Rent Payment Fee Calculator

Online rent collection is often advertised as free to the landlord, but someone pays the processing cost: the landlord, the tenant or both. This calculator shows the total fee on one month of rent so you can compare payment methods and decide whether to pass fees to tenants.

Formula. Total fees = (rent collected x percentage fee) + (flat fee x number of payments). Rent left = rent collected minus total fees minus any other monthly payment costs you enter.

How to use it. Enter the rent you expect to collect, the percentage and flat fee that apply to the payment method (for example, a flat per-transaction fee for bank transfers, or a percentage for cards), and the number of payments. Run it once per method and compare.

Worked example (illustrative). Forty tenants pay 1,200 dollars each, so 48,000 dollars is collected. With a flat 2 dollar fee on each of 40 bank payments and no percentage fee, fees are 80 dollars. If the same rent were paid by card at an illustrative 3 percent with no flat fee, fees would be 1,440 dollars, which is why many platforms steer tenants toward bank transfers.

Limits. Rules about passing fees to tenants differ by state and by lease, and some states restrict surcharges. Card network rules also matter. The numbers here are illustrative; use your processor's actual schedule and check local law.