REPSLog alternatives: which hours tracker fits your year
By Max Medvedev · 6 Aug 2026
The short answer
REPSLog is a strong hours tracker: multi-device, AI-assisted entry, participant tracking, and built for the 750-hour real estate professional path as well as the short-term rental route. An alternative is worth considering only if you need something it does not do — cheaper real-time capture, expenses and mileage alongside hours, or actual books.
What REPSLog is genuinely good at
It runs on web, iOS, Android and tablet, and syncs between them. Entry is AI-assisted with auto-completion and speech-to-text, there is a live timer for logging while you work, and you can attach documents and sync a calendar. It handles multiple properties, long-term and short-term, with custom goals, import and export, and a ChatGPT plugin. Starter is $149.99/year or $10/month, Premium $199.99/year, with a 14-day free trial. Prices checked on reps-log.com on 6 August 2026 — confirm before you buy.
Two things matter more than the feature count.
It assumes a portfolio. REPSLog is aimed at the 750-hour real estate professional test as much as the short-term rental route. If you hold several properties, mix long-term and short-term, and the number you are chasing is 750 hours across everything, that assumption is working in your favour. The two routes are genuinely different.
It tracks other people's hours. The 100-hour test turns on whether you did more than any other single individual, usually the cleaner. A log that only records you cannot answer the question the test actually asks. Proving that test is why participant tracking is not a nice-to-have.
Where it stops is hours. No ledger, no Schedule E, no depreciation schedule — and it does not claim otherwise. If hours are your only gap, nothing below is an upgrade.
The three alternatives worth naming
| Instead of REPSLog | Why you would move | Price checked 6 Aug 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| STRHours | Cheapest real-time capture, short-term rental route only | Free tier · $14.99/mo · $149/yr |
| DeductFlow | Expenses and mileage alongside the hours | Free tier · $24/mo · $199/yr |
| RentReel | You actually need books and a Schedule E | $9.99–$99/mo · $99–$890/yr |
Confirm each on the vendor's own site; prices move.
STRHours, if you only need the short-term rental path
The free tier is $0 forever — 5 hours of tracking, one property, iOS and Android, no card. Paid is $14.99/month or $149/year. You get voice logging, per-property tracking, 100-hour and 500-hour threshold options, spouse and third-party hours, calendar sync, and CPA-ready PDF exports with timestamped entries and voice transcripts.
The feature worth naming is booking-platform sync. STRHours connects to Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com and iCal and pulls guest communications into the log automatically. Evidence that arrives without anyone remembering to write it down is the strongest kind, because the losses are evidence failures, not arithmetic ones. If automatic capture is what you are shopping for, check the current feature list on both vendors' sites before you decide.
Move here for one or two properties, no interest in the 750-hour route, and the cheapest thing that captures in real time.
DeductFlow, if expenses and mileage matter too
Free covers one property, 50 expenses a year and 20 mileage entries. Pro is $24/month or $199/year. It has a 100-hour material participation tracker, expense categorisation across the IRS categories, mileage logging with a business-use percentage, home office under the actual method, cost-segregation documentation and depreciation tracking, and a CPA-ready PDF export. Web, plus a mobile companion app.
Its own site draws the line clearly: it is "a record-keeping tool only", "not a bookkeeping or Schedule E preparation tool", and it "does not give tax advice". Treat that as useful information: a tool that tells you where it stops is easier to plan around than one that leaves you to find out.
RentReel, if the books are the real problem
RentReel generates a Schedule E, and pulls figures out of a mortgage 1098 or a PDF statement. It also carries a REPS 750-hour tracker, the section 469 material participation tests and an hours reconstruction wizard — so moving there is not a step down on hours. Around that: a W-9 vault with 1099-NEC preparation, read-only CPA share links, multi-LLC, occupancy-tax passthrough, a cost-segregation estimator, and mileage auto-attribution. Worth knowing before you buy: almost everything arrives as a file you upload rather than a live connection. Their integrations page lists one automatic sync — Uplisting, by OAuth — while Hospitable, Guesty, Hostaway, OwnerRez, Lodgify, every listing channel and every bank are CSV imports, with AI reading PDF statements. Direct PMS APIs are marked Q3 2026 and a Plaid bank connection late 2026. So monthly uploads are the workflow today. Web. Starter $9.99/month or $99/year up to three properties, Pro $39/month or $390/year unlimited, Pro+ Tax $89/month or $890/year, Business $99/month.
You move here when hours were never the hard part — the 1099-K does not match the deposits and your accountant wants a clean ledger.
Switching mid-year is itself a risk to the record
This is the part people get wrong, and it costs more than picking the wrong app.
Export before you cancel. REPSLog supports import and export. A lapsed subscription is a bad moment to find out where your file lives. Pull it first and store it somewhere you control.
Keep the old log exactly as it was. Do not merge it into the new tool to make one tidy file. Two logs with a clean handover date read as what they are: a real record kept in two places. One seamless file, in a year you demonstrably changed tools, reads as something assembled afterwards. Windham shows what contemporaneous looks like on paper; Sezonov shows what happens when it does not.
Never re-key from memory. The instant you retype January in July, those entries stop being contemporaneous, and reconstruction is where cases turn. If the new tool imports the old export, use the import. Otherwise leave the old months where they are.
Write down the date and the reason. One line: switched on this date, from this tool to that one, here is the export. It explains the seam before anyone has to ask.
Keep the underlying evidence separately. Booking messages, receipts, calendar entries. Spreadsheets are acceptable evidence when the source material backs them up.
What STRDeduct can do for you today
Not this. Our hours log is not open yet, and we will not imply otherwise on a page about choosing a tracker. If you need real-time capture this season, buy one of the three above.
What is live and free: the estimator, which models a full year on the real rules and opens every figure into the citation behind it; the material participation checker; and the participation log template, with the columns the case law asks for and no email wall — somewhere neutral to hold a mid-year handover.
The whole landscape is on the software comparison hub.
Common questions
What is the best REPSLog alternative?
It depends on what you need beyond hours. STRHours is cheaper real-time capture if you only run the short-term rental route. DeductFlow adds expenses, mileage and cost-segregation records. RentReel is the one that produces books and a Schedule E. If hours are all you track, REPSLog already covers the job.
Is it safe to switch hours trackers mid-year?
It is workable, but the switch is itself a risk to the record. Export the old log before you cancel, keep it exactly as written, and start the new tool from the handover date forward. Never retype earlier months from memory — that turns a real-time log into a reconstructed one.
Does REPSLog do bookkeeping or a Schedule E?
No. It is an hours tracker and does not present itself as anything else. If you need a ledger, a 1099-K reconciliation or a Schedule E, you need a different category of product, not a different hours tracker.
Is REPSLog worth it for a single short-term rental?
It works, but a lot of what you are paying for is built for a portfolio and the 750-hour real estate professional test. With one property on the short-term rental route, a cheaper tracker covers the same job. What matters either way is logging the day the work happens.