Mashvisor Alternative: A Free STR Deal Feed for Five Markets

Mashvisor’s draw is reach. On its Standard plan and up you get a property search that covers the US, and its own blog describes custom alerts for when a new listing matches your criteria. You can look in a market you have never visited, filter, and get pinged.

STR Yield has the same basic idea in a much smaller area. Each morning it pulls newly listed homes in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Hocking Hills, Blue Ridge and Ellijay, Big Bear, and Redding, within a buy box of up to $1.2M, at least two bedrooms and single-family, condo or townhome. Listings that say STRs aren’t allowed are removed before you see them. A free account adds an email digest of up to 15 new deals, sorted by cash-on-cash.

The tradeoff is simple. If you don’t know where to buy, or your target is outside those five markets, Mashvisor’s finder can reach it and ours cannot. If you already like one of the five, our feed does the same watching for nothing.

There is no monthly plan. At the time of writing, Lite is $49.99 a month whether you pay yearly or quarterly. Standard is $74.99 a month paid yearly or $99.99 a month paid quarterly. Professional is $99.99 a month paid yearly or $119.99 paid quarterly. Because you pay in chunks, the real commitment is a quarter or a year at once: about $600 a year for Lite, roughly $900 for Standard paid yearly, and about $1,200 for Professional paid yearly.

Two extras matter. Data exports beyond your plan’s allowance cost $30 to $35 each, and the pricing page shows no free plan or trial. The nationwide property finder sits on Standard and up, so the entry price doesn’t include the feature this page is mostly about.

Some Trustpilot reviewers mention friction around billing and cancellation. Mashvisor holds 4.0 out of 5 across 482 Trustpilot reviews. That is worth reading yourself, as the themes matter more when you’re paying by the year.

Put it in proportion. On a $550,000 cabin with 25% down you’re bringing about $137,500 in cash, so a few hundred dollars a year for software is small next to the purchase. The real question is whether you’ll use what you’re paying for. A buyer who has settled on Gatlinburg gains little from nationwide search, while someone still choosing a state gains a lot.

STR Yield costs nothing and asks for no card. The comparison isn’t fair on features, since Mashvisor does far more, but it is fair on the question of what you need to answer: is this listing a good STR?

Mashvisor’s approach is comparison. For a property it estimates both traditional and Airbnb rental income and shows ROI, so you can see which strategy wins. That is useful when you’re unsure whether a house should be a vacation rental at all, and STR Yield can’t tell you: it analyzes short-term rentals only.

STR Yield goes deeper on the STR side. Each listing shows revenue, ADR and occupancy, plus ten nearby short-term rentals with links to the Airbnb or Vrbo pages, so you can check the estimate against real comparable stays. Then it applies costs: 20% management, a 3% platform fee, 5% maintenance, $350 a month in utilities and STR-grade insurance.

In practice, the comparison view is most helpful early, when the question is whether short-term rent beats a tenant at all. In a strong vacation market the answer is often yes on gross revenue and less clear after management, cleaning, utilities and vacancy. That is why we model those costs on every listing rather than stopping at revenue.

The estimates behind both tools are modeled, not guaranteed. Neither replaces looking at the listings yourself, or talking to a local property manager about the nightly rate you can expect.

Mashvisor’s Airbnb calculator estimates revenue for an address and works out cash flow, cap rate and cash-on-cash with your financing. We didn’t find DSCR or a depreciation or cost segregation estimate on its calculator page, though that doesn’t mean they don’t exist somewhere else on the platform.

STR Yield puts both on every listing. DSCR is the number DSCR lenders underwrite to, which matters if you plan to buy with an investor loan. The year-1 tax write-off is a component-level cost segregation estimate with 100% bonus depreciation, plus a conservative floor figure. It is an estimate, federal only, and not a cost segregation study or tax advice. Ask a CPA before you rely on it, especially about how your average guest stay and involvement affect whether you can use the deduction.

If your market is undecided, use Mashvisor’s finder and heatmaps to narrow down where to look, then follow the five STR Yield markets in the feed if any of them make the list. For a specific listing, put the address through both and compare the revenue estimates. A large gap between them is a reason to check the comps by hand.