PropStream is a real estate analytics platform that has gained some popularity in recent years. But does the PropStream pricing model make sense?
If you’re new to real estate investing and you’re looking for how to invest in real estate, one of the first things you will see online is the plethora of online tools and SaaS platforms that specifically address certain needs that every real estate investor has.
In recent years, it has become difficult for beginner investors to find the right platform to suit their investment needs.
This is because, among the large number of platforms to choose from, some of them might offer inaccurate data or questionable results for prices that can highly affect your finances.
So, in this article I aim to delve into PropStream pricing, what PropStream reviews say about the platform, what type of investors should use it, and what could be a better option for you to use.
Related: 7 Real Estate Investor Websites to Use
What Is PropStream?
PropStream is a real estate platform that provides real estate market data and lead generation and management tools to help investors find more sellers across the nation.
With a focus on foreclosures and off-market property search, as well as a lead-management system that is obviously designed around managing a very large number of leads – one apparent thing is that the platform is designed with professional and big investors in mind.
Besides that, the platform offers some niche services and features that we will discover in a bit.
But before we jump into the features, let’s first talk about the PropStream pricing model.
PropStream Pricing Model
There are two main things that I noticed most PropStream reviews criticize, and those are the platform’s UI and the PropStream pricing options.
I will talk about the UI issues in a later section of this article.
For now, let’s take a look at the problem with PropStream’s pricing.
Firstly, while PropStream pricing comes in the form of a monthly subscription, you are only presented with one option.
It only has one monthly plan for $99 per month listed on its PropStream pricing page, with no different tiers of subscription or discounted plans such as a quarterly or an annual plan.
And while this might lead you to think that you will gain access to all of its features and services since it’s a single plan, you would be wrong.
In order to gain access to some of the other features, you will have to pay a considerable price for each feature separately – and that is in addition to the monthly subscription fee.
It is only fair to mention here that there is a PropStream free trial, which lasts 7 days and is enough for you to try the platform and see if it suits your needs. However, the free trial will not give you access to the other paid features.
So, let’s take a look at the features that the platform offers, and the PropStream pricing for each of them.
PropStream Pricing per Feature
First of all, let’s start with the features that you get for the $99 monthly subscription or the PropStream free trial.
These are the core features of the PropStream platform and the main tools and services that the monthly subscription offers:
- Access to the online platform and the mobile app
- Nationwide property data
- Property search map tool
- Lead generation tool
- Property comps
- Integrated marketing platform
To supplement those features and gain access to the platform’s full potential, you would have to pay for each of the following features as per the PropStream pricing model:
The List Automator Tool
This tool does daily list monitoring for properties that you’re interested in. Basically, this tool lets you “save” up to 2,000 properties and import their data.
However, this tool costs an additional $27 per month, and it has an option to add a Skip Tracing feature for an extra small charge.
Team Member Feature
This tool simply lets you add more users to your account and control their access level, which is a standard feature in most online platforms nowadays.
To have the ability to add up to 5 team members to your account, you would have to pay an additional $20 monthly on top of your subscription.
Marketing Tools
Another part of PropStream pricing includes paying additional fees to gain access to the full capabilities of its integrated marketing platform.
In this category, they have three options that you can pay for:
- Professional postcards, which costs a minimum of 40 cents each.
- Skip Tracing with DNC flagging, which costs 12 cents each.
- Emails, which costs 2 cents each.
As you can see, the PropStream pricing model is very confusing, as when you’re looking at the additional features, the monthly cost can increase to almost $150 per month.
Not to mention that in order to use its integrated marketing platform, even for the simplest of things like sending professional postcards or even sending emails, you would have to pay extra fees.
This can be a hefty amount of money for beginner investors to spend on a platform to gain access to real estate listings.
What’s the Best PropStream Alternative?
When it comes to analyzing real estate markets using up-to-date data from trusted sources such as the MLS database, the number of alternatives that you can find online is limited.
So if you’re looking for the top alternative and the best choice when it comes to real estate market and rental analysis, then Mashvisor is the tool for you.
Related: The Best Real Estate Investment Software
There are many different reasons why beginner and professional real estate investors might be looking for a real estate tool online, and it all comes down to what type of information they’re trying to access.
For example, you could be a prospector wondering how to find out who owns a house, or you could be a professional investor looking at how to find comps in my area.
These are two things that both PropStream and Mashvisor can provide through their access to the MLS database and providing it to the user in a useful and analytical way.
However, as you will see next, Mashvisor offers a much wider range of real estate data, including a heavy emphasis on rental analysis as it is the most popular investment strategy that real estate investors use.
So, in the next section I will talk about Mashvisor’s platform and the tools and features that it offers, and compare Mashvisor’s pricing to the PropStream pricing to see which tool is more worth its price.
