Prism vs Stessa

Asset coverage is the actual difference

Stessa models rental property — single-family, multi-family, short-term — and models it well. What it does not have is a concept of anything else you own. The strip center with NNN leases and an occupancy rate, the laundromat LLC, the management company: none of those is a rental, and a tool that only knows rentals either turns them away or flattens them into a shape that loses their numbers.

Prism treats residential property, commercial real estate and businesses as three first-class asset types in one portfolio — each with the fields its type actually has, all sharing one engine for bank sync, categorization, documents, ownership and performance. If your portfolio is rentals and will stay rentals, this difference buys you nothing and Stessa's free tier is hard to argue with. The moment it is not, this difference is the whole decision.

Categorization

Both tools auto-categorize bank transactions. Stessa sorts them into Schedule E-shaped buckets, which is exactly right for a rental tax return. Prism starts from category packs matched to what you own — rental categories for rentals, commercial and business packs when your portfolio names them — then learns from your corrections and applies the rules you write, so the transfer that is never income and the vendor that belongs to one building stop needing your attention. Different philosophies more than a feature gap: tax-form buckets versus a portfolio-shaped tree that gets more accurate as you use it.

Per-asset performance

This is where the two tools want different jobs. Stessa reports what happened: income, expenses, cash flow, a capex view. Prism computes what it means: DSCR, cap rate, LTV and cash-on-cash per asset, plus break-even and total return worked out from your actual purchase costs, loan events and cash flows — and, on Enterprise, an exit planner that models what a sale would net after selling costs, loan payoff and estimated tax. If you have ever maintained a spreadsheet beside your accounting tool to answer “is this building actually earning?”, that spreadsheet is the gap this fills.

Reporting and taxes

Honest split. Stessa's tax story is stronger for a straightforward rental return: a Schedule E-ready package your preparer will recognize, plus budgeting and pro-forma on Pro. Prism's reports are investor-shaped — income and expense by category and by asset over any range, a lender-ready real-estate schedule, Excel and PDF exports — and investor statements on Enterprise. Neither is a general ledger: Stessa is single-entry with a derived balance sheet, and Prism is single-entry without one. If a true balance sheet is a requirement, the honest answer is a double-entry tool — see our REI Hub comparison.

Ownership and partners

If you hold assets with partners, Prism records ownership as a percentage per asset, keeps every change in an immutable audit log, and lets reports respect the split — plus per-asset access for the partner, the bookkeeper or the CPA through roles and permissions. Stessa's sharing and ownership analytics sit on its paid tiers; if fractional ownership is central to how you invest, compare this row closely on both sides.

Pricing

Stessa: free with unlimited properties, then Manage at $12/mo and Pro at $28/mo on annual billing ($15 and $35 monthly) for leases, budgeting and the deeper reports. Prism: a free plan up to 3 assets, with paid plans covering 25 and then 250 assets — current prices are on the pricing page, and the table above reads the same live figures. On raw price for a pure rental portfolio, Stessa's unlimited free tier wins and this page says so plainly.