Compare

Three ways to get your
community's work done.

Hire each vendor yourself, hand the association to a management company, or take proposals here.

Three ways to get a community's work done, compared on seven rows
What it comes down to	Hiring each vendor yourself	A property management company	On VendoRFP
Who picks the vendor	You, one call at a time	Often from the manager’s list	You, from written proposals
Insurance checked	When you remember to ask	Usually, as part of the service	Before a vendor can propose
Proof a visit happened	—	Varies by company	A photo is required to record it
Where the invoices land	Six inboxes	Inside the management report	All of them, one place
Sales tax and processing	However each vendor invoices	Often inside the bundle	Their own line items
Books, meetings, covenants	—	Yes, that is the job	—
What the platform costs	Nothing, you do the work	A monthly management fee	$25 a community, first free

Management companies differ a lot, and plenty of them track vendor insurance closely.

When the list is short

Hiring each vendor yourselfOne landscaper, one contract, one board member who renews it each spring. You pay nothing for a platform. You also keep the certificate dates, the six inboxes, and the search when a vendor quits in July.Read the long comparison

When the board wants the job run

A property management companyAssessments, books, meetings, and covenant enforcement are a management company’s work, and they are not this product’s. Many run compliance and reporting on their vendors extremely well. You pay a management fee and hand over the work.Read the long comparison

When the board wants to choose

On VendoRFPVendors propose in writing, on identical terms. You pick one and sign with that vendor. Insurance is checked before a vendor can propose, and a photograph is required to record a visit.See how a board runs an RFP

The comparisons

Read either comparison in full.

Each page compares VendoRFP against one alternative, row by row. Written for community managers and representatives.

Against hiring directly

Plenty of boards hire their own vendors and do it well. What changes is where the certificates, the invoices, and the visit records live, and who has to remember a renewal date.

Read the comparison

Against a management company

These are not the same product. One runs your association. The other is where your board hires and tracks its own vendors. What each one covers is the real question.

Read the comparison

Acreage

Your acreage is drawn on a satellite map

Whichever route you pick, the lawn price rests on an acreage — and yours is traced from the parcel boundary.

Satellite view of a Texas community: dark-roofed houses packed on a grid of streets with almost no tree cover, a small pool beside a clubhouse right of center, a block of open park with looping paths left of center, and a divided highway and bare graded building land along the upper edge.

Basis: netted

Common area — the estimate basis
Community boundary

Gross outline: 48.0 ac
Homes, streets and pondsPrivate home lots (124) · Streets (19) · Ponds & parking (0): −12.2 ac
Common-area grounds: 35.8ac

A landscaping estimate starts from this number. The vendors that propose set the price.

This is a real community, and yours comes up the same way on a satellite map your team can reshape. Treat the acres as a not-to-exceed figure.

On the ground

The same work on the ground, whichever route you pick

The three routes differ in who finds the vendor and who holds the paperwork.

A landscaping crew working a community's common area on a weekday morning — Whichever route a board takes, this is the Tuesday it ends in.

How a vendor is checked before it proposes

Put an estimate against the comparison.

Enter your address and get an estimate range. It takes a couple of minutes and needs no signup.

Run an estimate See the pricing

Every certificate on file carries its expiration date, and VendoRFP checks those dates twice — when a vendor proposes on your work, and again when you send that company out to the community. Chasing a COI stops being your board’s job.

Run a service company? Join VendoRFP for free.