GnomeOwner

GnomeOwner (gnomeowner.com) is web software for self-managed HOAs and condo associations. The pitch has three parts: it reads your Declaration and bylaws to build the owner and unit roster and answer “what do our documents say?” with the clause cited, it preloads a state-law compliance calendar, and it collects dues online through the HOA’s own Stripe account. The About page says it is built by Travis and Vivi Sawyer, a husband-and-wife team in Decatur, Georgia. Travis (co-founder, product; formerly a cinematographer, then UX-trained) is president of his own 10-unit self-managed condo board, and Vivi is co-founder for partnerships and growth. The operator is ReGild LLC (DBA GnomeOwner). The Terms (last updated July 27, 2026), Privacy Policy (June 30, 2026), and DMCA policy give the mailing address as 1445 Woodmont Ln NW #1769, Atlanta, GA 30318, with support@gnomeowner.com. That Atlanta suite address differs from the About page’s “Decatur, Georgia.” The Terms set Georgia law with AAA arbitration seated in DeKalb County, GA (residents using the portal are exempt from arbitration). No founding date or customer count is published. A third-party directory lists it as founded 2026, and GnomeOwner’s own PayHOA comparison calls the product “pilot stage.”

Audience is self-managed. Every page leads with volunteer boards, and the founder writes as a sitting board president. A separate management-firm console serves portfolios of 5–100 communities. It is walkthrough-only with no self-serve signup, priced from $29 per community per month on one consolidated invoice, and still v1: every firm staff member sees every community, and per-manager assignment is on the roadmap. We did not evaluate it here. Schema range is 1–1,000 units, matching the top self-serve band; above 1,000 is quoted.

Pricing (researched October 13, 2026) appears in the homepage pricing section, on the free plan page, and in the help article What does each plan include, and what does it cost?, which is marked as checked against the product on October 10, 2026. All three agree. The Neighbor plan is free with no card and no time limit. Paid plans have one flat monthly price by unit count:

• Starter (up to 25 units): $29 founding rate, locked for life for the first 150 subscribing HOAs; $39 after that
• Growth (26–100 units): $59
• Community (101–250 units): $99
• Large (251–1,000 units): $199
• Over 1,000 units: custom quote

Yearly billing gives two months free. The site’s pricing code sets annual at 10× monthly, which works out to $290 / $590 / $990 / $1,990 per year (Starter at the founding rate). Every paid plan has the same features; price follows unit count only. Support differs by size: email (Starter), priority (Growth), concierge onboarding and support (Community). There are no setup fees, per-seat charges, or contracts. Every new association gets 45 days of full access with no card, and boards that do not subscribe drop to Free with all records kept. You can cancel any time from Plan & Billing and keep access through the paid period. The Terms say fees already paid are non-refundable except where law requires, and that price increases get advance notice.

Online dues run on the HOA’s own Stripe account, and Stripe pays out to the HOA’s bank; GnomeOwner never holds the money. Residents pay exactly their dues, by bank transfer always or by card if the board turns cards on. There is no setting that passes fees to residents (the homepage attributes this to card-network rules). The HOA absorbs two costs, both deducted before payout:

• Stripe processing: card 2.9% + $0.30; bank transfer 0.8% capped at $5, per the dues collection page
• GnomeOwner’s platform fee: 0.75% of each payment, capped at $5

The vendor’s worked example has a $150 bank payment netting the HOA $147.67, and a bank payment never costs more than $10 however large it is. Card costs are not capped: by our math, a $150 card payment costs the HOA about $5.78. GnomeOwner’s own comparison admits that PayHOA’s flat $2.45 ACH fee is cheaper per payment above about $158. Owner autopay (with a 10-day notice and an optional owner-set limit) and reminders before and after the due date are on paid plans. The dues page also mentions a late fee the board sets, without saying which plan includes it. Checks and cash can be recorded by hand on any plan.

On accounting depth, GnomeOwner is mixed: more than dues-only, but explicitly not a ledger product. The HOA accounting page FAQ says it “isn’t a full double-entry accounting system.” The Finances tab builds books from bank activity:

• Getting bank data in. On Free, upload a statement (CSV, PDF, or a photo of a paper statement). Uploads get balance checks, skip duplicates, and can be undone in one click. Paid plans add read-only Plaid sync
• Review queue. Each line arrives with a suggested category, taken from your past choices, then simple rules, then AI. A vendor confirmed three times becomes a rule you can switch off. Amounts from the bank cannot be edited, and History logs every change. Dues deposits wait for a unit match before crediting an owner
• Watchdog. Flags unusual vendor charges, possible duplicates, missed regular payments, budget lines pacing over, uncategorized expenses, and any change to where dues pay out
• Budget vs actual, by category
• Financial Report, framed three ways (board packet, owner annual report, CPA tax packet). It covers revenues and expenses, a balance sheet, aged receivables, reserve activity, and budget vs actual. The tax packet adds Form 1120-H eligibility tests and an income classification, plus a 1099 worksheet with masked TINs
• Exports. QuickBooks-format CSV, general ledger CSV, budget vs actual CSV, delinquency CSV, and PDF

The Terms describe all of these as unaudited internal computations, not tax advice. What it does not have, by the vendor’s own description or because we could not find it: double-entry, true multi-fund ledgers with inter-fund entries, accrual books, period locks, and a reserve-study tool. A board whose CPA expects fund statements should keep QuickBooks or choose a fund-accounting product.

