Switching from Keyhook: A Guide for NZ Self-Managing Landlords

If you self-manage a handful of rentals on Keyhook, you may have noticed the product is being sold to somebody else now.

What actually changed

These are observations from Keyhook's own public pages in August 2026, not a claim about their plans:

• The pricing page carries no price. It offers "Custom Pricing Tailored to Your Portfolio" with a Get a Quote button, and states that setup fees depend on the complexity of your migration and training.
• Every call to action on the site is Book a Demo. There is no self-serve signup or published plan for an individual landlord.
• The language addresses businesses: portfolios of "a handful of properties or hundreds", owner and supplier portals, and a customer story from a real estate agency.

That is a normal move upmarket, and it is a reasonable one for them. It just means a landlord with three rentals is no longer the customer the product is priced for. If you want to know what you are paying without booking a call, that is the gap.

We are not going to tell you Keyhook is closing. We have seen no announcement to that effect, and their site and app were both live when we last looked. If you read a claim that your access is ending on a particular date, ask whoever published it for the source.

Export your records first, whatever you decide

Do this before you make any decision. Several of these you are legally required to hold anyway, and they are much easier to get out while your account is active.

1. Signed tenancy agreements for every current tenancy, plus any variations or renewals.
2. Rent ledger or payment history per tenancy. This is your arrears evidence and your tax record.
3. Compliance documents: healthy homes statements, insulation records, smoke alarm checks. Landlord duties under section 45 of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 do not move with your software.
4. Inspection reports, entry, routine and exit, with their photos. This is your condition evidence if a bond dispute lands.
5. Tenant and bond details: contacts, bond lodgement numbers and amounts. The bond itself stays with Tenancy Services and is unaffected by changing software.

Where each thing lands in RentManager

What you used	Where it is here
Rent tracking and arrears	Rent ledger with automatic bank matching, arrears badges and auto-reminders at day 3, 7 and 14
Tenancy agreements and signing	RTA-aligned templates with built-in digital signing
Inspections	Reusable per-property checklists, photo capture, PDF reports
Maintenance	Tenant portal requests, landlord approval, tradie dispatch, costs against the property
Compliance	Healthy homes tracked per property per standard, with deadlines and reminders
Bond	Lodge, top up and refund directly through MBIE's electronic bond service
Owner and tenant portals	Tenant portal included; accountant gets their own read-only login
Reporting	P&L, IR3R-shaped rental income summary, CSV and PDF exports, direct Xero sync

Three differences worth knowing before you move

The price is published. $9 a month for one property, $19 for up to five, $29 for up to ten, in NZD including GST. Flat, not per property and not a percentage of rent. Whether that is cheaper than a quote you would have been given, we cannot say, because the quote is not public.

Your data stays in New Zealand. Records and documents are hosted in Auckland, and tenant personal information is handled under the Privacy Act 2020. If you would rather not use a cloud service at all, RentManager also runs as a self-hosted app on your own Windows, Linux or macOS machine.

You can start from the agreement you already have. Upload a signed tenancy agreement and the rent, payment day, term, parties and bond are read out of it, so you are checking pre-filled details rather than retyping a tenancy. That is usually the difference between an afternoon and a weekend.

Moving across

1. Export from Keyhook using the checklist above.
2. Note your live dates: next rent review, fixed-term expiry, healthy homes deadlines, smoke alarm checks, insurance renewal.
3. Upload an agreement per tenancy, or add properties manually if you prefer. Check what comes back and correct anything read wrongly.
4. Import your bank CSV so past rent is matched and your arrears position is right from day one. Set the arrears-from date if you are onboarding part-way through a tenancy, so historical figures do not distort the current picture.
5. Run both side by side for a cycle if you want. The trial is 30 days and takes no card.

Where we are not the better answer

If you manage properties for other people as a business, with trust accounting, owner statements and staff, Keyhook's move upmarket may suit you better than we do. Our landlord product is built for people managing their own rentals, roughly one to ten. We do have a separate offering for property managers, but if a full agency platform with an onboarding and training package is what you need, take their demo.

This page is for the other group: the self-managing landlord who wants a published price and to get on with it.

Related reading: switching from myRent, how the NZ options compare, and the Landlord Hub.

Common questions

Is Keyhook shutting down?

We have seen no announcement that Keyhook is closing, and its site and app were both active when we last checked in August 2026. What has changed is who it is sold to: the pricing page no longer lists a self-serve plan or any price, offering a custom quote and a demo booking instead, and the messaging addresses property management businesses rather than individual landlords. Treat any claim about a shutdown date sceptically unless it comes from Keyhook.

What should I export before I move?

Your signed tenancy agreements, your full rent ledger, your compliance documents (healthy homes statements, insulation records, smoke alarm checks), your inspection reports with photos, and your tenant and bond details. You are legally required to hold several of these regardless of which software you use, so export them whether or not you switch.

Will my rent history come across?

Past payments can be imported from a bank CSV, so your arrears position is correct from day one rather than starting from zero. RentManager also has an arrears-from date, which is what lets you onboard part-way through a tenancy without the historical figures being wrong.

What does RentManager cost?

$9 a month for one property, $19 for up to five and $29 for up to ten, in New Zealand dollars including GST. It is a flat monthly price rather than a per-property fee or a percentage of rent, and there is a 30-day free trial with no credit card required.

Observations about Keyhook's public pricing and marketing pages are as at 11 August 2026 and may change. Nothing here is legal or financial advice.