A management fee is a percentage of rent, so this figure moves the answer more than any other.
£12,000 a year per property, £24,000 across 2 properties.
The percentage of rent your agent keeps on a full-management contract.
How often a property turns over. Tenancies have been periodic from the outset since 1 May 2026, so there is no renewal date to count from — use how long your tenants actually stay.
What your agent charges to find and reference a new tenant, on top of the percentage.
About 2.6 weeks' rent at £1,000 a month — worth checking against how yours is quoted.
Tenarize does not do viewings or marketing. If you would pay for a portal listing, photographs, or a let-only service, put that here — it belongs on your side of the comparison.
A year, side by side
£3,000
a year
£180
a year, on Starter
The difference, on your figures
£2,820
a year — 11.8% of the £24,000 rent you collect. What you would keep is your own time and attention spent instead.
How that was worked out
Every line is arithmetic on the figures you set above, so you can check it against your own statement rather than take it from us.
| Line | How it is reached | A year |
|---|---|---|
| Management fee | £24,000 rent × 10% | £2,400 |
| Tenant-find fees | 2 properties re-let every 2 years is 1.00 lets a year × £600 | £600 |
| Agent total | £3,000 | |
| Tenarize Starter | 2 properties — £15 a month × 12 | £180 |
| Finding tenants yourself | 1.00 lets a year × £0 | £0 |
| Self-managing total | £180 | |
| Difference | £3,000 − £180 | £2,820 |
The figures are a straight annual comparison. They ignore inflation, the tax treatment of an agent's fee as a deductible expense, and anything your agent charges that you have not entered above — inventory, renewal, deposit registration and check-out fees are all commonly separate, and they belong in the tenant-find figure or on your statement's own total. Tenarize's prices are the advertised ones.
What the difference does not account for
A full-management fee buys two different things, and only one of them is software-shaped. A landlord who leaves an agent expecting to lose nothing is in for an unpleasant few months.
Viewings and marketing
Somebody has to be at the property, repeatedly, at times that suit other people. If you work full time and the property is an hour away, this alone can be worth the fee. Tenarize does not do it.
Being local
Holding keys, letting a contractor in, meeting the gas engineer, going to look at the damp patch rather than the photograph of it.
Being called at the weekend
Not the volume of calls — the fact that they do not come to you. Self-managing means the tenant contacts you.
The difficult conversation
Arrears, a noise complaint, a disagreement about the state of the carpet at the end. Some landlords would rather pay someone else to have it, and that is a legitimate reason to stay.
What Tenarize does take over
The process half — the parts with a defined sequence, defined outputs and a date attached, which is most of what the fee covers on a tenancy where nothing goes wrong.
- The compliance list, and what expires when — gas safety, EICR, EPC, alarms, the Renters' Rights Act information sheet
- Vetting: Right to Rent, identity, income, credit, references, guarantor
- The tenancy agreement, generated and e-signed by both sides
- Rent by Direct Debit, with a payment history and arrears flagged on the day
- Documents, inventories and an audit trail you can still produce two years later
- Rent and expense reports by tax year, and a nightly push into FreeAgent if you use it
If most of what you pay for is on the first list, an agent is doing something for you that software cannot, and switching will be a downgrade you feel. Worth knowing which half you are actually consuming before you cost anything out.
Try the process half for a month, for nothing
The first month is free and card details are taken at checkout. Change your mind in the first three months, while no tenancy is active, and you can cancel with a full refund of everything you have paid.
Get started freeTenarize is software, not a solicitor, and this page is a cost comparison rather than advice about your situation. Tenarize covers England only — the help centre has the detail on what it does and does not do.