TransUnion SmartMove Alternatives for Property Managers

TransUnion SmartMove is the screening report a lot of small landlords run first. It is sold per applicant, the prices are on the page, and you decide whether you or the applicant pays. The people who keep looking tend to fall into two groups. Small landlords want to compare price, or want a person reviewing the report. Larger operators find that a credit report does not tell them whether the pay stub in the application is real. This page covers the other vendors in our tenant screening category, grouped by which of those problems they address, and the questions to bring to a demo.

Why buyers look past TransUnion SmartMove

Start with what SmartMove does well. It publishes its prices, which most of this category does not: SmartCheck Basic at $25, Plus at $40 and Premium at $49, excluding tax, paid by the landlord or the applicant. Reports come back the same day and cover credit, criminal and eviction history, plus TransUnion’s ResidentScore, Income Insights and an identity check. For a landlord with a handful of doors who wants a bureau report and a decision, that covers the job.

The objections show up as the job grows. The first is fraud. RentPrep’s article on fake pay stubs calls them one of the most commonly faked documents rental applicants submit and says fakes are shockingly easy to buy online. A bureau report reads the applicant’s credit file. It does not examine the PDF the applicant uploaded, and the small operator Multifamily Dive interviewed still describes checking pay stubs and bank statements by hand and calling or emailing to verify every job letter.

The second is the thin-file applicant. The same operator says you cannot base someone’s credit off a credit score, and describes asking for a double deposit from applicants who have a low score but have not done anything wrong. A buyer in that position wants income or bank-transaction data next to the score.

The third is the property management system. SmartMove lists no PMS integration in our database, so the report arrives in its own dashboard and someone keys the decision into the PMS. That is fine at six units and a chore at six hundred.

There is one gap in our own records. TransUnion’s main site blocked our research fetches, so the enterprise rental screening TransUnion sells to larger operators is not in the database. If you are outgrowing SmartMove, ask TransUnion what it sells above it before assuming the answer is a different vendor.

The alternatives, grouped by what they replace

The table above carries each vendor’s description, pricing and integrations from the database. Here is how they sort.

Another per-applicant report

RentPrep, now part of Stessa, has an FCRA-certified screener review each report. It sells a Credit Report or a Full Background Check at $29 and a Complete Screening at $49, with income verification for $10 more and employment verification for $15 more. RentSpree runs on TransUnion data, so the report underneath is the same bureau’s; Standard is $39.99 and Comprehensive, which adds bank-verified income and reference checks, is $49.99. It also sells to real estate agents. LeaseRunner is pay-per-applicant screening bundled with online applications, lease templates and rent collection, with no monthly fee: Basic $17, Pro $40, Ultimate $54 and Premium $64, paid by the applicant or the landlord. SingleKey covers the US and Canada and adds income-document fraud detection and a rent guarantee; its US tenant screening report is $29.99, with no sign-up or subscription fee, paid by the landlord or the tenant.

A check on the documents and the income

Snappt examines bank statements and pay stubs for signs of editing, and adds payroll-connected income verification, biometric ID checks and verification of rent. It sells to multifamily operators and integrates with Entrata, RealPage, Yardi and ResMan. Payscore, formerly The Closing Docs, reads income and identity from a bank or payroll connection, with AI document review and employer or landlord confirmation as the fallback. It lists Yardi, RealPage, Entrata, ResMan, Rent Manager and Rentvine, and sells a per-unit subscription without publishing the figure.

Four more vendors verify income from payroll or bank data with the applicant’s permission: Argyle, Truv, Nova Credit’s Income Navigator and Plaid. Argyle names Snappt and SafeRent among its customers, and Plaid sells its APIs to property management platforms as well as operators. A small landlord is more likely to meet these inside another vendor’s screening flow than to buy one directly.

Bank data in place of the score

Rent Butter screens with bank-transaction data alongside identity, criminal and fraud checks. It aims at managers from 75 units up and integrates with Rent Manager and AppFolio. Of the vendors here, it is the most direct answer to the thin-file problem.

The whole decision, automated

Findigs runs identity, income, employment and document checks and then underwrites against your own risk policy to approve or deny. Its integrations page mentions native integrations without naming a PMS, so ask which. VERO is a multifamily screening and risk platform that integrates with Yardi, Entrata, RealPage and Rent Manager and attaches a deposit alternative, loss-of-employment cover and guarantor products. ApproveShield combines real-time eviction filing data, ID fraud detection, criminal checks and human-reviewed primary source verification for multifamily communities.

A full-service screening company

SafeRent Solutions, AmRent and Western Reporting supply credit, criminal and income checks to property managers. Western Reporting is part of Inhabit Residential Solutions and serves single-family managers as well as multifamily. None of the three publishes pricing; each record says custom quote.

Boom is in the category because it reports rent to all three bureaus as part of a resident benefits package. Its record describes rent reporting, not applicant screening, so it is not a SmartMove replacement.

How to shortlist

Decide first whether you need a different report or something layered on top of a report. If the bureau report is fine and the price or the review is the issue, compare SmartMove with RentPrep and RentSpree on the published prices. If fake documents or thin files are the issue, the shortlist is a verification vendor that works with your PMS. The AppFolio and Rent Manager integration pages show who connects where.

Then ask every vendor the same questions:

1. Does it examine the uploaded document, read income at the source, or both, and what happens when an applicant refuses to link a bank or payroll account?
2. Who pays the fee, and is passing it to the applicant allowed in your state? That one is for counsel, not the vendor.
3. How are criminal records filtered for the cities and counties you operate in, and who keeps that filter current?
4. Does the result land in your PMS, or in a dashboard someone retypes from?
5. Who is the consumer reporting agency, who sends the adverse-action notice, and how does an applicant dispute a record?

What the Index shows

The AI Shortlist Index for tenant screening has the prompt set and the sources behind it, and the live table on this page carries the figures for every vendor listed here. Our reading is that the engine sorts this category by portfolio size, so a small landlord asking for a SmartMove alternative mostly hears about other per-report products and less about the verification tools larger operators layer on top. SmartMove’s own Index row has the prompt-by-prompt detail and sources.

If you sell screening or verification and want to be in that answer, our work on AI visibility for proptech vendors explains how we measure it and what changes it. For buyers, the full list of tenant screening vendors puts the published price lists side by side. Screening is the first thing a new resident goes through and insurance usually comes next, so the renters insurance programs guide is a sensible next read.

Head-to-head comparisons in this category: Snappt and Payscore, TransUnion SmartMove and RentPrep.