August vs Arthur Online: which fits your portfolio in 2026?
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August vs Arthur Online: a comparison guide A comprehensive comparison to help you choose the right property management platform for your property portfolio.
Choosing between August and Arthur Online comes down to one question: are you a self-managing landlord who wants rent, compliance and tax handled from your phone, or an operator running a lettings business with staff, contractors and a large portfolio? August is a mobile-first platform for self-managing UK landlords, from free for up to 2 tenancies and £8.99 to £29.99 per month on paid plans. Arthur Online is a web-led operations platform for letting agents, property managers and larger portfolio operators, with work order management, stakeholder portals and team permissions, from £82.50 per month billed annually. If you self-manage your own tenancies, August is the stronger fit. If you run a lettings operation, Arthur is built for that job. August's Workspaces, give smaller teams shared access, but August does not offer contractor work orders, owner portals or client accounting. This guide compares both honestly, with every Arthur Online fact verified against their published pricing and plans on 21 September 2026.
Free for up to 2 tenancies, no credit card required.
The comparison at a glance
Arthur Online bills annually with a minimum monthly spend. Confirm current plans with each provider before deciding.
UK compliance built in (England and Wales)
Guided checklist covering gas safety, EICR, EPC, Right to Rent, deposit prescribed information, with plain-English guidance
AI suggests reminders from your documents
MTD for Income Tax
HMRC-recognised
Quarterly submissions built in on every paid plan
Rent tracking
Open banking feed with automatic payment matching through an FCA-regulated Plaid connection
Tenants pay in-app with no fees
Free tier and entry price
Free for up to 2 tenancies
Paid plans £8.99 to £29.99/mo
Demo calls are available, book online
Price at scale
£14.99/mo (Portfolio) rising to
£29.99/mo (Portfolio+)
Learning curve
Set up in under 5 minutes
Built for non-accountants
Bulk document upload is available and powered by August Intelligence AI
Mobile
Purpose-built native iOS and Android apps with full parity
Web platform with full functionality
Tenant experience
Free native tenant app, including in-app rent payments, maintenance with photos, in-platform communications, secure documents
Accounting depth
Income and expense tracking with a direct Xero integration on every plan, including free
Push rent invoices and expenses into Xero, pull Xero expenses back into August and assign them to properties
Landlord-triggered sync from the web app
Receipt scanning with August Intelligence
Mileage tracking at HMRC's approved 2026/27 rates, with postcode-to-postcode distance lookup
CSV and Excel exports, accountant-ready reports
AI assistance
August Intelligence on every plan, including free
Property insights
Auto-pulls valuations, council tax bands, EPC ratings and expiry dates
HMO and room-level reporting
Supported
Multi-user and team access
Workspaces: invite members by email or join code, Admin and Member roles, and property groups to organise the portfolio
Data portability on exit
CSV and Excel export of your data
Pricing: two different models
August prices by plan, not by unit: free for up to 2 tenancies, then Growth at £8.99 per month for up to 5 tenancies, Portfolio at £14.99 for up to 20, and Portfolio+ at £29.99 with unlimited tenancies, billed monthly or annually with a 30-day free trial and a 14-day money-back guarantee. Arthur prices by unit with a minimum spend, billed annually: Standard from £82.50 per month including 55 units with additional units at £1.50 each, Professional from £96.00 (60 units at £1.60), and Enterprise from £126.00 (70 units at £1.80). There is no free tier and no self-serve trial is advertised; sales are demo-led.
One honest caveat before the table. Arthur's minimum spend is designed for operators managing tens of units, and at that scale its per-unit model is coherent: a hundred-unit operator pays around £150 per month for a platform built to run their whole business. Below roughly 50 units, you are paying for capacity you do not use, which is the gap August's free and £8.99 plans are built to fill.
