aus-property Study · 28 Oct 2026

VIC Property Hub demo × PropertyME

AU residential PM mini‑SaaS — first‑cut study

A page to forward: where the VIC Property Hub browser demo sits against PropertyME, what the servers might cost, and three mini-SaaS bets in priority order. Researched 28 October 2026. USD list prices unless marked AUD.

01Thesis

Three lines a principal can repeat. The rest of the page is the evidence.

  1. Do not clone PropertyME. Their Manage PM page publishes 1.9M+ properties, 6,400+ agencies, and 2 out of 3 Australian investment properties. Trust accounting is the core of that product, described there as woven in rather than bolted on.1

  2. Trust is the buy. End-of-month money ops is the highest-liability job in the agency. A cleaner task list does not replace a trust ledger, an owner statement, or a disbursement run.

  3. The wedge is VIC-first, small rent rolls, or one workflow sharp enough that an agency keeps PropertyME and still pays for this.

Next bets, in this order

  1. Trust-lite. Receipt, then allocate, then owner payout and statement.

  2. VIC notice and compliance pack. A calendar that knows which check is due.

  3. Keep the portals and the maintenance approval already sketched in the demo.

  4. Leave the full ERP parked until bet 1 is real. Listings, a trades marketplace, and an inbox product wait with it.

Bets 1 to 3 are written out in Three mini-SaaS bets: the pain, what PropertyME already does, the gap a small desk can still win, and a costed plan. Bet 4 stays parked.

The sharp slice already in the demo is one property file: arrears, a bond note, inspection acknowledgement, and landlord approval on a job.

Nested wedge. Sell the core. Leave the suite on the shelf.

Incumbent suite

Trust, CRM, inspections, trades, listings, compliance, portals, mobile. This is the PropertyME-shaped product. It already exists.

Parked

Full ERP, listings-to-applications pipeline, trades portal, inbox AI.

Wedge

VIC-first. Small rolls. One sharp workflow.

02Pain → function

Why an agency pays, and the function that answers that pain. The order matches the three bets in the next section.

Trust and end of month

Pain · highest liability

Money ops: receipting, allocation, owner payment, the monthly grind. This is the job that can sink an agency.

Function · bet 1 Trust-lite. Receipt → allocate → owner payout and statement. Audit trail included, or it is not trust-lite.

Compliance and notices

Pain · law that moves

Victorian tenancy rules, notices, and safety checks. A wrong notice is a product defect, not a copy tweak.

Function · bet 2 VIC notice pack and a compliance calendar. Solicitor review before it ships as advice.

The inbox

Pain · owners, tenants, trades

MRI Software’s 2024 Voice of the Property Manager: 47% of property managers work more than 41 hours a week, and 54% report mental-health struggles.2

Function Keep owner and tenant portals so routine status does not become another email. A full inbox product is parked.

Maintenance coordination

Pain · the job stalls

Tenant reports it, landlord has to approve it, someone has to do the work. The handoff is the product.

Function · bet 3 Landlord approve / reject on the job. Already sketched. The stored $500 threshold is not enforced yet. A trades portal waits.

Inspections and renewals

Pain · volume

Check-in, routine, check-out, then the renewal. Repeated on every tenancy.

Function The demo already has the three inspection types plus acknowledge. Mobile polish is a short later step. Renewals wait.

Small-roll economics

Pain · the suite is priced for a bigger desk

PropertyME’s own page describes pricing as transparent.1 Separately, this study records review-site themes (Capterra and similar): reports take too many clicks, advanced setup is hard, pricing feels harsh under about 20–50 doors, and updates sometimes jar. Those themes were not re-quoted for this page.3

Function Scope and price the wedge for a small VIC roll. A discounted clone of the whole suite misses the opening.

03Three mini-SaaS bets

Ranked 28 October 2026 by liability, willingness to pay, buildability, and the gap a small Victorian desk still has beside PropertyME. Money ops is first: it is the highest-liability job in an Australian residential agency, it is why a suite gets bought, and a receipt-to-statement path fits the 8–14 week range while an agency that already has Manage PM can keep it. Notices are second: a wrong Victorian notice is a liability, and a national compliance module still leaves room for a VIC pack a small desk can run. Maintenance approval is third: the Hub demo already sketches the loop, the rest is a short polish, and a trades marketplace is a larger product than this wedge. Inspections, renewals, listings, and a full inbox stay parked until trust-lite is real.

