Paid driving app on day one, or a phone camera and a spreadsheet?

The crossover for me was around 150 addresses a month, and it wasn't the logging that broke first. It was the follow-up. A spreadsheet doesn't tell you that address 62 got one letter in March and nothing since, so I was double mailing some owners and dropping others entirely. That's the thing you're paying for, a record of touches with dates attached.

Under about 40 a week you can genuinely hold it in a spreadsheet if you build one column for date of each touch and actually fill it in. I didn't, which is why I pay now. Start free and let the mess tell you when to switch.

Started from zero four months ago and went free on purpose. Camera roll plus a spreadsheet, 30 to 50 addresses a weekend. What I got out of doing owner lookups by hand on the county site is that I now understand what the records actually say, mailing address versus situs address, when the deed transferred, whether taxes are current. The app would have handed me a name and I'd have learned none of it.

Slow, though. My Sunday research block is two hours for maybe 35 addresses. I'll pay for a tool eventually. I don't regret the two hours.

Read the terms before you sign up for any of them. Two things I'd look at. First, who owns the data you enter, because some of these agreements give the platform a broad license to your logged addresses and property notes, and that matters if you ever build a list you'd want to sell or take with you. Second, the mail and calling features. If the tool launches texts or calls on your behalf, you're the one making the contact, and telemarketing and do-not-call rules vary by state on top of federal rules, so what's fine in one state can create exposure in another. A licensed attorney in your state is the person to confirm that with, not the vendor's help page.

On windlass's actual question, the county site is free and the record is the record. I'd add that a dozen or so states don't publish sale prices at all, so if you're in one of those, no subscription fixes your comps and you'll be leaning on an agent regardless. Cancellation terms are worth reading too. Annual commitments dressed up as monthly pricing are common.