Baselane is real-estate banking with a bookkeeping layer bolted on top: landlord checking accounts, rent collection, and property analytics all rolled into one platform. RentReel is STR-first bookkeeping and tax: Schedule E export, REPS 750-hr tracker, AI 1098 extract, Hospitable/Airbnb import. Same neighborhood, very different jobs.
Built by a 5-property STR operator · Launched July 2026 · direct founder access
Two products, two different jobs. Here's the 30-second answer.
You host on Airbnb, VRBO, or Booking.com; you already have your own bank account setup (or use Relay, Novo, Chase Business); and what you actually need is Schedule E automation, REPS/§469 tracking, AI 1098 extract, and a clean CPA hand-off. RentReel is bookkeeping first, banking-agnostic.
You want your rental banking, tenant rent collection, and books all in one platform, mostly for long-term rental properties. Baselane's edge is a real-estate-focused bank account (with debit cards you can tag per property) and built-in rent-payment tools. Bookkeeping is a bonus on top.
Every row is either something an STR-heavy portfolio actually uses at tax time, or a workflow the tool is designed around.
| Feature | RentReel | Baselane |
|---|---|---|
| Built specifically for STR Baselane does market to STR investors, but the product is landlord banking underneath. RentReel makes Airbnb/VRBO payouts, occupancy-tax passthrough, cleaning fee accounting, and avg-stay classification first-class. | ✓ | Markets to STR · landlord-banking core |
| Schedule E export (multi-tab Excel) Excel workbook laid out like the IRS form: per-property tabs, line-by-line rollup, 1099 vendor tab. Send it to your CPA and they file from it. | ✓ | Reports / CSV |
| REPS 750-hour tracker · IRC §469(c)(7) Log hours by activity/property so you can defensibly claim Real Estate Professional Status. | ✓ | ✗ |
| §469 material participation · live 500-hr + 100-hr gauges STRs with avg stay ≤ 7 days aren't rentals under §469. They're trades. Meeting a material-participation test (the app checks the 500-hour and 100-hour tests) allows non-passive loss treatment. | ✓ | ✗ |
| AI 1098 mortgage extract Drop your 1098 PDF; RentReel pulls interest, property tax, PMI, points automatically, and puts interest alone on Schedule E Line 12. | ✓ | ✗ Manual |
| Real-estate bank account + debit cards Baselane issues you a landlord-focused business checking account with per-property debit cards. This is Baselane's core product. | ✗ Bring your own bank | ✓ |
| Built-in tenant rent collection (ACH) Baselane lets tenants pay rent through the app directly to your Baselane account. Great for LTRs. | ✗ Airbnb/Vrbo payouts handle this | ✓ |
| Hospitable / PMS CSV import Hospitable, Guesty, Hostaway, OwnerRez, Lodgify, or raw Airbnb/VRBO CSV, mapped and categorized on upload. | ✓ | CSV import · not PMS-mapped |
| Mileage attribution across properties Log trips, RentReel lands trips to a property's address on that property and allocates shared trips by revenue share (or even split, or direct-only), then applies the IRS standard rate for each property's Schedule E Line 6. | ✓ | ✗ |
| CPA read-only share link Generate a URL, send to your CPA. No signup, no seat cost, no login. They see your Schedule E prep and export workpapers. Baselane's shared access with role-based controls is a SMART feature, and your CPA needs a Baselane login to use it. | ✓ | SMART only · login req |
| Cost segregation estimator Baselane's SMART plan lists a cost segregation feature. RentReel's estimator models the 5/7/15-year reclass + bonus depreciation against your actual building basis and feeds the REPS/§469 layer, so the deduction connects to whether you can actually use it. | ✓ tied to REPS/§469 engine | ✓ on SMART |
| Multi-LLC roll-up Most STR portfolios sit under multiple LLCs. RentReel rolls up while keeping the books legally separate. | ✓ | Multi-entity |
| Native iOS / Android mobile app Baselane has a mobile app tied to its banking product. RentReel is a mobile-optimized PWA. | PWA | iOS + Android |
| Target customer Product design, defaults, and integrations follow from this. | STR operators | Landlords (incl. an STR segment) |
| Pricing Baselane leads with the free Core banking product; the paid SMART tier ($20/mo on an annual plan) adds the AI bookkeeping/analytics layer. RentReel is bookkeeping first, with a free tier plus a paid tax layer. | $0–$129/mo | Core $0 · SMART $20/mo annual (Sep 2026) |
| Support responsiveness RentReel is founder-run. Direct email to Jordan. Baselane has scaled support with typical SaaS response times. | Direct founder access | Standard SaaS |
Banking-first real-estate account. Baselane's core product is a business checking account purpose-built for landlords: no monthly fee, unlimited sub-accounts, and per-property virtual debit cards you can hand to a cleaner or contractor with a spending limit. If you don't already have a great business banking setup and you want to consolidate rent, expenses, and books under one roof, that's a real differentiator. RentReel doesn't ship a bank account. It works with whatever bank you already use (Chase, Relay, Novo, Bluevine, local credit union, etc.).
