IN THIS ARTICLE▾
Recurv's levy-collection pricing has no R5,000 monthly minimum and no annual lock-in, making it viable for a small scheme as well as a large managing-agent portfolio.
A 40-unit self-managed estate and a managing agent running a 2,000-unit portfolio have very different collection needs, but they run into the same pricing obstacle with a lot of existing rails: a monthly minimum, often R5,000 or more, or an annual commitment that assumes a scheme is ready to sign up for a year before it's seen the system run a single cycle.
For the small scheme, a R5,000 minimum on a book of 40 units at R1,200 a month in levies doesn't make commercial sense, the fee can be a meaningful percentage of the levy roll itself. For the managing agent evaluating a new rail across a portfolio, an annual commitment before a single pilot scheme has proven the system out is exactly the kind of ask that stalls a rollout decision at the trustee-approval stage.
This piece is about a pricing model built around two separated cost streams and no minimum, designed to work the same way whether the scheme is 40 units or 4,000.
Why minimums and annual commitments exist in the first place
Most incumbent rails price this way because their cost structure assumes a certain volume to be worthwhile to service, the sales, onboarding, and support cost of bringing on a new scheme is roughly fixed regardless of scheme size, so providers built minimums and annual terms to make small schemes commercially viable to serve at all.
That's a reasonable constraint from the provider's side. It's a real obstacle from the scheme's side, particularly for smaller HOAs and body corporates that don't have the levy volume to comfortably absorb a R5,000 floor, and for managing agents who want to pilot a new rail on one scheme before recommending a portfolio-wide switch.
The two-stream model, without the minimum
Recurv's pricing separates into a fixed monthly platform fee, set per scheme, month-to-month, with no annual commitment, and a per-debit transaction fee that scales naturally with the number of debits actually raised. There's no R5,000 floor forcing a small scheme to overpay relative to its levy roll, and no annual lock-in requiring a managing agent to commit a full portfolio before a single scheme has proven the switch works.
A 40-unit scheme pays for 40 units' worth of debits and a modest fixed platform fee. A 2,000-unit portfolio pays proportionally more in transaction volume, but the pricing logic, fixed platform fee plus per-debit cost, doesn't change shape as the scheme grows. There's no cliff where a scheme suddenly needs to renegotiate because it crossed some volume threshold.
Why month-to-month matters for a managing agent with 30 schemes
A managing agent overseeing a large portfolio can't realistically move every scheme onto a new rail simultaneously, different schemes have different AGM cycles, different trustee comfort levels, and different appetite for changing a system that currently works, even imperfectly. Month-to-month pricing, with no annual commitment, means the agent can move one scheme first, prove the switch out with real cycles and real trustees, and then roll out scheme by scheme at whatever pace makes sense, without having pre-committed the whole portfolio before the first scheme has even run a levy cycle.
What this means for a trustee approving the switch
Trustees weighing a new collection rail are, understandably, cautious about locking a scheme into a system they haven't seen run. A month-to-month commercial term means the switch can be reversed if it doesn't work out, without the scheme being stuck in a annual contract it regrets. That lowers the risk of the decision at exactly the point, the AGM, or the trustee meeting where the rail gets approved, where caution is highest.
What this means for the scheme's budget
The fixed monthly platform fee is the one predictable line on the scheme's collection-cost budget, unaffected by how many special levies or utility-recovery charges run through a given month. The per-debit fee scales with actual activity, so a quiet month costs less than a month with a special levy layered on top of the regular run, rather than a flat minimum being charged regardless of volume.
What this isn't
It isn't a claim that Recurv is always the cheapest option in every scenario for every scheme size. The claim is specifically that the pricing model doesn't penalise small schemes with a minimum they can't justify, and doesn't require managing agents to commit an entire portfolio before proving the switch on one scheme.
It isn't free, the fixed monthly platform fee is a real, budgeted cost, and the per-debit fee is a real transaction cost. What's different is the absence of a floor that makes the model uneconomical for smaller schemes, and the absence of an annual term that makes a phased, scheme-by-scheme rollout difficult to justify to trustees.
It isn't a one-size pricing decision the scheme is locked into. A managing agent can pilot on one scheme, review the actual numbers after a few cycles, and decide from there whether and how fast to extend the rollout across the rest of the portfolio.
Related reading
See how Recurv handles recurring billing for hoas & estates.
View HOAs & Estates use case →