Stessa tracks your properties. Doughy runs your business.
Stessa (by Roofstock) is a solid free tool for tracking rental property finances. But once you need to grow your portfolio, automate leasing, or get AI-powered insights, Stessa's simplicity becomes its limitation. It watches your numbers — it doesn't move them.
This is our comparison, so read it knowing who wrote it — we've tried to be fair.
Stessa watches your numbers. Doughy moves them.
Stessa
- A dashboard, not an operations layer
- No AI for communication, leasing, or deals
- Growth means adding separate platforms
Doughy
- AI does the work 24/7 and sends on your OK
- Bookkeeping plus leasing, deals, and outreach
- Replaces the stack that grows around the free tool
Stessa
Designed for passive landlords and buy-and-hold investors who want a clean, free dashboard to track rental income, expenses, and net cash flow. Great for monitoring — less so for active management.
Doughy
Built for investors and landlords who actively manage and grow their portfolios. Whether you're acquiring new deals, managing tenants, or scaling operations, Doughy's AI assistant does the work, not just the reporting.
Stessa
Automatic transaction imports from linked bank accounts, one-click categorization, and tax-ready reports. Stessa shines at making bookkeeping approachable for new landlords. Clean, simple, and genuinely useful for what it does.
Doughy
Income tracked across properties with late payments flagged, with expense categorization and deeper portfolio insights on the way. Built to go beyond tracking as the platform grows.
Stessa
Stessa focuses on data organization and reporting. There are no AI agents for communication, deal analysis, or leasing automation. The platform is a dashboard, not an operations layer.
Doughy
One AI assistant handles leasing inquiries, follow-up, books and tenant communication, and reads the comps on your deals. AI doesn't just show you data — it does the work 24/7 and has it ready for your OK.
Stessa
Stessa is a monitoring tool. When you want to find your next deal, analyze comps, reach out to sellers, or automate lead follow-up, you'll need separate platforms. There's no acquisition pipeline or CRM.
Doughy
Full acquisition-to-management lifecycle. AI-powered comps, outreach drafted for your OK, deal analysis, and pipeline management — then seamless transition to property management after closing.
Stessa
Free tier covers the basics and is genuinely useful. Stessa Pro adds deeper tax reporting and rent analysis for around $12/mo. Hard to argue with the price — the question is whether "free" is enough for what you actually need.
Doughy
Starting at $82/mo with an AI assistant included. More expensive than free, obviously — but the comparison isn't "free vs. $99." It's "free tracking tool + $150 CRM + $80 dialer + VA costs" vs. one platform that replaces the stack.
Where Stessa wins
Stessa is one of the best free tools for landlords — the transaction imports, categorization, and tax-ready reports are genuinely useful.
The Verdict
Stessa is one of the best free tools for landlords — and we mean that. If you own a few rentals and just want to see your cash flow without paying for software, Stessa is a smart choice. But Stessa is a dashboard, not a business engine. It doesn't follow up with leads, respond to tenants, or manage your leasing pipeline. Doughy does that with an AI assistant included in every plan — the work done and waiting for your OK. If your portfolio is growing and you need more than a rearview mirror, that's where Doughy steps in.
Ready to replace Stessa?
Join the waitlist and see what one platform can do.
See Also
All competitor information is based on publicly available data as of April 2026. Trademarks belong to their respective owners. Doughy is not affiliated with or endorsed by any competitor mentioned on this page.