RentDocs vs OpenRent: which suits UK landlords?
OpenRent finds you a tenant; RentDocs keeps the tenancy legally compliant. A side-by-side comparison of features, evidence trails and Renters' Rights Act 2025 readiness.
Choosing between RentDocs and OpenRent usually comes down to one question: do you need to find a tenant, or do you need to stay legally compliant with the tenant you already have?
Both tools are used by UK private landlords, but they solve different halves of the job. This guide sets out where each one fits, so you can decide whether you need one, the other, or both.
The short version
| RentDocs | OpenRent | |
|---|---|---|
| Core purpose | Ongoing tenancy compliance, documents and evidence | Letting and tenant find (advertising, referencing, Rent Now) |
| Best for | Landlords and agents managing live tenancies | Landlords advertising a vacant property |
| Tenancy agreements | Built-in templates plus free in-house e-signature | Available as part of Rent Now |
| Compliance document tracking | Gas, EICR, EPC, How to Rent, deposit records with expiry alerts | Not the focus |
| Rent reminders | Automated SMS and email reminders to tenants | Not the focus |
| Evidence trail | Timestamped audit log of every document served and message sent | Limited |
| Renters' Rights Act 2025 readiness | Built around it (main provisions commence 2026) | General guidance |
| Property inspections | Scheduling plus action tracking | Not offered |
| Multi-landlord signing | Yes | No |
What OpenRent is good at
OpenRent is one of the UK's best known online letting agents. Its strength is the front end of a tenancy: listing on Rightmove and Zoopla, handling enquiries, viewings, referencing and, through Rent Now, producing an agreement, collecting the first month's rent and protecting the deposit.
If your property is empty and you want tenants in it quickly without paying full agency fees, that is a sensible place to start.
What RentDocs is good at
RentDocs starts where letting ends. Once a tenant is in the property, the legal risk shifts from finding someone to proving you did everything correctly — and that proof is what determines whether you can rely on your notices, your deposit, and your defence at an ombudsman or in court.
RentDocs covers:
- Compliance document management. Upload the gas safety certificate, EICR, EPC, How to Rent guide and deposit prescribed information against each property. Expiry dates are tracked and you are warned before anything lapses.
- One-click document packs. Serve the whole statutory pack to a tenant by email, with the correct documents automatically selected based on the property's country (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) and the tenancy start date.
- Timestamped evidence trails. Every document served, every message sent, and every tenant portal access is logged. If a tenant later disputes what they received and when, you have a dated record rather than a memory.
- Automated rent reminders. Optional SMS and email reminders on weekly or monthly rent cycles, with tenants able to opt out.
- Free in-house e-signature. Sign tenancy agreements digitally, including agreements with multiple landlords, with a signing audit certificate attached to the finished PDF.
- Inspections. Schedule property inspections and track the resulting actions to completion.
- Renters' Rights Act 2025 readiness. Templates and workflows written for periodic tenancies, the end of fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies, and the new possession grounds, rather than retro-fitted to them.
- Free tools. A compliance checker, calculators and a council licensing directory covering every UK local authority.
Compliance-first vs letting-first
The practical difference is timing. A letting platform is transactional — it does a lot of work over a few weeks and then goes quiet. Compliance is continuous: certificates expire, guidance is reissued, rent is due every week or month, and inspections come round again.
Under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, that continuity matters more. With fixed terms replaced by periodic tenancies and possession routes tightened, the paperwork you can evidence becomes the paperwork you can rely on. A gas certificate that was served but cannot be proved to have been served is, in a dispute, close to worthless.
Do you need both?
For many landlords, yes — and they are not really competitors:
- Use OpenRent (or any agent or portal) to advertise the property and reference applicants.
- Use RentDocs to issue the agreement, serve the statutory pack, track certificate expiry, chase rent and hold the evidence trail for the life of the tenancy.
If you already have tenants in place and are not letting anything new, RentDocs on its own covers what you need.
Pricing and commitment
RentDocs is priced per property with a 3-day free trial, no long contract, and the free tools (compliance checker, calculators, council directory, wiki) are open to everyone without an account. OpenRent's advertising and Rent Now services are priced per let.
Which should you choose?
- Empty property, need tenants? Start with OpenRent or another letting route.
- Tenants in place, worried about compliance and evidence? RentDocs.
- Managing several properties, or a letting agent handling other people's portfolios? RentDocs, because the evidence trail and inspection tracking scale in a way that spreadsheets and email folders do not.
Not sure where you stand today? Run the free compliance checker — it takes a couple of minutes, works for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and gives you a traffic-light report on what is missing.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. RentDocs is a product of Private Shares Limited (registered in England & Wales, company no. 08367665). OpenRent is a trademark of its respective owner and is referenced here for comparison purposes only.