A Stessa alternative that reads the paperwork for you.
Stessa's free tier is a bank-feed tracker: you tag transactions yourself, and reading your PM owner packets or mortgage statements for you isn't part of its advertised toolset (even on its paid Manage/Pro tiers). If the paperwork is piling up faster than you can type it in, here's the tool that reads it for you.
14-day free trial. No credit card.
The product you'd otherwise build yourself
The Portfolio Health Score is one 0–100 number that rolls up NOI, DSCR, occupancy, and expense ratios, computed automatically across every door, and it sits right above the investor metrics you already track.
It's live the day you start, not after a weekend of setup. Long-term and short-term rentals live in the same ledger.
Drop in a statement: the AI writes the ledger
Owner packets, mortgage statements, and invoices are read straight into your books: vendor, amount, date, category, and the property they belong to.
Keystone IQ
Document-first. Drop in a PDF (an owner packet, a mortgage statement, a receipt photo, or your Airbnb CSV) and Keystone IQ writes the ledger entry for you: vendor, amount, date, category, and which property it belongs to. Then it shows live NOI, DSCR, cap rate, and a Portfolio Health Score across every door.
Best for: independent investors who'd rather review the numbers than enter them.
Stessa3
Stessa's free tier is a bank-feed ledger and expense tracker: it imports transactions and lets you categorize them (its paid Manage/Pro tiers add budgeting and reporting, not document AI). Keystone IQ adds AI extraction of PM owner packets and mortgage statements, plus short-term-rental metrics like ADR, RevPAR, and §280A tracking that bank-feed trackers don't typically advertise.
Best for: investors with 1–3 doors who don't mind manual bookkeeping and want a free plan.
Investment metrics like NOI, DSCR, cap rate, and the Portfolio Health Score are calculated from the transactions and leases you enter.4
The real difference is who does the data entry
Document AI vs a bank feed you categorize by hand
At one or two doors, a bank feed you categorize yourself is fine. Add a PM owner packet, a mortgage statement, or a short-term rental, and Stessa still leaves that entry to you: Keystone IQ reads it instead.
Where the real difference is
Four places Keystone IQ goes deeper than a bank-feed tracker: the actual product, not a feature checklist.
Short-term rentals get their own metrics, not a workaround
Keystone IQ: Every property is tagged long-term, short-term, or mixed. Short-term doors get ADR, RevPAR, Occupancy, ALOS, §280A tracking, and Schedule E vs C classification, in the same ledger as your long-term doors.
Stessa: per-night short-term-rental metrics aren’t advertised on Stessa;1 its tracking is built around bank-feed transactions, not booking-level detail.
Reads the statement a bank feed only sees as one line
Keystone IQ: A mortgage payment lands already split: interest and principal booked separately, straight from the statement, no manual entry.
Stessa: Stessa’s bank feed sees a mortgage payment as a single transaction; automated parsing of the PDF statement to split it into interest and principal, or reading an owner packet, isn’t advertised as part of its feature set.1
Live investment metrics, not just income and expense
Keystone IQ: Every transaction lives in one searchable, filterable ledger per property and portfolio-wide, feeding live NOI, DSCR, and cap rate, plus a CPA-ready export covering Schedule E, 8825, and Schedule C.
Stessa: Stessa reports income and expense, with budgeting and reporting added on its paid tiers. NOI, DSCR, and cap rate specifically aren’t part of what’s advertised.1
The AI looks for money you’re leaving on the table
Keystone IQ: Optimization Opportunities automatically surfaces rent priced below market, vendor spend worth consolidating, and insurance-renewal risk. Each carries an estimated dollar opportunity: options to review, never acted on for you.
Stessa: automated below-market-rent, vendor-consolidation, or renewal-risk alerts aren’t part of Stessa’s advertised feature set;1 its tools are bank-feed tracking, budgeting, and reporting.