Portfolio size
August
Arthur Online (Standard)
3 tenancies
£8.99 (Growth)
From £82.50
10 tenancies
£14.99 (Portfolio)
From £82.50
20 tenancies
£14.99 (Portfolio)
From £82.50
50 units
£29.99 (Portfolio+)
From £82.50
100 units
£29.99 (Portfolio+)
£150.00 (55 included plus 45 at £1.50)
Standard monthly rates published on each provider's website as of 21 September 2026, excluding promotional offers. Arthur bills annually. Confirm its monthly rate with the provider. Full August pricing is on our pricing page.
Where Arthur Online genuinely wins
A comparison you can trust has to say where the other product is better, so here it is plainly.
Works orders and maintenance workflows
If maintenance runs through contractors, Arthur's work order management, contractor app and public contractor network handle assignment, quotes and invoicing in a way August does not attempt. August covers tenant maintenance requests and logging. For an operations business, this module alone can justify the platform. Arthur also integrates with Fixflo for maintenance, at additional cost.
Stakeholder portals and team permissions
Arthur gives tenants, contractors and owners their own access, and ships team permissions with designated access across multiple portfolios. August's Workspaces, now in beta, let a partner, assistant or property manager sign in with Admin or Member access and organise properties into groups, but there are no contractor or owner portals, and two roles rather than detailed permissions. If several types of stakeholder need their own access today, Arthur has this and August does not.
Integration breadth for operators
Where August wins
Compliance that guides rather than reminds
Arthur tracks compliance at scale with certificate reminders, automated events and audit trails, which is what an operations team needs. August goes further for the individual landlord with a guided checklist that explains what each requirement is, why it applies and what to do next, covering gas safety, EICR, EPC, Right to Rent and deposit prescribed information in plain English, reflecting the Renters' Rights Act 2025, with August Intelligence suggesting reminders straight from your uploaded documents.
Mobile, done properly
Most self-managing landlords run their portfolio from a phone, not a desk. August ships purpose-built native iOS and Android apps with full feature parity and setup in minutes rather than a configuration project. Arthur is web-led, with its mobile apps built for stakeholder access rather than as the primary landlord experience.
A tenant app tenants actually use
August includes a free native tenant app for paying rent in-app with no fees, reporting maintenance with photos and accessing documents securely. Arthur's occupant app and portal cover issues, statements and documents, built for managed portfolios rather than the direct landlord-tenant relationship.
Price at scale
At 3 tenancies August is £8.99 against Arthur's £82.50 minimum. At 20 tenancies August is £14.99 against £82.50. Even at 50 units, August's unlimited plan is £29.99 against £82.50, and Arthur bills annually with no free tier.
Tax filing built in
Every paid August plan includes HMRC-recognised Making Tax Digital submissions, with quarterly filing from the web app, which matters now that landlords with qualifying income above £50,000 must file digitally. At the time of writing, Arthur does not market MTD for Income Tax support on its site; its Xero integration is the route many Arthur users take for accounting and tax, so confirm current plans with the provider if MTD is a deciding factor.
Making Tax Digital: check before you choose
MTD for Income Tax went live in April 2026 for landlords with qualifying income above £50,000. August is HMRC-recognised for MTD for Income Tax, with quarterly submissions built into every paid plan. Arthur does not market MTD for Income Tax support on its website at the time of writing, and many Arthur users handle accounting and tax through its Xero integration, so confirm the current position with Arthur directly if MTD matters to your decision. For the full market picture including bridging tools, our Making Tax Digital hub explains the deadlines and thresholds in full.
Switching: the three questions that matter
How hard is migration?
With August you add your properties and tenancies, connect your bank, and open banking backfills rent history so the current tax year arrives with you. Smart contract scanning reads your tenancy agreements and does the data entry. Most landlords are set up in under five minutes, rather than a configuration project.
Am I locked in?
Not with August. You have monthly billing if you want it, cancel anytime, a 14-day money-back guarantee, and CSV and Excel export whenever you ask. Arthur bills annually and its public pages do not state its data-export position, so confirm that with the provider before committing.
