The percentage model
High street letting agents typically charge a rent collection percentage on every payment, often with a separate setup fee at the start of the tenancy. On £650 a month, a 10% collection fee is £780 a year before VAT — roughly a month and a fortnight of rent.
The flat-fee model
Online services have pushed the price down to a fixed monthly figure. That is a clear improvement on a percentage for higher rents, but it is regressive at the lower end: a flat fee is the same whether the rent is £2,000 or £550.
Doing it yourself
Manual bank transfers cost nothing in fees and quite a lot in attention. The real cost shows up when a payment is late, when you need to reconstruct a payment history for a deposit dispute, or when a conversation about repairs happened by text eighteen months ago.
Where Signlet sits
Signlet charges 0.1% of each rent payment plus a one-off £5 setup fee. On £650 a month that is 65p per payment — £7.80 a year — and the rent goes directly from tenant to landlord rather than sitting in a client account. The tenancy agreement, deposit record, payment history and messages stay in the same place, which is the part that saves the hours.
Keep reading
General information about renting in England and Wales. Signlet is not a law firm — check your own circumstances before relying on any of it.