Most multifamily platforms price per unit per month, so a 220-unit community pays a headline number times 220 every month. The core property management system, the accounting ledger and the lease and resident records, tends to land in the low single digits per unit. Everything else is a module with its own price: online payments, utility billing and recovery, screening, insurance compliance, renters insurance tracking, revenue management, maintenance workflow, smart access. Stack four or five modules and the all-in figure per unit is why you're hearing $12 as easily as $2.
Some costs never appear per unit. An AI leasing assistant is usually priced per property per month. Smart locks and leak sensors are hardware with an install labor cost per door, so they're capital items, not subscriptions. Screening and payment convenience fees are frequently charged to the applicant or resident, and what a resident can legally be charged varies by state, so confirm that with a local attorney before you build it into a pro forma.
On who pays, the management agreement decides. Owners commonly reimburse the property-specific licenses through the operating account and the management company absorbs its own corporate systems. Write that split out line by line, because "technology" as a single reimbursable line invites arguments.
The cost people underestimate is implementation. Data migration, chart of accounts mapping, and retraining site staff eat weeks of payroll, and a badly migrated ledger will haunt your owner reporting for two closes at least.