Keystone IQ vs Stessa1
| Capability | Keystone IQ | Stessa |
|---|---|---|
| Data entry | AI reads your PDFs and owner packets; imports your Airbnb CSV | You categorize bank-feed transactions by hand |
| PM owner packets | Dedicated AI processor | Owner-packet extraction not advertised |
| Mortgage statements | Parsed → principal/interest split + amortization & equity | Automated parsing not advertised |
| Investment metrics | NOI, DSCR, cap rate, CoC + Portfolio Health Score (Pro) | Income / expense reports |
| Short-term rentals | ADR, RevPAR, Occupancy, ALOS, §280A, Schedule E vs C | Per-night STR metrics not advertised |
| Tax export | CPA-ready Schedule E / Form 8825 / Schedule C (Pro) | Tax-ready export files |
| Price | $4.99–$14.99/mo: the AI does the data entry | Free tier available (paid tiers to ~$35/mo); you categorize the bank feed yourself |
Data entry
PM owner packets
Mortgage statements
Investment metrics
Short-term rentals
Tax export
Price
Comparison basis: publicly available information as of September 2026. Verify current details on Stessa's own website.1
Switch to Keystone IQ if…
You want the software to do more of the work.
- You're tired of hand-entering owner packets and statements.
- You get monthly PM owner packets you currently re-type.
- You have a mortgage and want equity tracked automatically.
- You have, or are considering, a short-term rental.
Stick with Stessa if…
It's genuinely the right call for some investors.
- You have 1–2 doors, no PM packets, and don't mind manual entry.
- A free plan is all you need right now.
Switching starts from what you already have
No CSV gymnastics. Keystone IQ rebuilds your ledger from the source documents you already keep: statements, owner packets, receipts.
Drop in your PDFs
Historic bank statements, invoices, mortgage statements, and PM owner packets. The AI reads them and drafts your ledger.
Sync bank feeds
Connect your operating accounts and mortgages securely through Plaid for live transaction activity.
Confirm your properties
Add rents, leases, and (if you host) your Airbnb CSV. Forecasts and metrics build themselves.
Export for your CPA2
At tax time, generate a clean Schedule E / 8825 (or Schedule C) export in one click.
Common questions
Does Keystone IQ have a free plan?
No. Starter is $4.99/mo and Pro is $14.99/mo, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card. Stessa advertises a free tier, with paid plans above it.1 The difference is where the data entry happens: Keystone IQ’s AI reads your statements and owner packets and drafts the ledger for you, which is what the subscription covers.
Can I import my data from Stessa?
Not yet: there's no one-click Stessa import. What works instead is dropping your historic PDF statements and owner packets in; the AI rebuilds the ledger from those source documents, so you aren't re-keying years of history by hand.
How does Keystone IQ handle short-term rentals?
Keystone IQ computes ADR, RevPAR, Occupancy, and ALOS, tracks personal-use days against the §280A limit, and produces a Schedule E vs Schedule C starting point per property to review with your tax advisor.2 Per-night metrics like these aren't something we've seen advertised on free bank-feed trackers,1 so it's worth checking current features on any provider's own site.
Will the bank sync drop or duplicate transactions?
Imported bank activity is auto-added to your books and flagged for a quick category review. A confident duplicate of something you've already recorded is set aside in a discarded-duplicates panel (never silently dropped) with one click to restore it if we got it wrong.
Real product, sample data.
Stop typing your portfolio in by hand.
Drop in your statements and watch the ledger build itself. 14-day free trial, no credit card.
Comparing a specific tool?
Disclosures
- 1.Comparison basis. This comparison is based on our good-faith understanding of Stessa's publicly available marketing, published pricing, and product documentation as of the date shown (September 2026), and may be incomplete or out of date. Competitor features, pricing, and tiers change frequently and without notice. Verify current details on Stessa's own website before making any decision.
- 2.Tax. For informational purposes only. Keystone IQ is a software tool for record-keeping and portfolio analytics, not a tax, accounting, or legal advisory service. Consult a qualified tax advisor before relying on any figure for a filing or financial decision.
- 3.Trademarks. Stessa and all other product names referenced are trademarks of their respective owners. Their use here is nominative and does not imply any affiliation with, sponsorship by, or endorsement by them.
- 4.Investment metrics. For informational purposes only. Not investment, tax, or financial advice.