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STRStack

Comparison

Patriot Software vs Clearing

Pricing, pros and cons, and buyer-fit side-by-side. Pick the one that matches your operation — or see why neither should.

Accounting & Tax

Patriot Software

Affordable small-business accounting that handles rental books

Solid Option

Solid budget ledger, but not built for rental operations

From $20/mo • Free trial

Full review →Is it worth it?

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

Full review →Is it worth it?
Visit Patriot Software →Visit Clearing →
✓Editorial verdict

Which Should You Pick: Patriot Software or Clearing?

Pick Patriot if you run a small business where a short-term rental is one income stream among several and you want flat $20/mo general-ledger accounting with invoicing, contractors, and optional payroll. Pick Clearing if you manage 10+ STR units — especially for outside owners — and need trust accounting, owner statements, and multi-OTA reconciliation tied to your PMS.

Editorial perspective from the Patriot Software side; factual claims about Clearing are drawn from its review.

Pricing Side-by-Side

Patriot Software

Full pricing →

From $20/mo • Free trial

Clearing

Full pricing →

From $25 • No free trial

Up to 5 listings

$25/mo

  • Bookkeeping baseline
  • PMS, Stripe, and Airbnb data ingestion
Try Clearing

11-20 listings

$9.25 per unit/mo

  • Bookkeeping baseline
  • Per-unit pricing kicks in
Try Clearing

100+ listings

$8.50 per unit/mo

  • Bookkeeping baseline at lowest published per-unit rate
  • Suitable for portfolios at scale
Try Clearing

Trust accounting add-on

$2.50 per unit/mo + $199-$499 setup

  • Virtual bank accounts to segregate rental funds
  • ACH disbursement to homeowners
Try Clearing

What each tool does well — and where it falls short

What Patriot Software does well

  • Flat $20/mo with no per-listing fees keeps costs predictable at any portfolio size

    Unlike STR-specific tools that charge per listing, Patriot's accounting plan is a single flat rate. For operators who only need bookkeeping, total cost stays at $20 whether you have 1 or 50 properties.

  • Users consistently rate support quality and interface simplicity highly

    Software Advice reviewers describe the platform as easy to use with quick, efficient, and friendly support — accessible for property owners without accounting backgrounds.

  • Stripe integration enables credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay collection

    Property owners can accept guest payments through modern channels without setting up a separate merchant account, streamlining rent and booking fee collection.

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.

Where Patriot Software falls short

  • No purpose-built STR functionality — everything rental-specific is manual

    As iGMS notes, Patriot can be used for rental accounting but requires manual workarounds for channel management, guest communication, and dynamic pricing that dedicated platforms handle natively.

  • Customer support is unavailable on weekends and outside business hours

    STR operations often involve weekend guest issues and time-sensitive booking problems. Software Advice reviewers flag that questions arising over the weekend must wait until Monday.

  • Reporting capabilities fall short for complex multi-property portfolios

    Capterra reviewers note limited reporting options. Operators needing occupancy analytics, revenue management dashboards, or multi-property performance comparisons will find the platform insufficient.

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.

Which Should You Pick

Pick Patriot Software if

Small property owners needing basic accounting who already use general business software and want an affordable, easy-to-learn ledger.

Skip Patriot Software if

You need channel management, guest communication, automated pricing, or any rental-specific workflow — Patriot handles none of these.

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.

Where Patriot Software and Clearing actually differ

  • Patriot is general-purpose small-business accounting at a flat $20/mo regardless of property count; Clearing scales by listing — $25/mo floor up to 5, $9.25/unit at 11–20, down to $8.50/unit at 100+, with a $2.50/unit trust-accounting add-on plus $199–$499 setup.
  • Patriot has no PMS or OTA integrations and a short partner list (roughly 5 named integrations); Clearing ships 30+ named integrations including 15+ PMSs (Hostaway, Guesty, Hospitable, Lodgify, OwnerRez) plus Stripe and QuickBooks Online.
  • Patriot offers a 30-day free trial and 50% off the first 3 months, plus an optional payroll add-on with tax filing and Stripe-powered invoice payments; Clearing has no free trial, no payroll product, and no payment processing of its own.
  • Clearing offers virtual bank accounts to segregate owner funds, ACH disbursement to homeowners, and automated owner statements; Patriot has no trust accounting, no owner statements, and no per-property reporting layer.
  • Patriot is built around US small businesses and supports payroll/tax filing across all 50 states; Clearing publishes named PMC case studies including operators with 300+ properties and one cutting month-end work by up to 70%, but isn't designed for non-STR business lines.

Common objections

Clearing automates STR bookkeeping end-to-end. Why would I use Patriot instead?
Because Clearing assumes the rental business is your main operation and you have a PMS to plug into. If your rental is one of several income streams — a service business, a retail side, contractor work — you need a general ledger that handles invoicing, 1099 contractors, and payroll in one place, which Patriot does at a flat $20/mo. Clearing isn't built for that mixed-income picture.
Patriot has almost no integrations and no PMS connector. Isn't that a dealbreaker for STR work?
It is, past a few units. Patriot won't auto-ingest reservations or split payouts per owner, so every booking and disbursement is manual entry. For 1–2 self-managed rentals that's tolerable; once you're at 5+ units or managing for outside owners, the re-entry burden swamps Patriot's price advantage and Clearing's per-unit fee starts to pay for itself.
Can I run Patriot for my overall books and Clearing for the rental side?
Not cleanly. Both maintain a general ledger, so running them in parallel means reconciling between two sets of books with no integration to tie them together. The more typical stack is QuickBooks Online (or similar) underneath Clearing for the STR portfolio. Patriot fits when the rental is a side line and you want one ledger for everything, not when you're trying to specialize the rental accounting separately.

Keep Digging

Patriot Software

Solid budget ledger, but not built for rental operations

Full Patriot Software review →Is it worth it?

Clearing

Specialist bookkeeping for STR managers who actually need trust accounting

Full Clearing review →Is it worth it?