Can I trust the smaller product?
August is used by more than 3,000 UK landlords and tenants, is HMRC-recognised for MTD for Income Tax, and runs its rent feed through an FCA-regulated Plaid connection. You can start free and judge it on your own portfolio before paying anything.
The verdict
Choose August if you self-manage your own tenancies and want rent, compliance, tax and documents handled from your phone: a free start, plans from £8.99 to £29.99 per month, Making Tax Digital built in, and an AI assistant working on your own portfolio data. Most self-managing landlords with up to around 20 tenancies will find August does the whole job at a fraction of the cost. Choose Arthur Online if you run a property management operation: staff who need permissions, contractors who need work orders, owners who need portals, or a large and complex portfolio, including bigger HMOs, where per-unit pricing from £82.50 per month earns its keep. August is not the right tool for operators who need contractor work orders, owner portals or client accounting; Arthur serves those businesses better today.
Cross-shopping the heavier platforms as well? See how August compares with Landlord Vision or August compares with Latch. Portfolio landlords weighing lower-cost tools may also want our comparison of August and Alphaletz. Running shared living rather than a lettings operation? Our August vs Coho comparison covers the HMO specialist. And if you are evaluating a broader range of tools, our guide to the best property management software for UK landlords covers the leading options side by side.
Start for free. Free for up to 2 tenancies, no credit card required.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between August and Arthur Online?
August is a web platform and mobile-first app for self-managing UK landlords, covering rent tracking, compliance, Making Tax Digital and documents from free to £29.99 per month. Arthur Online is a web-led operations platform for letting agents, property managers and larger portfolios, with team workflows, contractor management and per-unit pricing from £82.50 per month billed annually. Facts verified 21 September 2026.
How does August's pricing compare to Arthur's?
August prices by plan: free for up to 2 tenancies, then £8.99, £14.99 or £29.99 per month, with unlimited tenancies on Portfolio+. Arthur prices by unit with a minimum spend: Standard starts from £82.50 per month including 55 units, then £1.50 per additional unit, billed annually. For portfolios under roughly 50 units, August is substantially cheaper. Prices verified 21 September 2026; confirm current rates with each provider.
Is Arthur Online suitable for small or independent landlords?
Arthur lists self-managing landlords among its solutions and its feature depth works at any scale, but its minimum monthly spend and annual billing are designed for operators managing tens of units. A landlord with a handful of tenancies pays for capacity they do not use, which is the gap August's free and £8.99 plans are built to fill.
Does Arthur Online support Making Tax Digital for Income Tax?
At the time of writing, Arthur does not market MTD for Income Tax support on its website; many Arthur users handle accounting and tax through its Xero integration. Confirm current plans with Arthur directly. August includes HMRC-recognised MTD on all paid plans, with quarterly submissions from the web app.
Which platform is better for HMO landlords?
Both platforms support HMOs at room level. August runs each room as its own tenancy with per-tenant rent matching, builds HMO licensing into its guided compliance checklist and gives every tenant their own app, from £8.99 a month. Arthur's edge is the operational layer around it, including contractor work orders. For a self-managed HMO portfolio, August covers the job at a fraction of the cost; for an HMO operation with staff and contractors, Arthur is built for that.
Does August integrate with Xero?
Yes. August connects to one Xero organisation from Finances in the web app, on every plan including free. You push rent invoices and property expenses into Xero, and pull expenses recorded in Xero back into August against the right property, so nothing is keyed twice. The sync runs when you trigger it rather than on a schedule, and you can disconnect at any time. August stays your property system of record; Xero stays your accounting system.
About this comparison: August publishes this page and we have a commercial interest in you choosing August. To keep it useful, we verify every Arthur Online fact against their published pricing and plans and say plainly where they win. Competitor facts last verified 21 September 2026. Last reviewed 21 September 2026.
