5 Best Apps to Pay Rent Online with Credit Card (India)

For ages, we Indians got used to pay rent via cash or through NEFT/IMPS as a default payment mode. In fact most landlords still insist on cash over NEFT as they’re not comfortable with sharing their bank accounts.

Yes, that’s still happening in 2020. With Covid-19 pandemic outbreak & social distancing becoming new normal, its time for a change!

By routing rent payments through credit card we may enjoy lot of benefits like rewards & more and the rent payment apps too would swim in 100’s and 1000’s of crores in revenues – that’s a win-win for sure.

So this article helps you understand why you need to pay rent through credit card over other options and a detailed review of each of the service providers offering this solution. Here we go,

Why Pay Rent with credit card?

Rewards

You get rewards at various levels while using credit card for rent payments, such as:

• Regular rewards
• Milestone rewards
• Targeted spend based rewards

For ex, spending Rs.30K a month for a year on  Axis Vistara signature gets you regular Airmiles on spend and also 2 complimentary one way tickets valued at 7K each as its a part of the milestone benefits.

Credit Period

As credit cards allow you to carry balances without interest for about 45 days, it may help you with better your cash flow. 

Annual Fee Waiver

Most credit cards these days comes with an annual fee waiver, which means you can renew your credit card for free if you meet the spend criteria. 

For ex,Amex MRCC needs Rs.1.5L spend,  SBI Prime needs Rs.3L spend for renewal fee waivers.

In a nutshell, Why would you want to spend your money while you can borrow someone else’s money for X number of days and get rewards and fee waivers on top of it? Makes sense isn’t it?

Best Rent Payment Apps

Service/App	Charges	Docs Required?	Card Acceptance
RedGirraffe	0.39%+GST	Yes	All, except Amex
NoBroker	1% – 2%	No	All
Housing	1.3%	No	All, except Diners & Amex
CRED	~1.5%	No	All

1. Redgirraffe

Redgirrafe is probably the first service provider that came out with a rent payment feature and it still remains the only dedicated solution out there. 

Their USP is the ultra low service fee that stands at 0.39%+GST compared to 1% or above with others. While how they are able to give at this rate remains a mystery, they have deep integration with various banks which might make it possible, to an extent.

But the downside is poor user experience. Their sign up form just hurts my eyes by looking at, as I’m neither comfortable with long forms nor poor design. 

2. Nobroker

Nobroker’s rent payment feature is live since couple of months and is known for its low service fee which stands next to RedGirraffe.

However, Nobroker payments are marked as Utility, so that may cause problems for you in getting reward points with some issue

3. Housing

Housing.com’s Rent Payment feature too is neat and simple but they have raised the fee multiple times and many have reported that the service was down for a couple of days.

Yet, at around 1.3% service fee, it’s still a good option, as long as it’s available

4. CRED

While CRED has sleek interface, ability to pay to UPI Id & more, the downside is it’s relatively high service fee which goes as high as 1.5%.

But the good news however is that they don’t have any restriction on the type of card. Both Amex and diners accepted anyday and appears to be more reliable with less fluctuation in service fee.

5. PayZapp

Yes, this maybe surprising to see it as a major option but its worth mentioning, so you don’t miss it.

While PayZapp is not a standalone app/wallet to pay rent through credit card, it connects with other major services to make rent payments. For ex,

• PayZapp app has an option to pay rent through RedGirraffe and get additional cashback/points. I see one new offer to show up shortly.
• PayZapp wallet can be used as an option to pay rent on Nobroker to avail additional 5% cashback (as of now).

Basically PayZapp covers those 2 major services by allowing users to pay rent through them.

Should you pay rent through credit card?

It depends on which credit card you hold.

Ideally you should, as the benefits are well worth it. But not everyone has premium cards, now that’s the problem.

If you don’t have cards that gives you returns as equal as the service fee or more, there is no point in using the credit cards for paying rent. 

Ideally most premium and super premium credit cards gives you enough reward rate to take care of the service fee.

If you don’t know how much % of return your credit card gives as rewards on each spend, do check out the reward rate % mentioned in the list of best credit cards in india , and choose the right credit card with a higher reward rate that fits you.

Final thoughts

While it’s good to see so many options, matter of fact is Redgirraffe remains the #1 option for most users, due to its super low fee. 

But if you prefer convenience, wish to stay away from documentation and rather need a quick solution, other apps may help you. 

Remember that you may need to check each app every month to see which one has the best offer, as the offers and the service fee keeps fluctuating.

And irrespective of any app you use to pay rent, you may still use CRED to pay credit card bills and get Cred coins on top of all these. While good redemptions on Cred coins are rare lately, something is better than nothing.