PayHOA vs RunHOA

This comparison exists because volunteer boards keep pairing a familiar dues-and-portal name with a flat annual ops suite. PayHOA is built around assessments, ACH, reminders, and a simple owner portal. RunHOA sells one login for directories, dues, HOA-oriented books, communications, e-voting, and owner self-service, with a single published annual software fee.

Neither is Buildium. If someone is pushing a professional association platform, stop and read PayHOA vs Buildium first. That is a different buyer. Other volunteer pairings: PayHOA vs KindHOA (broader workspace, free/flat monthly software) and PayHOA vs AffordableHOA (unit-band monthly ops with a reserve planner).

Affiliate links, when we have them, are disclosed in the header. Until a program URL is live, listing buttons go to the official site. We do not invent star ratings. Dollar amounts below are only what our listings already record from the vendors’ public pricing notes — verify live.

Who each product is for

PayHOA is for the treasurer whose painful job is assessments. Recurring charges, ACH and card, reminders, optional paper mail, documents in a portal. Audience in our directory: self-managed boards. Typical unit fit we record: 1–250 units, with the sweet spot for volunteer use closer to under ~100. Accounting depth we record: dues-only.

RunHOA is for a budget-first volunteer board (and some small multi-association managers) that wants one product covering dues, HOA-oriented books, a portal, and e-voting without a per-door software meter. Audience: self-managed boards. Typical unit fit we record: 1–1,000 units. Pricing model: flat-tier — a published single annual plan. Accounting depth we record: mixed.

A 40-unit board that only needs owners to pay and see a balance usually does not need RunHOA’s ops rooms. A board that wants violations, ARC-style requests, e-voting, and a predictable annual software bill should not buy PayHOA expecting elections and an 1120-H workflow to appear.

Fees — honest, not invented

We will not paste a blog’s “PayHOA is $X a month.” PayHOA’s public tiers change, and our listing does not freeze a current dollar amount.

PayHOA (from our listing): published flat monthly tiers by unit-count band. Payment processing is extra. A volunteer board can usually see the software price without a sales call. Verify current tiers on PayHOA’s site.

RunHOA (from our listing): a published single plan of $399 per year for all listed features, with unlimited units and users. Stripe payment processing is separate. Multi-association property-management signups are charged per association. 30-day trial with no credit card required on the official signup path. Verify current terms on RunHOA’s pricing page.

What that means in practice:

• Both are board-approvable fee shapes. Neither hides behind a CAM-grade “call sales for the minimum.”
• PayHOA’s software bill scales with the unit-count band and is billed monthly. A 30-unit and a 120-unit association are not looking at the same tier.
• RunHOA’s software fee does not meter per door and is billed annually at the figure our listing records. That can look generous as door count grows, and less decisive at 20 units, depending on what you actually use.
• Processing can dominate either bill. RunHOA’s processing sits with Stripe; PayHOA’s processing is extra. Model ACH vs. card at your assessment volume. Mail is extra on the PayHOA side when you need paper; confirm how RunHOA handles notices before you assume print-and-mail is in the plan.
• Do not annualize PayHOA in this article. We do not have a current PayHOA dollar tier on file, so we will not invent a crossover against $399/year.

If a roundup quotes exact monthly software prices without a date and a source, treat them as unknown.

The jobs, not the logos

Job	Usually PayHOA	Usually RunHOA	Neither / look elsewhere
Collect dues, remind, show a balance	Yes — that is the product	Yes — part of the ops suite	If you need a CAM general ledger, leave this aisle
Owner documents / simple portal	Yes	Yes — member portal is in the bundle	TownSq if the gap is engagement and chatter, not back office
Violations, ARC-style requests, e-voting in one vendor	Not why boards buy it	Yes — a stated reason to switch	KindHOA for a free/flat monthly workspace; HOAware for published per-unit ops
Optional paper mail in the same dues workflow	Yes — a listed PayHOA strength	Confirm with the vendor; not the listing headline	Ask both how late notices actually go out
Books a CPA will treat as the file	No — dues ledger	Maybe — mixed, HOA-oriented (1120-H generation is listed); not proven CAM-grade fund accounting	AffordableHOA, Perfect HOA, ManageCasa, or the accounting shortlist

These are qualitative fit notes from our listings, not lab scores. Confirm current modules with the vendor.

Accounting depth

This is the comparison most “vs” posts flatten.

• PayHOA: dues-only. Excellent at money in from owners. Weak as fund accounting. Fine when a CPA still does year-end, or the association is tiny and simple.
• RunHOA: mixed. The vendor bundles HOA accounting/budgeting and 1120-H form generation. We still classify it as HOA-oriented books, not a proven CAM-grade fund-accounting or reserve-compliance system. Reserve / fund separation is not the product’s public center of gravity. Ask to see operating vs. reserve balances and a bank rec on a demo file — and use the 30-day trial — before you retire QuickBooks or a dues-only tool.

If your only problem is late assessments, do not “win” by buying an ops suite you will not operate. If your CPA is asking for restricted reserves, do not “win” by renaming either product a general ledger.

Features that are not the point

Both products collect dues and give owners a login. That overlap is why the search exists. It is not why you should pick one.

PayHOA’s overlap is the whole product: collect, remind, show a balance, keep files. Fast for a treasurer to stand up. Narrower on purpose. Optional paper mail is a real dues-workflow difference.

RunHOA’s overlap is the front door of an ops suite: the same nouns (owners, dues, documents) sit next to violations, ARC-style requests, amenity reservations, e-voting, a website builder, and HOA-oriented books. You are buying those rooms — or you are not.

Brand familiarity and review density are board-politics and diligence issues, not quality scores we invented. PayHOA is the longer-running volunteer dues name in our listings. RunHOA’s listing notes a thin independent review footprint on major software review sites and no native mobile app called out on the public site. Treat UX fit as something to validate in trial. We will not turn that into a star rating.

Switching myths

“RunHOA is PayHOA with extra tabs and a cheaper year.” Only if you will use those tabs. Unused e-voting and a website builder are clutter, not value. We also will not call it cheaper: PayHOA’s current dollar tiers are not on file here.

“Unlimited units means it replaces a CAM platform.” RunHOA’s 1–1,000 unit band and unlimited-users claim do not make it Buildium. Software does not supply staff. Multi-association property-management signups are billed per association, per our listing.

“We’ll grow from PayHOA into RunHOA, then into Buildium.” You grow into jobs (a bookkeeper, a manager, an ACC chair who needs software), not a ladder of logos.

“A 30-day trial means the books are proven.” It means you can import a real dues schedule and walk reports with your treasurer or CPA. Do that. Independent review density is thin as of our listing research pass — do not treat the feature list as proven board experience.

How to decide in one meeting

1. Write down the jobs you will actually use in the next 12 months: dues only, or dues plus violations / ARC-style requests / e-voting / HOA-oriented books.
2. Who closes the month — a volunteer or an employee? If an employee at a firm, you are in the wrong comparison.
3. Can you live with the fee shape (size-band monthly tiers vs. one published annual flat fee), including processing, at your door count?
4. Open the two listings and RunHOA and read pros/cons. Ask PayHOA to show a late assessment and paper mail. Ask RunHOA to show a violation, an e-vote, and — if you claim to need books — operating vs. reserve and a bank rec on a trial file.

If you are still choosing an aisle, use HOA software for small self-managed boards. If you want unit-band monthly ops with a reserve planner instead of a single annual fee, see PayHOA vs AffordableHOA. If you want a free/flat monthly volunteer workspace, see PayHOA vs KindHOA.