Pain rank

Six themes from the pain map. Select a row. The bets below pick up a mark. Cards stay on the page either way.

Filled segments are the rank: six for rank 1, one for rank 6. The length is the order on this page, 28 October 2026, not a measured score.

All six pains. Select a rank to mark the bets that answer it. Arrow keys move the selection.

PropertyME, the gap, our wedge

One bet at a time, then one lens. Arrow keys move inside each row of buttons. With scripts off, all nine notes stay open, each with its own heading.

Priority 1 · Trust-lite

PropertyME today

Manage PM describes trust accounting as native, woven in rather than bolted on. The pages name daily bank feeds, two-way reconciliation, real-time owner statements, bulk disbursements, MePay, and Trustless payments. Published scale: 1.9M+ properties, 6,400+ agencies.1

Priority 1 · Trust-lite

Where it still falls short

Review themes in this study: too many clicks for reports, hard onboarding and advanced setup, pricing that feels harsh under about 20–50 doors.3 A small VIC desk can need receipt → allocate → owner statement without the rest of the suite. A companion beside PropertyME is the other shape, for that slice only.

Priority 1 · Trust-lite

Our mini-SaaS

Multi-tenant auth, a property file, receipt → allocate → owner payout, a PDF statement, and an audit trail. VIC-first, small rolls. Call the product trust accounting only after a solicitor and an accountant have reviewed it.

Priority 2 · VIC notices

PropertyME today

AiMe Comply covers state legislation. Compliance tracking covers smoke alarms, pools, and insurance. The pages mention notice automation. Lease renewals sit in Manage PM.1

Priority 2 · VIC notices

Where it still falls short

A national module still asks a small desk to configure it. The same review themes say that setup is hard.3 The opening is a Victorian pack: the right templates and a due calendar, beside PropertyME or on its own for this slice.

Priority 2 · VIC notices

Our mini-SaaS

Solicitor-reviewed templates, a compliance calendar, and due dates on the property file. No legal-advice claim before that review.

Priority 3 · Approval handoff

PropertyME today

Jobs carry quotes, assigned trades, photos, and updates to owners and tenants. Owners and tenants have portals, and there is a PropertyMe app.1

Priority 3 · Approval handoff

Where it still falls short

A trades marketplace is a lot of product for a micro roll. The Hub demo already lets a landlord approve or reject, and it stores a $500 threshold it does not enforce. The $500 figure is the demo’s sample on 28 October 2026, not a limit this study prescribes.11

Priority 3 · Approval handoff

Our mini-SaaS

Enforce the threshold the agency sets. Approve or reject on a phone. Send status back to the tenant portal. Add SMS later, via Twilio Australia, only when a pilot is live. Leave the trades marketplace parked.

The three bets

Each card is the plan for that bet: the pain, what PropertyME already does, the gap, what we would ship, then the action plan, the roadmap, and the cost.

Priority 1

Trust-lite money ops

Highest pain · highest liability

Pain
Receipting, allocation, owner payout, the end-of-month grind, and the audit trail. This is the highest-liability job in an Australian residential agency.
PropertyME today
Trust accounting is native on Manage PM. The pages name daily bank feeds, two-way reconciliation, real-time owner statements, bulk disbursements, MePay, and Trustless payments. Scale on that page: 1.9M+ properties, 6,400+ agencies.1
Where a wedge can still win
Priced and complex for a tiny or small Victorian roll. Review themes in this study, under about 20–50 doors: reports take too many clicks, and onboarding and advanced configuration are hard.3 A small desk can buy a sharp receipt → allocate → owner statement path and skip the rest of the suite. The other buyer already has PropertyME and still wants that slice made calmer.
Our mini-SaaS
Trust-lite MVP. Multi-tenant auth, a property file, receipt → allocate → owner payout, a PDF statement, and an audit trail. Scope it VIC-first, for small rolls. Do not call it trust accounting until a solicitor and an accountant have reviewed it. The Hub demo has rent charges and a bond note. It does not have this payout path.
Action plan
  1. Weeks 0–2. Domain model, multi-tenant auth, property and lease skeleton, audit log schema.
  2. Weeks 2–8. Receipt, allocate, and reverse. Owner disbursement as a draft. Statement PDF.
  3. Weeks 8–14. Landlord statement view. Pilot with 1–3 Victorian agencies. Legal review gate before any “trust” wording.

