Here Are The Best TWO Upad.co.uk Alternatives

Upad are one of the UK’s oldest and most popular online letting agents, they’ve amassed a significant following from landlords all over the nation. With in the industry, their brand is significant, and they’ve been renowned for providing excellent customer service.

However, on the flip-side, Upad have also received criticism for being considerably more expensive than most of their rivals that provide the same services. To give you some perspective, Upad’s basic tenant-find service is a whooping £149, while most other online letting agents are charging £50 on average.

On top of that, Upad have recently gone through some turbulent times, which unfortunately hasn’t gone unnoticed. Back in October 2019, Upad came to a sudden standstill and unexpectedly closed their doors, leaving behind a long queue of abandoned and confused customers (landlords). Upad were closed for a couple of months before a new backer rescued them from administration.

Yes, Upad as a brand lives on today, but inevitably morale and confidence is low, so many landlords are looking for alternative solutions.

To be clear, my intention isn’t to discourage anyone from using Upad, but if you’re one of those landlords looking for a new online letting service to use, the good news is, there are wonderful alternatives to choose from!

I work with several of the best online letting agents around, which are still going strong, so allow me to share my recommendations…

Okay, so here’s the thing! Even though there are several worthy alternatives to choose from, I’ve made the executive decision to only recommend two, because providing too many options often causes unnecessary confusion. I want to be precise. Consequently, I’m going to be brutally honest and pick my two favourite agents that I genuinely believe are the best Upad alternatives.

Moreover, the two recommendations will somewhat differ from one another. I’ll explain how, and maybe you’ll then be able to identity which replacement service seems most suitable for your requirements…

Option 1) LettingAProperty.com (LAP)

Ideal for the following landlords:

1. New landlords

2. Landlords using an online letting agent for the first time

3. Landlords happy to pay similar prices to Upad

4. Landlords wanting exceptional customer support like Upad provided

5. Landlords looking for basic Tenant-Find services or more comprehensive management services

For all intents and purposes, I’ve always considered LettingAProperty.com (LAP) to be the most similar to Upad in terms of quality and service, only not as well-known.

Upad were notorious for their exceptional customer service, ideal for new landlords and those that simply sleep better knowing that they can always pick up the phone and receive exceptional support. They heavily invested in creating a solid customer service infrastructure, it was rather impressive. As far as I’m concerned, LAP have always been in the same league.

So if you’re looking for a like-for-like Upad placement and excellent customer service, I can only recommend LettingAProperty.com.

They offer a couple of different packages, but here is their most popular and basic Tenant-Find one…

Letting AgentRatingDurationIncludes / NotesPrice Letting a Property Rating 4.9 Review Centre Duration 2 months Includes / Notes

Find a Tenant package

1. 2 months marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more Price £149Inc VAT Visit Website

Option 2) OpenRent

OpenRent.co.uk, currently the most popular online letting agent by a long-shot, and I don’t think should be surprised to see them listed as a recommendation! Make no mistake, they truly belong here.

Ideal for the following landlords:

1. Hands-on landlords that have previous experience with using an online letting agent

2. Landlords that don’t necessarily need that much support

3. Landlords looking for the best bang per buck

4. Price sensitive landlords looking for one of the cheapest and effective tenant-find solutions

While they’re also a highly recommended service, I believe OpenRent are better suited for landlords that demand less support. So ideally, a landlord that is generally confident with online app services, or has previous experience with using an online letting agent.

OpenRent have massively disrupted the market because of how cheap they are. From what I’m aware, they’re the only online agent that will list your property for FREE on Rightmove and Zoopla for 5 days, with 100% no obligations. Many of their landlords have found tenants without dropping a single penny! It’s pretty remarkable. That said, their premium package, which is still a measly £49, provides an insane amount of value. More than the freebie if you ask me.

Letting AgentRatingDurationIncludes / NotesPrice OpenRent Rating 4.9 Google Reviews Duration 5 days / 3 months* Includes / Notes

Ultimate Advertising package

1. 5 days / 3 months* marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more

*5 days free, and then the option of continuing service for 3 months for £24 (Inc VAT) for new customers, and £29 (Inc VAT) for returning customers! Price*FREEInc VATNo hidden fees, no credit card details required!

Free Trial Visit Website OpenRent Top Pick Rating 4.9 Google Reviews Duration 3 months Includes / Notes

Advertising + Rent Now package

1. 3 months marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more

2. Deposit registration

3. Tenancy sign-up service

4. First month's rent collection Price £49Inc VAT Visit Website

OpenRent able to charge so much less than LAP (and most of the other online letting agents) because they keep their telephone number discrete and focus on a more scalable online support system, which includes email and online chats. Essentially, OpenRent give you shiny and easy-to-use tools to “just get on with it”, which is why I believe they’re better suitable for the experienced.

Also, perhaps that means OpenRent are a good solution for the millennials, because they’re accustom to managing their lives via tablets and phone apps. However, for any old school cat that would like the option of good old fashioned telephone support and a warm hand to hold onto, I can’t help but point in the direction of LAP.

Conclusion

Two very different options suitable for two different types of landlords that have different requirements.

I honestly can’t recommend one agent over the other because I feel both offer excellent services – but for different types of landlords! So you need to decide which type you are! Do you want the extra support or not?

Ultimately, I don’t think you need to use LAP’s premium service if you’re a seasoned landlord and your primary objective is to purely generate enquiries from prospective tenants. I would happily use an alternative and cheaper online letting agent to generate enquiries, specifically OpenRent. On the same token, I wouldn’t begrudge digging deeper to benefit from the reassurance of LAP’s overall support.

LAP is worth every penny, in my opinion. Their basic ‘tenant-find’ package might be one of the most expensive out there, which does often raise eyebrows and questions, but they do provide a premium service, and in comparison to most high-street agents they still charge flipping peanuts.

So there you have it, my two preferred Upad alternatives.

To clarify, by no means am I saying that the several other online letting agents that I promote are bad in any shape or form. I’m sure they will do you no wrong. But if I had to choose two services to specifically be your Upad replacement, the two above would be my choices.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Or maybe not, if they’re mean.

Option “Oh, by the way”) Fully-managed letting services

This wasn’t even meant to rare its ugly head, but I figured I may as well, just in case.

Upad do offer a fully managed letting service, but I don’t think it’s where their priority lies, they seem to exert all their energy on the tenant-find packages. So if you’re after a managed service, which includes all the good stuff like rent collection, maintenance, breakdown services etc, essentially the whole shebang, here’s a list of fully managed letting services I recommend.

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