Built-in rent collection for long-term tenants. Baselane lets you send tenants a payment link and receive ACH rent payments directly into your Baselane account. For a landlord managing three LTR duplexes and chasing rent every month, that flow removes real friction. RentReel doesn't try to handle rent collection. Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com already handle payouts for STR operators, so the workflow just doesn't exist here in the same way.
Mature mobile app + everything-in-one-place. Baselane has native iOS and Android apps tied to the banking product. If you value tapping one icon to see your rental balance, categorize a transaction, and send a rent reminder without hopping between products, Baselane's consolidation is worth points. RentReel intentionally stays a focused bookkeeping/tax tool and expects you to keep your bank as a separate, dedicated product.
STR tax lever is the whole product. The biggest dollars on an STR return come from REPS 750-hour status, §469 material participation (the 500-hr and 100-hr tests), and cost segregation. RentReel is built around those levers: contemporaneous hours log, Hours Reconstruction Wizard for prior years, aggregate-election toggle, cost seg estimator. Baselane doesn't ship this layer as far as we can tell (Sep 2026). Even its short-term-rental-investor offering is the same banking-first product underneath, with no REPS tracker, no §469 gauges, and no hours log for defending the STR tax loophole at filing time.
Airbnb 1099-K accounting done right. When Airbnb pays you, that payout usually includes occupancy tax the guest paid, which is not your income. Treating it as revenue inflates your Schedule E and your tax bill. RentReel separates gross rent, cleaning fee revenue, and occupancy-tax passthrough automatically. Baselane's Auto-tag assistant does AI-categorize transactions, but it's tuned for landlord banking flows (rent in, mortgage/utilities/repairs out), not for splitting an Airbnb payout into gross rent, cleaning fee revenue, and occupancy-tax passthrough. Same for AI 1098 extraction. Schedule E Line 12 asks for mortgage interest only, not principal, and RentReel gets that split right on upload.
Schedule E export your CPA can actually use. RentReel produces a multi-tab Excel workbook laid out like the IRS Schedule E form: one tab per property, one summary tab, one 1099 vendors tab with blank W-9/TIN columns. Generate a read-only share link and your CPA reviews it in-app without a login or seat cost. Baselane includes an accountant tax package with Schedule E reports on every tier, including its free Core tier, so the line mapping isn't the difference. The format is: RentReel gives your CPA a per-property multi-tab workbook with the 1099 vendor tab and the in-app review link, plus the STR-specific splits (occupancy-tax passthrough, cleaning-fee revenue) that a generic rental report doesn't separate.
Skim your situation, jump to the answer.
You don't lose data and you don't have to close your Baselane bank account. Baselane exports transaction history; RentReel imports it and treats Baselane like any other bank feed source.
In Baselane, go to Transactions → Export CSV. Grab full history, not just YTD. Note which sub-accounts belong to which property so we can preserve that mapping.
Start free at app.rentreel.co, no card required. Take 14 days of everything, then Investor is $79/mo if you subscribe (Solo is $39, Portfolio $129; annual saves about two months).
Add each property with its LLC and average stay length (RentReel classifies STR/MTR/LTR from the stay length). Then add the Baselane account as a bank account and use that tile's Upload CSV button (or put the account's last four digits in the file name): the importer reads the Baselane CSV as a standard transactions file and categorizes each row to a Schedule E line from the payee and description. Property and LLC assignment happens in RentReel after import, and learned payee rules make that quick.
Nothing about your Baselane checking account needs to change. Keep using the debit cards, keep collecting LTR rent through Baselane. Just export transactions monthly to RentReel for the books/tax layer.
See if it fits your STR workflow before you pay a dollar. Start free, no card required. 14 days of everything; your books go read-only after unless you subscribe. No surprise charges. We never bill you without you adding a card.
Start free trial → See the demo firstPublic rate $79/mo Investor · rentreel.co