These week numbers are the 14-week end of the 8–14 week range. The 8-week end is the same work, compressed. The study does not publish a separate short-end phase split.

Roadmap
First in the build order. Priority 2 can overlap the late weeks. The full ERP stays parked until this path is real.
Cost
Infra for a hosted pilot is Phase A, about US$45–80 / month. The US$45 floor inside that band is Vercel Pro US$20 plus Supabase Pro US$25. Build is 8–14 weeks: one strong full-stack developer and a part-time property-management advisor. Legal and accounting review is a separate budget. This study does not set a dollar figure for it (28 October 2026). Contractor day rates stay in Build time and are not retallied here.

Priority 2

VIC notice and compliance calendar

Law that moves · wrong notice, real liability

Pain
Victorian tenancy law changes. Notices, plus the safety checks that sit with them: smoke alarms, pools, insurance. A wrong notice is a liability.
PropertyME today
AiMe Comply for state legislation. Compliance tracking for smoke alarms, pools, and insurance. Notice automation is mentioned on the pages. Lease renewals are part of Manage PM.1
Where a wedge can still win
A national suite is a different product from a Victorian notice set a small desk can run without deep configuration. The review themes say setup and onboarding are hard.3 The wedge is that pack. Keep PropertyME, or use the pack alone for the compliance slice.
Our mini-SaaS
A VIC notice pack and a compliance calendar. Templates only after solicitor review. Due dates sit on the property file. Do not describe the pack as legal advice before that review.
Action plan
  1. Templates. Victorian notices, held until the solicitor review comes back.
  2. Calendar. Notice due dates, plus smoke, pool, and insurance checks.
  3. Property file. Surface those dates on the file the desk already opens.
  4. Review gate. Nothing ships as a notice pack before that review.
Roadmap
After trust-lite, or overlapping its late weeks. +4–8 weeks on top of Priority 1: templates, calendar, property-file surfacing, and the review gate.
Cost
Same infra bands as the cost section. A pilot stays on Phase A, about US$45–80 / month. This bet does not add a second hosting bill in the study. Build is +4–8 weeks on top of Priority 1. Legal review is mandatory before ship, and unpriced here (28 October 2026).

Priority 3

Maintenance approval handoff

The job stalls · the inbox absorbs it

Pain
The tenant reports a job, the landlord has to approve it, and the work stalls. MRI Software’s 2024 Voice of the Property Manager: 47% of property managers work more than 41 hours a week, and 54% report mental-health struggles.2
PropertyME today
Jobs with quotes, assign trades, photos, and owner and tenant updates. Owner access, tenant access, and the PropertyMe app.1
Where a wedge can still win
A trades marketplace and a full jobs suite are heavy for a micro roll. The Hub demo already has landlord Approve / Reject, and it stores a $500 threshold it does not enforce.11 The sharp product enforces the threshold the agency sets, tells the landlord, and closes the loop. The $500 figure is the demo’s sample on 28 October 2026, not a limit this study prescribes.
Our mini-SaaS
Enforce the approval threshold. The landlord approves or rejects on a phone. Status goes back to the tenant portal. SMS comes later, and only when a pilot is live. The trades marketplace stays parked. Portals in the demo are the seed.
Action plan
  1. Mobile approval. The landlord can decide on a phone.
  2. Threshold. Enforce the value the agency stored. The demo’s sample is $500, and it is not enforced yet.
  3. Close the loop. Notify the landlord and return status to the tenant portal.
  4. SMS, later. Twilio Australia, only once a pilot is live.
Roadmap
+2–4 weeks of polish on the demo seed. The study draws this after the notice pack so the page stays in priority order. The work itself can start while trust-lite is still open.
Cost
Small incremental build: +2–4 weeks, on the same staffing assumption as Build time. Infra stays on the shared Phase A / B / C bands. SMS, when live: about US$0.0515 per outbound segment and about US$8.25 / month for a number.8 Per-message volume sits outside the monthly band.

Roadmap

High-end sequence from the build chart: trust-lite at 14 weeks, then +8 for notices, then +4 for the approval polish, 26 weeks in a line. The low end of that same chart is 14 weeks (8 + 4 + 2). Priority 2 can overlap the late weeks of trust-lite. Priority 3 is demo polish and can start while trust-lite is still open. This drawing still places it last so the order stays 1, then 2, then 3. The black tick is the shorter end of a range: week 18 for notices (+4), week 24 for approval (+2).

