HOA management company overcharging my small community? How to check our contract per-user fees

Start with the number nobody wants to talk about: cost per door

Pull your last twelve months of management invoices. Add up every line item—base fee, per-unit fee, "technology" or "portal" charges, mailing fees, violation letter fees, after-hours calls, resale disclosure packets, the works. Divide by the number of homes. That's your real cost per door per year.

For a small self-managed-curious board, a healthy benchmark is often $15–$35 per door per month for full-service management in low-complexity communities. If you're north of $50 for a community with no pool, no elevators, and a landscaping contract you already review yourself, you have questions worth asking. Not accusations—questions.

Write the number down. You'll want it when you renegotiate or when you compare self-managed HOA software against the status quo. A self-managed platform at roughly $5 per user per month with all features included is a very different math problem than $45 per door, and it's the comparison most boards never actually run.

Find the per-user clause in your management agreement

Most contracts bury the per-user piece in an exhibit or a fee schedule, not the main body. Look for language like "per unit," "per home," "per homeowner portal account," or "per active user." Some managers bill per portal user, which means every adult on the deed who logs in is a billable seat. Some bill per unit regardless of usage. Those are not the same thing, and the difference can be thousands of dollars a year.

Three things to circle:

• Definition of "user." Is it per household, per adult, per login, or per door?
• Escalator language. "Shall increase annually by CPI plus 5%" is not a typo you can ignore.
• Ancillary fee schedule. If it's a separate sheet, it's still part of the contract. Ask for it in writing.

If your manager can't produce the current fee schedule in an hour, that itself tells you something about the operation.

Compare what you're paying for against what you're getting

Here's where a lot of boards get stuck. The manager says, "You're getting the portal, the dues collection, the document library, the maintenance coordination." Fine. Then ask: how much of that are you actually using, and could a volunteer board run it directly?

Online dues collection is the big one. If your manager charges a per-transaction fee on top of the per-user fee, you're paying twice for the same convenience. Modern HOA dues collection software for small boards handles invoicing, autopay, and ACH without a manager in the middle, usually for a flat per-user cost. That's not a knock on managers—it's just the reality that payment processing has gotten cheap and the markup hasn't.

For a practical side-by-side of what different platforms include, the team at HOA By Owners keeps a running comparison of best HOA management software that's worth ten minutes of your next board meeting.

Do the self-managed math before you renew

You don't have to fire anyone to run this exercise. Just answer four questions honestly:

1. What does the manager do that a board member couldn't do with decent software and a shared calendar?
2. What's our all-in management cost per year, including every ancillary fee?
3. What would it cost to run voting, dues, docs, maintenance requests, and communications on a self-managed HOA software platform?
4. What's the difference, and is the manager worth it?

For a lot of small boards, the honest answer is: the manager is worth it for some things (collections, legal coordination, vendor wrangling) and not for others (portal access, document hosting, meeting notices). Some boards split the difference and keep a bookkeeper while bringing operations in-house. Others go fully self-managed and never look back. Both are legitimate.

If you're curious what the fully self-managed version looks like, HOA By Owners is built for exactly this—volunteer boards running their own community, with role-based access for board, manager, and members, and transparent per-user pricing instead of a mystery fee schedule. Migration off Buildium, AppFolio, PayHOA, or a stack of spreadsheets is free, which matters because switching costs are the reason most boards stay overcharged.

What to do at your next board meeting

Bring three numbers: cost per door, total annual management spend, and the per-user rate in your contract. Then bring one more: what it would cost to run the community yourself. You don't need a vote that night. You need the comparison on the record so the board stops renewing on autopilot.

And if your manager pushes back with "but compliance" or "but liability," ask for the specific line item. Good managers can defend their fees. Opaque ones change the subject.

One more thing: check your state's rules before you change anything about how you collect dues or hold records. HOA By Owners maintains plain-English HOA law guides by state that are a reasonable starting point, but your CC&Rs and a local attorney still win every argument.

Educational HOA operations commentary, not legal advice. Follow your CC&Rs and state association rules.