Accounting & Tax
Clearing
Trust accounting and bookkeeping built for short-term rental managers
Solid Option
Specialist bookkeeping for STR managers who actually need trust accounting
From $25 • No free trial
Comparison
Clearing vs Stessa
Pricing, pros and cons, and buyer-fit side-by-side. Pick the one that matches your operation — or see why neither should.
Accounting & Tax
Stessa
Financial tracking and tax optimization for real estate investors
Best for Small Hosts
Free accounting tool for solo real estate investors
From $0/mo • No free trial
✓Editorial verdict
Which Should You Pick: Clearing or Stessa?
Pick Clearing if you manage 10+ short-term rental units, especially for outside owners, and need trust accounting, owner statements, and multi-OTA reconciliation tied to your PMS. Pick Stessa if you're a self-managing real estate investor who wants free, unlimited property tracking with Schedule E-ready tax reports for your own buy-and-hold portfolio.
Editorial perspective from the Clearing side; factual claims about Stessa are drawn from its review.
Pricing Side-by-Side
Clearing
Full pricing →From $25 • No free trial
Up to 5 listings
$25/mo
- Bookkeeping baseline
- PMS, Stripe, and Airbnb data ingestion
11-20 listings
$9.25 per unit/mo
- Bookkeeping baseline
- Per-unit pricing kicks in
100+ listings
$8.50 per unit/mo
- Bookkeeping baseline at lowest published per-unit rate
- Suitable for portfolios at scale
Trust accounting add-on
$2.50 per unit/mo + $199-$499 setup
- Virtual bank accounts to segregate rental funds
- ACH disbursement to homeowners
Stessa
Full pricing →From $0/mo • No free trial
Essentials
$0/mo
Unlimited
- Unlimited properties
- Basic financial reports
- Bank feeds
- Online rent collection
Manage
$12/mo (annual) or $15/mo (monthly)
Unlimited
- Everything in Essentials
- Advanced reporting
Pro
$28/mo (annual) or $35/mo (monthly)
Unlimited
- Everything in Manage
- High-yield cash balances (3.98% APY)
- FDIC coverage up to $3M
What each tool does well — and where it falls short
What Clearing does well
Broad PMS and payment-processor integration coverage
The integrations page lists Hostaway, Guesty, Hospitable, Lodgify, OwnerRez, Stripe, and others — unusually wide for a bookkeeping-layer product, which reduces lock-in if you switch PMSes.
Trust accounting is the headline feature, not a bolt-on
The homepage title is 'Trust accounting for Property Managers' and the platform supports virtual bank accounts to keep owner funds segregated — a compliance step generalist tools push back to the operator.
Vendor case studies cite quantified time savings
Named customers on the customer-story page report cuts like 'up to 70%' fewer month-end hours across 300+ properties and one operator saving 50+ hours monthly.
What Stessa does well
Comprehensive financial tracking with tax optimization
Stessa automatically categorizes transactions and generates tax-friendly reports, making tax preparation straightforward for real estate investors.
Free plan with unlimited properties
The Essentials plan offers significant value with unlimited property tracking, basic financial reports, and rent collection at no cost.
Integrated banking with competitive yields
Pro plan includes high-yield cash balances (3.98% APY) with FDIC coverage up to $3M, directly connected to property accounting.
Where Clearing falls short
Plan tier pricing requires a sales call
Both Pro and Ultimate plans show 'Talk with Sales' on the pricing page, and a third-party directory notes a demo is required before purchase. Apples-to-apples comparison requires booking a call.
Trust accounting is priced separately from the bookkeeping base
It's $2.50 per unit per month plus a one-time implementation fee scaling from $199 to $499 by portfolio size — meaningful budget for a 50-listing operator.
Very limited independent review signal
shorttermrentalsoftware.com lists '0 reviews currently listed' and Capterra/G2 don't surface a populated page, so buyers lean heavily on vendor-published case studies.
Where Stessa falls short
Persistent technical issues with bank connections
Users report recurring problems with bank account verification and transaction syncing that customer support cannot permanently resolve.
Limited functionality for complex operations
The software lacks recurring bill/income features and detailed account tracking needed for sophisticated real estate portfolios.
Poor customer support responsiveness
Users on free plans experience slow email-only support, with reported resolution timeframes extending to months for simple issues.
Which Should You Pick
Pick Clearing if
Property managers running 10-300+ short-term rental units who need automated trust accounting, owner statements, and reconciliation across multiple OTAs and PMSes.
Skip Clearing if
You're a single-listing host, you need a PMS replacement (Clearing layers on top of one), or you require self-serve plan-tier pricing without a sales call.
Pick Stessa if
Individual real estate investors seeking comprehensive financial tracking and tax preparation with unlimited properties on a budget.
Skip Stessa if
You run multi-entity portfolios requiring complex accounting, need dedicated tenant mobile apps, or require robust third-party integrations.
Where Clearing and Stessa actually differ
- Clearing is STR-specialized bookkeeping built for property managers with 30+ named integrations including 15+ PMSs, Stripe, and QuickBooks Online; Stessa is a DIY investor ledger with zero PMS or OTA integrations, no public API, no Zapier, and depends entirely on bank feed aggregation.
- Clearing offers virtual bank accounts to segregate owner funds, ACH disbursement to homeowners, and automated owner statements; Stessa has no trust accounting, no owner statements, and limited multi-entity support.
- Stessa's Essentials plan is free with unlimited properties, scaling to $12/mo (Manage) or $28/mo (Pro) on annual billing; Clearing starts at $25/mo for up to 5 listings, $9.25/unit at 11–20, and $8.50/unit at 100+, plus a $2.50/unit trust-accounting add-on with $199–$499 setup.
- Stessa Pro includes integrated banking at 3.98% APY with up to $3M FDIC coverage; Clearing has no banking product or high-yield cash account.
- Stessa auto-categorizes transactions for real estate and produces Schedule E-ready tax reports for individual investors; Clearing reconciles reservation-level data from your PMS for PMC bookkeeping but is not built around landlord tax filing.
Common objections
- Stessa is free with unlimited properties — why pay Clearing's per-unit fees?
- Only if you're a self-managing investor handling your own rentals. Once you're managing properties for outside owners, you need trust accounting, owner statements, and per-booking reconciliation Stessa simply doesn't ship. Clearing's per-unit price buys capabilities Stessa would never get to regardless of plan tier.
- I have 5 STR units I self-manage. Should I move from Stessa to Clearing?
- Probably not yet. At 5 units you'd hit Clearing's $25/mo floor and you don't need trust accounting if you're not handling outside owners' money. Stessa's free Essentials plan covers the bookkeeping and tax reports honestly. The switch makes sense once you cross into managing for other owners, multi-OTA reconciliation eats real time, or your state requires segregated trust accounts.
- Stessa's bank feeds are unreliable — does Clearing avoid that problem?
- Largely yes, because Clearing pulls reservation and transaction data through PMS and payment-processor integrations rather than Plaid-style bank aggregation. But that only helps if you have a PMS to integrate with. For investors without a PMS, Clearing doesn't solve the bank-feed problem on its own and the per-unit pricing isn't justified by feed reliability alone.
Keep Digging
Clearing
Specialist bookkeeping for STR managers who actually need trust accounting