Weeks 0–2 · Foundations

  • Domain model for properties, leases, receipts, allocations, and owner payouts.
  • Multi-tenant auth, so one agency cannot read another’s roll.
  • Property and lease skeleton.
  • Audit log schema: who changed what, and when.

Inside the 8–14 week trust-lite build. One strong full-stack developer and a part-time PM advisor. Hosting, once a pilot is up, is Phase A, about US$45–80 / month. Legal review is a later gate in this same bet, and this study does not price it.

Weeks 2–8 · Money path

  • Receipt, allocate, and reverse.
  • Owner disbursement as a draft the pilot can read.
  • Owner statement as a PDF.

Same 8–14 week envelope. Same Phase A band, about US$45–80 / month, once the pilot is hosted. Still no “trust accounting” wording.

Weeks 8–14 · Pilot and review gate

  • Landlord portal: statement view.
  • Pilot with 1–3 Victorian agencies.
  • Solicitor and accountant review before any trust wording.

Phase A, about US$45–80 / month, for that pilot. The Priority 1 build clock ends in this window (8–14 weeks). Legal review is a separate budget. No dollar figure in this study (28 October 2026).

Priority 2 · +4–8 weeks

  • Victorian notice templates, held for solicitor review.
  • Compliance calendar: notices, smoke, pool, insurance.
  • Due dates on the property file.
  • Review gate before ship.

Build is +4–8 weeks on top of Priority 1. The bar runs from week 14 to week 22 on the high-end drawing. The tick at week 18 is the +4 end. Infra stays on the shared bands: Phase A about US$45–80 / month while it is a pilot, Phase B about US$80–150 / month in early commercial use, Phase C about US$200–600+ / month if the book grows. Legal review is mandatory before ship, and unpriced here.

Priority 3 · +2–4 weeks

  • Enforce the approval threshold. The demo’s stored sample is $500.
  • Landlord approve or reject on a phone.
  • Status back to the tenant portal.
  • SMS only when a pilot is live.

Build is +2–4 weeks on the demo seed. The bar runs from week 22 to week 26 on this drawing. The tick at week 24 is the +2 end. Infra stays on the shared phase band. SMS, when switched on: about US$0.0515 per outbound segment and about US$8.25 / month for a number. Message volume sits outside the band. The trades marketplace stays parked.

  • Priority 1 phases, on the 14-week plan.
  • Priority 2. Bar is the +8 end. Tick is the +4 end.
  • Priority 3. Bar is the +4 end. Tick is the +2 end. Stripes match the build-time chart.

Cost by bet

Build weeks and the monthly infra band are different units, so they do not share one bar. Switch the measure. All three bets draw the same infra bar on purpose: one agency, one hosting bill. Priority 3’s SMS line is extra, and only when texts are on.

Build-week ranges on a 0–14 week axis. Phase A, B, and C redraw every bet onto that shared monthly band.

Axis is how many weeks the bet takes, not when it starts. Priority 1 sits between 8 and 14. Priority 2 sits between 4 and 8 extra weeks. Priority 3 sits between 2 and 4 extra weeks.

  • Priority 1. Build 8–14 weeks. Infra follows the shared bands: Phase A about US$45–80 / month, Phase B about US$80–150 / month, Phase C about US$200–600+ / month. Legal review of trust wording is outside the band and unpriced (28 October 2026).
  • Priority 2. Build +4–8 weeks on top of Priority 1. Same infra bands. Solicitor review before ship, unpriced here.
  • Priority 3. Build +2–4 weeks on the demo seed. Same infra bands. SMS when live: about US$0.0515 / segment and about US$8.25 / month for a number. Volume is extra.
  • Priority 1
  • Priority 2
  • Priority 3. Stripes match the build-time chart. On the infra views, stripe and solid are the same dollars.

04What the Hub demo has

Honest inventory of vicpropertyhuberp.vercel.app as studied on 28 October 2026. Sample Melbourne book, in AUD. Tags on the product: Property-centred, Task-focused, Audit-ready. This is not a production system.

  • PersonasAdmin Ava. Agents, including Liam. Landlords Olivia and Mia. Tenants Noah, Amelia, and Leo.
  • ModulesDashboard, People, Properties (about 27), Work, Reports. Admin also has Administration and Audit.
  • StorageBrowser only. Key vph41. No signup, no pricing page, no docs site.
  • ScopingAgent scoping works. Reports export CSV.