Other features:

• Board Assistant (“Bramble”). Free with usage limits. It answers from your own governing documents with the section cited and does not remember past conversations. The founder’s buyer’s guide suggests testing whether an assistant handles later amendments correctly, and that test applies here too
• Roster. Extracted from the Declaration (ownership percentages must total 100%) or a CSV import, and reviewed before saving
• Meetings and minutes. Agendas, motions, board votes, and minutes, including minutes drafted from a recording
• Owner portal. Each resident sees only their own balance and history, and dues emails carry a pay button that needs no login. Paper letters go out via Lob. The Terms also mention SMS and estoppel/resale-certificate fees, but we found no product page for either
• Compliance calendar. Preloads federal filings plus a curated state baseline, with each item tagged Mandatory, Recommended, or Optional and the statute sentence beside it. The states index lists all 50 states, but the founder’s compliance calendar explainer says coverage ships one state-and-association-type combination at a time. Several state entries name only a condominium act (North Carolina “Chapter 47C condominiums,” New York, Massachusetts, Michigan), so a planned-community HOA in those states should check what actually preloads. State pages such as Minnesota note that they have not had a full attorney review

The founder’s buyer’s guide (Sept 20, 2026) publishes a gap list:

• No conducting or certifying member votes, and no quorum counting (on the roadmap)
• No native mobile app (the web portal works in a phone browser)
• No architectural review beyond leasing permits

We also found no amenity reservations, violations workflow, or public community website on the official pages we checked.

Data and security. Each HOA is its own tenant, data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and data is never sold or used for AI training. Boards can export everything at any time. Deleting an HOA starts a 30-day undo window, and the money ledger is kept with names removed. The sub-processors page (Sept 18, 2026) lists:

• Supabase (AWS us-east-1) and Vercel
• Google Gemini, Groq, and Mistral (OCR)
• OpenRouter, which routes the assistant to zero-retention hosts of the open-weights DeepSeek V4 Flash model
• Plaid, Stripe, Resend, Lob, and Sentry

Every signed-DPA status on that page reads “Pending confirmation” or “Pending signature.” The Privacy Policy names only Gemini and Groq for AI.

Honest assessment: GnomeOwner is the most generous free board tool we have reviewed for the records, bylaws, and deadlines half of the job. The paid bands are cheap ($59 up to 100 units, $99 up to 250). The money path is clearly documented, and the documentation is more candid than most: dated fact-checks, named competitor wins, and a published gap list. The catches are maturity and scope:

• It is pilot-stage, with no independent reviews yet
• The books are bank-line bookkeeping, not a ledger
• Voting, ARC, violations, amenities, and a website are absent
• Card fees always fall on the HOA, with no cap
• The AI-heavy design touches several model providers whose DPAs are listed as pending
• The “50 states” headline needs the state-and-association-type caveat above

Who it’s for: a self-managed HOA or condo of roughly 10–250 units whose volunteer treasurer wants clean, categorized bank books and a board packet without QuickBooks, and whose board values cited bylaw answers and a statute-backed deadline list, and would rather start free than sit through a demo.

Who should keep looking:

• Boards that need double-entry or fund accounting with period locks: HOAfy, VlgeHOA, CommunityPay, Perfect HOA, HOA Hub, or the ledger plan on DuesIQ
• Boards that want free online dues collection: KindHOA, whose free tier includes payments
• Boards that want voting, ARC, violations, or a community website in the same tool: PayHOA, Stewardly, HOA Express, DuesIQ
• Boards that collect large single ACH payments and want a flat per-payment fee: PayHOA
• Boards that want a long review trail: PayHOA, HOA Start
• Professionally managed portfolios: Buildium, CINC Systems, Vantaca

Compare under self-managed boards and accounting / reserve, or start with the small self-managed board shortlist.

