If you own or manage a few dozen flats and the rent cheques live in a drawer and a spreadsheet, this is for you. Not for an owner with fewer than about ten units and a good tenant: a calendar reminder is enough, and you can stop here.
What does each option cost on one rent roll?
Take a sample, not a real portfolio: 12 flats at AED 80,000 a year each, a rent roll of AED 960,000. The rent is an example so the sums are easy to check. Put your own rent roll in its place.
Where each number comes from. The 5 to 10 percent range is Keyper's, a vendor, on its guide to self-managing against hiring a manager. Manage My Property says its fee is a percentage of the tenancy contract value, written in the agreement, so ask any manager for the percentage and what it covers. Our price and minimum are on our Lease page. PropSpace's are on its own page, read on 29 October 2026.
Scale it up and the shape holds. At 40 flats on the same sample rent, the rent roll is AED 3.2 million and a manager at 5 to 10 percent costs AED 160,000 to 320,000. Our price stays AED 11,880 a year, because 40 units at AED 15 is AED 600 and the AED 990 minimum applies up to 66 units. PropSpace's comes to AED 6,000, because 40 units at AED 11 is AED 440 and its minimum is AED 500.
Two things stand out. Our minimum is higher than PropSpace's, and we say so. At 100 units our page works PropSpace out at AED 1,100 a month against our AED 1,500, so compare what each one includes before you compare the price. And a ledger is far cheaper than a manager in licence terms. That is not the same as being a substitute for one.
What does each one leave with you?
The tenant work. A manager's fee buys someone else doing it. Keyper's guide says a manager "covers everything from tenant sourcing to Ejari compliance", which is the manager's own description of the job. A lease ledger does none of that. It keeps one record, and your team still calls the tenant, books the repair and walks to the bank.
So the question is not which one is cheapest. It is who will do the work. If the answer is nobody you can name, or you are abroad, the manager's fee is the price of that. We do not tell an owner to stop paying a manager. If your team already holds the tenants and the keys, the open question is the cheque register and the renewal dates, and a ledger is aimed at those.
Do cheques still matter?
For some portfolios, less each year. In July 2022 an official at Dubai Holding Asset Management told Khaleej Times that "more than 21 per cent of our residents pay (rents) completely cheque-free", and that the company had removed over 10,000 cheques since 2019, through its own resident app. The same official said the scheme is "not mandatory": tenants who prefer cheques keep them.
That is one large landlord's app, four years old, and not a market figure. It still shows the choice. If your tenants can pay by direct debit or card through a system you run, the cheque register shrinks. If they pay by post-dated cheque, the register is the record of what is in the drawer, which bank, which date and whether it cleared or came back.
Where is the line between a spreadsheet and software?
Vendors put it past 20 to 30 units. Socienta, a Dubai property software vendor, wrote in August 2026 that the switch "usually becomes necessary once a portfolio passes 20 to 30 units, involves multiple post-dated cheques" or needs local compliance such as VAT filings and Ejari. ADDA's blog, also a vendor, says a spreadsheet and a folder "work fine" for 20 or 30 units, and that a 150-unit building runs about 600 cheques a year.
Our own page draws the line lower, for a different reason. It says that under about 10 units a spreadsheet and a calendar reminder do the job, because our AED 990 minimum would cost more than the problem. Between about 10 and 30 is a judgment, and it depends on how many cheques come back and how many dates a person has to remember.
How do you pick?
Three questions, in this order.
- 01Are you abroad, or do you not want to deal with tenants? Hire a manager. A ledger will not take the calls.
- 02Do you or your team keep the cheques and the renewal dates? Keep them on one lease record, so the notice-by date and the cheques to bank sit on the same screen.
- 03Fewer than about ten flats and a good tenant? Stay on the spreadsheet and set a calendar reminder for each lease.
If you cannot answer the second question for last year's leases, that is the test. List the cheques that came back and the renewals that went out late. If the list is empty, the spreadsheet is working. If it is not, price what those cost you against AED 990 a month.
What does Mindcat Lease keep, and what stays with you?
One lease, one schedule. Each lease carries its cheque schedule. The cheque register holds each cheque with a status: held, deposited, cleared, returned or replaced. Cheques to Deposit lists every cheque due in the next 30 days. Renewals Due sorts leases by notice-by date, and each landlord gets an owner statement for what was collected, what is unpaid, your fee and their net.
Some things stay with you. Ejari, Tawtheeq and Ejar registration stay on DLD's, the Abu Dhabi registry's and REGA's channels, and their fees go to them. The software does not guarantee that a tenant pays. Bank statements come in as CSV, not as a live feed. Renewal reminders go by email, not WhatsApp, so if your tenants chase you on WhatsApp, that chat stays in your team's phones; the record behind it moves to one place. And it does not do a manager's tenant work.
Prices on our page: AED or SAR 15 per unit a month for 1 to 100 units, 8 for 101 to 500, 5 for 501 to 2,000 and 3 above that, with a shared-plan minimum of AED 990 a month that covers up to 66 units. Owners, tenants, staff and tenant-portal logins add nothing. 100 units come to AED 1,500 a month and 300 to AED 3,100. Up to 100 units the quick start is a fixed AED 2,500, set up for you from your CSV; above that, setup is managed to a written plan and price. Prices exclude 5 percent UAE VAT.
Tell us how many units you manage and how your tenants pay, and we reply with the setup plan and the monthly price. Our property management page shows the same screens with sample data.