Property file tabs

  • Overview (onboarding)
  • Finance
  • Lease
  • Inspections
  • Maintenance
  • Documents
  • Tasks

In the demo

  • Finance: rent charges, payments, and reversals. A bond subledger. A bond note of $1,000 marked “Held by RTBA” (a note in sample data, not an RTBA lodgement).
  • Lease: dates, rent frequency, bond holder, status from Draft through Terminated.
  • Inspections: Check-in, Routine, Check-out, plus acknowledge.
  • Maintenance: priority Emergency, Urgent, or Routine. Landlord Approve or Reject. A $500 threshold is stored and not enforced.
  • Landlord portal: properties, approvals, arrears. Tenant: tenancy, payments, raise maintenance.
  • Document upload metadata. Seed files are not downloadable.

Gaps versus PropertyME

  • Trust accounting
  • Owner statements and disbursements
  • Bank feed
  • GST
  • RTBA lodgement
  • VIC notice packs
  • Compliance calendar
  • Listings → applications pipeline
  • Trades portal
  • Real email or SMS
  • Real auth, or any server

05Hub vs PropertyME

Compact read. The PropertyME column follows the public home page and the Manage PM page.1 Where this study names a gap and those pages use different words, the cell says so. GST, RTBA lodgement, and a packaged VIC notice set are in that second group.

Shape of the product

Hub demo One browser workspace. About 27 sample properties. Persona picker. No accounts.

PropertyME Manage PM with Trust Accounting, plus Trustless payments, Grow CRM, and AiMe. Scale claims on the Manage PM page: 1.9M+ properties, 6,400+ agencies, 2 out of 3 Australian investment properties.

Trust and money

Hub demo Rent charges, payments, reversals, bond subledger, RTBA note. No trust ledger, owner statement, disbursement, bank feed, GST, or RTBA lodgement.

PropertyME Trust is described as native, not a bolt-on. The same page names daily bank feeds, two-way reconciliation, real-time owner statements, and bulk disbursements, plus MePay and Trustless payments. GST and RTBA lodgement are study gaps for the Hub; this page does not quote a PropertyME screen for those two.

Inspections

Hub demo Check-in, Routine, Check-out, and acknowledge.

PropertyME Paperless inspections, geo planning, and InspectMe for tenant-completed routine inspections.

Maintenance

Hub demo Priority, landlord approve/reject, $500 threshold stored and not enforced. No trades portal.

PropertyME Jobs: quotes, assign trades, photos, owner and tenant updates.

Portals

Hub demo Landlord sees properties, approvals, arrears. Tenant sees tenancy, payments, and can raise maintenance. No app claimed.

PropertyME Owner access, tenant access, and the PropertyMe app.

Lease, compliance, pipeline

Hub demo Lease fields and status. No VIC notice pack, no compliance calendar, no listings pipeline.

PropertyME Lease renewals. AiMe Comply for state legislation. Compliance tracking for smoke alarms, pools, and insurance. Grow CRM. Listings through to realestate.com.au and other sites. The page also mentions notice automation. A Victorian notice pack under that name is a Hub gap in this study, not a PropertyME product name quoted here.

Messages, files, AI, auth

Hub demo No real email or SMS. Document metadata only. Reports and CSV. No AI module. No server auth.

PropertyME SMS and inbound SMS, chat, activity feed. Documents and key tracking. Dashboard and insights. AiMe reply, AiMe Comply, Bills AI. Cloud product with agency accounts. This study did not review their auth implementation.

06What the servers might cost

Suggested stack

A shape for a first commercial pilot. Swap a box if you already have a reason. Clerk is optional and is not inside the US$45 floor.

  1. Front end on Vercel

    Next.js, or something in that family.4

  2. Supabase for data

    Postgres, Auth, and Storage. The other path is Clerk in front of Supabase.5 6

  3. Resend for email

    Transactional mail first. Marketing mail is a different plan.7

  4. Twilio, later, for SMS in Australia

    Leave it off until a workflow truly needs a text.8

  5. Cloudflare R2 when PDFs pile up

    Egress is free, which matters once owner statements are real files.9

  6. Sentry for errors

    Developer plan while it is still a pilot.10

  7. A .com.au name

    Study ballpark about AUD $10–15 a year. Not a registrar quote.3

Phase A

Prototype, 0–5 pilot agencies

Hobby and free tiers are real, and they are the wrong place to hold someone else’s rent roll.