Sources

• Official site: product overview; pricing section with Neighbor $0, Starter $29 founding / $39 standard (≤25 units), Growth $59 (26–100), Community $99 (101–250), $199 (251–1,000), and custom over 1,000; two months free yearly; 45-day trial; 0.75% platform fee capped at $5 plus Stripe 2.9% + 30¢ card; HOA covers card cost; ReGild LLC footer. gnomeowner.com
• Help: plans and pricing (free vs paid, unit bands, founding rate, 45-day trial, dues fees, cancellation; checked against the product Oct 10, 2026). gnomeowner.com/help/plans-security-and-data/plans-and-pricing
• Free plan page (free vs paid table; storage and per-upload limits; Board Assistant usage limits; logo and own email domain on paid). gnomeowner.com/free-hoa-software
• Help: how residents pay dues (bank always, card optional; exact dues; HOA’s own Stripe account; 0.75% capped at $5; bank payments clear in 3–4 business days). gnomeowner.com/help/money-and-payments/how-residents-pay-dues
• Dues collection page (Stripe setup in the HOA’s name; $150 worked example; Stripe bank fee 0.8% capped at $5; $10 maximum per bank payment; autopay, reminders, late fees; PayHOA crossover at $158). gnomeowner.com/hoa-dues-collection
• HOA accounting page (Review queue, watchdog, budget vs actual, Financial Report, 1120-H tests, 1099 worksheet, QuickBooks and GL CSVs, Plaid read-only sync on paid plans, “isn’t a full double-entry accounting system”). gnomeowner.com/hoa-accounting-software
• Help: how data is protected (tenant isolation, encryption, no training, Stripe and Plaid roles, 30-day deletion window). gnomeowner.com/help/plans-security-and-data/how-your-data-is-protected
• About (Travis and Vivi Sawyer; Decatur, GA; operated by ReGild LLC). gnomeowner.com/about
• Terms of Service (ReGild LLC DBA GnomeOwner, Atlanta GA 30318 address; Georgia law; AAA arbitration in DeKalb County; ~0.75% platform fee; 45-day trial; AI providers; not a managing agent; last updated July 27, 2026). gnomeowner.com/terms
• Privacy Policy (Supabase, Vercel, Gemini, Groq, Resend; last updated June 30, 2026). gnomeowner.com/privacy
• Sub-processors (full vendor list; DPA status pending; last updated Sept 18, 2026). gnomeowner.com/subprocessors
• Data Processing Addendum. gnomeowner.com/dpa
• Copyright and DMCA policy (ReGild LLC address). gnomeowner.com/dmca
• Management-firm console (5–100 communities, walkthrough only, from $29 per community per month, per-manager assignment on the roadmap). gnomeowner.com/for-management-firms
• Vendor comparisons (six-vendor table verified Sept 8, 2026; PayHOA page verified Oct 8, 2026, which calls GnomeOwner “pilot stage”). gnomeowner.com/compare, gnomeowner.com/compare/payhoa
• Founder’s buyer’s guide with the published gap list (no voting, no native app, ARC limited to leasing permits; Sept 20, 2026). gnomeowner.com/blog/self-managed-hoa-software-buyers-guide
• Compliance calendar explainer (coverage by state and association type; not legal advice; Aug 21, 2026). gnomeowner.com/blog/what-an-hoa-compliance-calendar-does
• State coverage index and a sample state page. gnomeowner.com/states, gnomeowner.com/states/minnesota
• Third-party check: TopBusinessSoftware lists GnomeOwner (free plan; from $29/month; founded 2026; no reviews shown). The page blocks automated checks, so it is not linked. Crunchbase lists the legal name as ReGild LLC (blocked to curl). No G2 or Capterra profile, Product Hunt listing, r/HOA thread, or X posts were found on Oct 13, 2026. No llms.txt is published (404)

Best for

Volunteer boards of small and mid-size self-managed HOAs and condos (roughly 10–250 units) that want a real free plan for documents, cited bylaw answers, a statute-cited compliance calendar, and simple bank-based books, then a cheap flat upgrade to Stripe dues with a hard $10 cap on bank-payment fees.

Pricing notes

Official pricing section, free-plan page, and help article 'What does each plan include, and what does it cost?' (help page marked checked against the product Oct 10, 2026; researched Oct 13, 2026). Free 'Neighbor' plan with no card and no time limit covers whole-board logins, the Board Assistant (usage limits apply), 5 GB of documents (300 files per upload), compliance tracking, owner and unit records, meetings and minutes, and basic financials (record payments yourself; bookkeeping from uploaded bank statements). Paid plans add online dues through the HOA's own Stripe account, resident autopay, read-only Plaid bank sync, automated reminders and dunning, HOA logo and own email domain on outgoing mail, and 50 GB storage (5,000 files per upload). One flat monthly price by unit count, no setup fees, no per-seat charges, no contract. Starter up to 25 units $29/mo founding rate for the first 150 subscribing HOAs (locked for life), $39/mo after that; Growth 26–100 units $59; Community 101–250 units $99; Large 251–1,000 units $199; over 1,000 units custom. Yearly billing is two months free (the site's pricing code sets annual at 10× monthly, e.g. $590/yr for Growth). 45-day full-access trial with no card; accounts that do not subscribe drop to Free and keep their records. Online dues cost the HOA Stripe processing (bank transfer 0.8% capped at $5 per the vendor's own worked example; card 2.9% + $0.30, uncapped) plus a GnomeOwner platform fee of 0.75% capped at $5 per payment, both deducted before payout, so a bank payment costs the HOA at most $10. Residents pay exactly their dues with no surcharge, and the board cannot pass fees through. Management firms get a separate walkthrough-only console from $29 per community per month on one consolidated invoice. Terms (July 27, 2026) promise advance notice of price increases.