What Is Mashvisor?
Mashvisor is a real estate platform that uses data from trusted sources such as the MLS database and Airbnb to provide real estate market analytics and rental analysis tools.
By utilizing metrics such as the cap rate or the cash on cash return, Mashvisor’s advanced algorithm can analyze each market and property and project its current and future return on investment, making it easier than ever for beginner investors to identify a good investment property from a bad one.
The platform offers numerous tools and features, including a user-friendly Investment Property Search tool that lets you easily find properties in your market of choice and see their performance as rental properties.
Related: The Ultimate Investment Property Search Tool
Additionally, the tool provides all the information you need about each investment property, such as the current owners and their contact info, or the property’s type, size, and the number of rooms.
Finally, Mashvisor provides the user with a cap rate calculator that runs a rental analysis of each investment property based on the property’s price, rental income, and all relevant costs and expenses.
So, if you’re looking for how to find comps in my area or how to find out who owns a house, then Mashvisor can do that and more.
The first tool that users encounter is Mashvisor’s Investment Property Search, which displays a map of their city of interest as well as pins of where the properties for sale are located.
Mashvisor vs PropStream Pricing Model
When it comes to Mashvisor vs PropStream pricing models, Mashvisor’s subscription plans are more varied and have discounted options.
Depending on your needs, how deep you want to go with your analysis, and the number of properties you want to analyze – Mashvisor’s plans range from $17.99 per month for the Lite plan, $49.00 per month for the Standard plan, up to $74.99 for the Professional plan.
Additionally, the most popular Mashvisor plans are their quarterly plans since most real estate investors are active during specific seasons each year. But there are annual plans as well, which come at an even bigger discount.
Of course, just like the PropStream free trial, Mashvisor offers a 7-day free trial to any subscriber.
The difference, however, is that Mashvisor also offers a free subscription, which gives the user very limited access to the platform. With the free plan, they can do basic property searches and get familiar with the UI and interface before buying one of the subscription plans.
Overall, the most expensive subscription plan is reasonable considering it gives you access to all the tools and a large number of rental comps and data imports.
Mashvisor vs PropStream Features
So, now that we’ve looked at both PropStream pricing and Mashvisor’s subscription plans, let’s compare the two platforms in terms of their features, the way they utilize the MLS database, their real estate heatmap features, and more.
Finding Investment Property for Sale
When it comes to searching for investment properties for sale, both platforms offer similar tools to help you find what you’re looking for using map search and real estate heatmap features.
For example, if you’re looking for a duplex for sale, you can use the map search tool on either platform to filter properties based on their type, size, price, or current condition.
Additionally, both tools will give you information about the property as well as facilitate the way of contacting them and making a deal.
However, the biggest difference is that while PropStream offers a wider range of filters related to the condition of the property, Mashvisor offers much more useful information in the form of rental analysis and cap rate projections.
And Mashvisor can still be used to find the same types of properties as PropStream, as there are filters for finding a foreclosed duplex for sale, for example.
Additionally, since I mentioned it at the start of this blog, the UI of PropStream’s search tool is considered by many PropStream reviews to be not user-friendly and hard to use, especially when compared to the much more friendly design of Mashvisor’s platform.
Like PropStream, Mashvisor has a real estate heatmap that gives users a quick overview of the best parts of a city in terms of cash on cash return or other metrics.
Real Estate Market Analysis
Since both platforms are real estate market analysis tools, it’s important when comparing PropStream pricing with Mashvisor to look at their core analytics features.
PropStream provides data that mostly relates to the type of the property, its condition, and its price.
Since it focuses on foreclosures and distressed properties, the platform also provides real estate market analysis in terms of each property’s renovation cost to help investors know if the property is worth fixing and flipping.
Mashvisor, on the other hand, focuses on rental analysis to help real estate investors who are looking to buy a rental investment property find one with a high cap rate or good cash on cash return.
However, Mashvisor also provides data related to each property’s running costs and expenses, including the average cost of renovations based on the market that the property is in. And these numbers can be modified to see the immediate impact on the property’s projected returns.
So, when it comes to real estate market analysis, both platforms utilize data from the MLS database in different ways and focus on different investment strategies
Mashvisor’s range of data allows it to serve as an alternative to PropStream when it comes to fix-and-flip strategies while PropStream doesn’t offer any data that can be useful for a rental property investor.
Final Verdict
Overall, I’d say that PropStream is a niche platform in that it’s designed to appeal to a very niche type of real estate investor.
So, if you’re a professional real estate investor with a large portfolio specializing in fixer-uppers and have a team working with you, then PropStream pricing might be worth it for you.
However, if you’re looking for a better platform that offers a wider range of data and features and that can help you start investing in real estate today, then Mashvisor is the platform for you. Sign up for Mashvisor now and get 15% off.