Vercel Hobby

US$0. Personal, non-commercial. Use Pro once an agency is on it.

$0

Supabase Free

US$0. Pauses after inactivity (the pricing page says one week). Not for a real pilot.

$0

Vercel Pro

US$20 platform fee, 1 deploying seat included.

$20

Supabase Pro

From US$25 / month.

$25

Paid floor

US$20 + US$25. Stated sum for a real pilot.

$45

Resend

Free 3,000 emails / month, or Pro US$20 for 50,000. Free plan is also capped at 100 emails / day.

$0–20

Sentry Developer

Free.

$0

Clerk

Study snapshot: free to 10,000 MAU. Optional, and outside the US$45 floor. The pricing page counts users differently — see sources.

$0

Cloudflare R2

Free tier 10 GB-month. Egress free.

$0

Study band for a realistic pilot

~$45–80

The study states ~US$45–80. It does not itemise the gap between the US$45 floor and the top of the band. Resend Pro at US$20 is the priced add-on already listed above.

Phase B

Early commercial, ~50–200 doors

A few agencies. SMS still mostly off. The band is the run-rate before SMS volume and overages.

Vercel Pro

US$20 for 1 seat. Each extra person who can deploy is +US$20.

$20

Supabase Pro

US$25, plus compute if the Micro instance is no longer enough. Pro includes US$10 / month of compute credit, which the pricing page says covers one Micro instance.

$25

Resend Pro

US$20 for 50,000 emails / month.

$20

Sentry Team

About US$26 / month on the published Team card.

~$26

Twilio AU, when SMS is live

About US$0.0515 per outbound segment, plus about US$8.25 / month for a mobile number. Carrier fees can apply. Per-message volume is extra and is outside the band below.

$0.0515 / seg
+ $8.25

Domain, backups, misc

About US$5–15 / month in the study. The .com.au registration itself is the yearly AUD ballpark above, not this whole line.

~$5–15

Study band, before SMS volume

~$80–150

Adding the listed monthly lines (Vercel US$20 + Supabase US$25 + Resend US$20 + Sentry ~US$26 + Twilio number US$8.25 + misc US$5–15) lands around US$104–114, before a second deploy seat and before per-segment SMS. That addition is arithmetic on the lines above, not a second estimate. A launch month in the study can jump toward ~US$120+ on transfer overages, which still sits in this kind of month.

Phase C

Growing, ~500–2,000 doors

The bill starts to follow behaviour: how many texts, how many PDFs, how many seats.

Supabase compute

Small about US$15 and Medium about US$60 on the compute table. That is the compute line, not the whole invoice. Plan fee and the US$10 credit still apply. See the pricing page before you add them in your head.

$15–60

What else grows

Seats, email volume, SMS volume, storage, egress.

varies

Document egress

Supabase uncached egress is US$0.09 / GB after 250 GB. Cache statements and notices on R2 or another CDN. R2’s egress fee is zero.

$0.09 / GB

Study band, rough

~$200–600+

The top is open. SMS volume and document egress are why.

Monthly infrastructure on one scale, 0 to US$600. Phase C is open at the top, so its bar runs to the edge.
A · PilotUS$45–80
B · EarlyUS$80–150
C · GrowingUS$200–600+

The black tick on phase B marks an example launch month near US$120, inside the US$80–150 band. Phase A is small on this scale on purpose: the pilot server bill is the cheap part.

Same A and B bands, zoomed to US$160, so the pilot range is readable.
A · PilotUS$45–80
B · EarlyUS$80–150

Tick again at about US$120. Phase C does not fit this zoom.

What those bands leave out

  • Build labour (next section).
  • A solicitor and an accountant for anything called trust accounting, GST, or a Victorian notice.
  • Moving a rent roll off spreadsheets or off PropertyME.
  • Support time for working property managers.
  • SMS segments, Vercel on-demand usage past the included credit, and Supabase past the included quotas.

07Build time

Order-of-magnitude ranges from the study, not a schedule and not a quote. Assumption: one strong full-stack developer, plus a property-management advisor part-time. Founder-built, the cash outlay until the first paying customer is the infrastructure above. The same ranges drive the roadmap and the cost chart in Three mini-SaaS bets.

  1. Trust-lite MVP

    Auth, multi-tenant, the property file, receipt and allocate, an owner-statement PDF, portals.

    8–14 weeks

  2. VIC notices and compliance calendar

    On top of trust-lite. Wording reviewed before it is treated as correct.

