Toggle fees on and off to see how each one impacts your revenue per unit. Build the fee schedule that gets you to $300/mo RPU.
The foundation of your revenue. These fees should be in every PMA.
Recurring percentage of collected rent for day-to-day property management.
One-time fee when a new tenant is placed in a property.
Fee for renewing an existing tenant's lease for another term.
Percentage markup on vendor invoices for coordinating repairs.
Flat penalty charged to tenants when rent is paid after the due date. Some markets use a percentage of rent instead.
Non-refundable fee charged to each adult applicant for screening.
What most PM companies get wrong about property management pricing, and how the operators hitting $300/mo RPU actually think about fees.
The "8-12% plus a leasing fee" answer is useless.
Profitable operators think in revenue per unit (RPU): total monthly revenue per door across all fee categories. Management fee, leasing, maintenance markup, tenant fees, owner fees, application fees. Combined. Not one number in isolation.
Most PM companies sit at $130-175 RPU.
Per NARPM fee studies, a well-structured company with ~300 doors should target $300/mo RPU. That works out to roughly $1M annual revenue and $250K profit after payroll. The gap between $175 and $300 isn't the management fee percentage. It's the ancillary fee structure that most operators never build.
$300/mo RPU at 300 doors = $1M annual revenue
The operators who obsess over their management fee percentage are missing more than half the picture.
In a well-built fee structure, management fees account for about 45% of total revenue (and shrinking). Leasing and renewals add 20%. Ancillary tenant fees contribute 21% (and growing). Ancillary owner fees add 10%. Application fees round it out at 4%. A company charging 7.9% with strong ancillary fees will outperform one charging 12% with nothing else.
If you aren't making money on maintenance, you are losing money on maintenance.
The average PM company runs a 6% profit margin. Factor in staff time for dispatching vendors, reviewing invoices, quality checks, and owner communication on a $3,000 HVAC replacement, and you're underwater without a coordination fee. The industry standard is 10% on every vendor invoice, no upper limit. For larger projects, hourly rates of $85-$125/hr often exceed the percentage.
6% average profit margin without maintenance markup
Your bank does this. Your credit card company does this.
An amendment clause lets you update your PMA with 30-60 days written notice, no new signatures required. Without it, you're re-signing every owner every time you add a $25 admin fee. With it, you send an email and the changes take effect at the end of the notice period. Standard business practice.
Don't implement 76 fees at once.
The recommended approach is a 24-month rollout. Start with the highest-impact fees (maintenance markup and resident benefit package). Add 3-5 fees per quarter. Secret shop your competitors before setting dollar amounts. Track RPU monthly. If it's climbing, you're on the right path.
The most common mistake is assuming you can't charge a fee because you heard it from another PM.
Every state has different rules. California caps application fees at ~$57. New York limits them to actual cost. Late fees range from 5-12% by state. The calculator adjusts for CA, TX, FL, NY, and WA. Check the actual statutes. Talk to a landlord-tenant attorney. Almost every fee restriction has a creative workaround.
Need help implementing? We built this calculator because pricing is the #1 conversation in every PM operator group. If you want a fee structure that actually sticks, or the marketing system that brings in enough owners to charge what you're worth, see what we offer or take the free assessment.