Vertical guide · Solo landlord · Verified 17 June 2026

Tenant Screening Cost for Solo Landlords 2026: Why Your Annual Spend Can Be $0

If you own 1 to 5 units, the published-rate tenant screening vendors let you pass the screening fee to the prospective tenant on application. SmartMove $25 to $48 plus tax. RentSpree $39.99 per applicant. Both let the landlord configure tenant-pays as the default.

Direct answer

What does it cost a solo landlord to screen a tenant?

Nothing, if you configure tenant-pays. SmartMove Basic $25, Plus $40, Premium $48 plus sales tax, paid by the tenant on application. RentSpree $39.99 per applicant, paid by the tenant on application. The rental-application tool itself is free on RentSpree. PRO subscription ($19.99/month) is optional and only worth it for 5+ unit landlords.

The published-rate field

For solo landlords (1 to 5 units), only two tenant screening vendors publish per-report pricing on the public site. The third TransUnion product, ShareAble, is the enterprise multifamily version and is not a solo-landlord product.

TransUnion SmartMove. $25 Basic (criminal + ResidentScore), $40 Plus (adds credit and eviction), $48 Premium (adds Income Insights and Identity Check). Plus sales tax on top.
RentSpree. $39.99 per applicant for credit + background + eviction bundle. Rental application tool free. PRO subscription $19.99/month optional.

Tenant-pays vs landlord-pays

Both vendors let the landlord choose on each application whether the tenant pays the screening fee on submission or the landlord pays. The practical default among solo landlords is tenant-pays: it passes the cost to the applicant pool rather than the landlord's P&L, and most prospective tenants treat the application fee as a normal cost of renting.

The trade-off: a $48 application fee (SmartMove Premium plus tax) deters low-conviction applicants, which can be a feature or a bug depending on your local rental market dynamics. A $25 fee (SmartMove Basic) is closer to the market default for low-cost markets and 1-bedroom units.

The right tier for solo landlords

$25 SmartMove Basic. Criminal background + ResidentScore. Right for low-rent markets, 1-bedroom units, or where you want to keep application friction low.
$40 SmartMove Plus. Adds credit report and eviction history. Right for the standard solo-landlord workflow in most US markets.
$48 SmartMove Premium. Adds Income Insights (verifies stated income against TransUnion data) and Identity Check. Right for higher-rent units where income verification is the critical gate.
$39.99 RentSpree. Bundles credit, background, and eviction in one report. Right if you also want the integrated application intake tool (free).

The features that do not matter at solo-landlord volume

Property-management-system (PMS) integration. Yardi, RealPage, AppFolio integrations are for 50+ unit operators.
Bulk pricing. Below 20 applicants per year, the per-report rate is what you pay; negotiating is not worth the time.
White-label or co-branded reports. Solo landlords do not need their logo on the screening report.
Compliance-team reporting. You are the compliance team.

FCRA basics for solo landlords

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to tenant screening the same way it applies to employment background checks. The key obligations are:

Written authorisation from the prospective tenant before pulling the report.
Adverse-action notice if you decline based on the report: tell the tenant which credit bureau provided the data, that they have a right to a free copy of the report, and that they can dispute inaccurate information.
State-specific add-ons. Several states (CA, NY, WA, others) restrict application-fee charges or require additional disclosures. Check your state landlord-tenant code.

Both SmartMove and RentSpree provide adverse-action notice templates as part of the workflow.

What about Zillow, Apartments.com, Avail?

Several rental marketplaces include tenant screening as part of the landlord listing flow. Those are not covered on this site because they bundle screening with listing distribution and the per-report rate is not a clean cost line. If you are already listing on Zillow Rental Manager or Apartments.com, use their bundled screening for convenience; the standalone vendors (SmartMove, RentSpree) make more sense if you find tenants through Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or word of mouth and need a clean screening tool.

What we recommend

For most US solo landlords with 1 to 5 units, RentSpree's free application + $39.99 screening report (tenant-pays) is the cleanest solo-landlord workflow. Use SmartMove instead if you want to start at $25 for criminal-only screening or if you want the Premium $48 tier with Income Insights. Pay through the screening fee to the tenant on application; your landlord-side annual spend should be $0 unless you opt into the optional RentSpree PRO subscription.