    +4–8 weeks

  3. Inspection polish and maintenance approval

    Partly in the demo already. Mobile polish, and make the approval threshold real if you keep it.

    +2–4 weeks
Sequential sum of those ranges. 14 weeks adds the low ends (8+4+2). 26 weeks adds the high ends (14+8+4). Overlap in real life would shrink the calendar. The study does not promise either number.

Low ends in sequence · 14 weeks

High ends in sequence · 26 weeks

  • Trust-lite, 8–14 weeks
  • VIC notices and calendar, +4–8 weeks
  • Inspection polish and maintenance approval, +2–4 weeks

Full ERP stays parked

Bet 4 from the thesis: listings, a trades marketplace, CRM, and a full inbox wait until trust-lite is real. The demo’s property file is the seed. It is not the suite.

08Caveats

What will hurt if it is waved through

  • Trust correctness and the audit trail are the product risk. The screens are the smaller part.
  • Victorian notice wording has to be right. A plausible template is a liability.
  • Migration is a sales cost. Moving off spreadsheets, or off PropertyME, takes people’s trust. PropertyME sells that switch (the Manage PM page describes MigrateMe). Budget the same seriousness in the other direction.
  • Support load. The MRI hours and strain figures are both the reason to build and the warning about who will call.

Sources

Checked against the pages below while this file was written, on the same date as the study. If a live price differs, the live page wins and this study is stale.

  1. PropertyME home, propertyme.com, and Manage PM, propertyme.com/manage-pm. Scale figures (1.9M+ properties, 6,400+ agencies, 2 out of 3 Australian investment properties), trust-as-native wording, feature names used in the comparison, bank feeds, owner statements, bulk disbursements, and MigrateMe. Back
  2. MRI Software, “Innovation and focus on workplace culture drive the future of property management”, reporting Voice of the Property Manager 2024 key findings: 47% work more than 41 hours a week, and 54% report mental-health struggles. mrisoftware.com/au/news/…. Back
  3. Study notes, 28 October 2026, for figures that are not a vendor’s published price: the phase roll-ups (~US$45–80, ~US$80–150, ~US$200–600+), the ~US$120 launch-month example, build-week ranges, the AUD $800–1,500+ / day contractor ballpark, the AUD $10–15 / year domain ballpark, the ~US$5–15 monthly misc line, and the review-site themes (too many clicks for reports, hard advanced configuration and onboarding, pricing harsh under about 20–50 doors, occasional update friction). Review themes were not re-scraped for this HTML file. Back
  4. Vercel pricing, vercel.com/pricing. Hobby US$0 for personal, non-commercial use. Pro US$20 / month. Seat and credit detail: Pro plan docs — 1 deploying seat included, additional paid seats US$20 / month, US$20 monthly usage credit. Prices exclude GST and similar taxes. Back
  5. Supabase pricing, supabase.com/pricing. Free projects pause after a week of inactivity. Pro from US$25 / month, with US$10 compute credit that covers one Micro instance. Egress 250 GB, then US$0.09 / GB uncached. Compute table: Small about US$15 / month, Medium about US$60 / month. Back
  6. Clerk pricing, clerk.com/pricing. This study’s cost snapshot says free to 10,000 MAU. A check of that page on 28 October 2026 showed a free Hobby plan described as 50,000 monthly retained users per app. Clerk says it bills retained users, not MAU. Clerk is optional beside Supabase Auth and is outside the dollar bands. Back
  7. Resend pricing, resend.com/pricing. Free 3,000 emails / month (100 / day). Pro US$20 / month for 50,000 emails. Back
  8. Twilio SMS pricing for Australia, twilio.com/en-us/sms/pricing/au. Outbound US$0.0515 per segment. Mobile number US$8.25 / month. The page has described pricing as current as of October 2026, and says prices and carrier fees can change. Back
  9. Cloudflare R2 pricing, developers.cloudflare.com/r2/pricing. Free tier 10 GB-month. Egress to the internet is free. Back
  10. Sentry pricing, sentry.io/pricing. Developer plan free. Team plan shown at US$26 / month. Back
  11. VIC Property Hub demo, vicpropertyhuberp.vercel.app. Behaviour described in this study as of 28 October 2026, including landlord approve / reject and a stored $500 maintenance threshold that is not enforced. Browser demo only. A friend’s prototype, not the product in section 03. Back