RentFig vs Canopy for tenant referencing
Two different shapes of product. Canopy sells through letting agents and builds its referencing around a tenant-owned profile called a RentPassport — and it publishes no per-reference price, quoting on application instead. RentFig sells directly to landlords at a published £9 credit check or £19 full reference, with a free application form and no account. If you self-manage, that difference in who each product is sold to matters more than any price either of us could quote.
RentFig vs Canopy at a glance
Referencing is paid for by the landlord or agent — the Tenant Fees Act 2019 bans charging the tenant. Canopy details were checked against canopy.rent on 1 August 2026; confirm anything load-bearing on their own site.
| Feature | RentFig | Canopy |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | Yes — £9 credit check, £19 full reference (£7 / £17 for members) | No — Essential, Comprehensive and Priority all show “Let's talk” |
| Who can buy it | Any landlord, direct, by card | Agent-facing — sign-up is by request form, with no self-serve checkout; the site's landlord link is a dead page |
| Free tier | Free application form — collects details, ID documents and consent | Free Pre-Qualification tier, but self-certified by the tenant and not verified |
| Who fills in the details | The applicant completes your form; you order the check | The tenant builds a reusable RentPassport profile and carries it between applications |
| When details get verified | At the point you order — every paid check is verified | Only when someone pays to upgrade the RentPassport to a reference |
| Tiers | Two: credit check, or full reference | Three paid: Essential, Comprehensive (adds employment and landlord verification) and Priority (adds a dedicated case handler) |
| Right to Rent | Included in the £19 full reference (England) | A paid add-on; the advertised add-on price differs between its own desktop and mobile pages |
| Ongoing property management | Yes — tenancies, rent chasing, compliance, accounting, AI assistant | No — referencing and tenant-profile products |
| Best for | Self-managing landlords who want a published price and to buy without an account | Letting agencies that want a tenant-built profile reused across applications |
Canopy details from canopy.rent, checked 1 August 2026. RentFig figures are our own (disclosure: RentFig is our product).
About that £5 or £6 per reference you may have read
It is worth being direct about this, because we got it wrong ourselves and corrected it on 1 August 2026. Until then this site listed Canopy at £6.00 per reference and called it the cheapest published price in the UK. Two things were wrong with that.
First, the figure isn't on Canopy's live pricing page in any meaningful sense. The strings are present in the page source but hidden from view, so a visitor sees “Let's talk” against every tier and no number at all. Automated tools that read the raw source rather than the rendered page report the hidden text as if it were the advertised price.
Second, even taken at face value it was the wrong number. £5 + VAT was the discounted UKALA member rate for the entry tier, on a page footed “All Prices valid until Dec 2024”— Canopy's own standard rate on the same expired page was higher, and the top tier higher again. So the number understated Canopy's pricing substantially while claiming to be its headline rate.
We've removed it rather than replace it with a guess. If you want a current Canopy price, you will need to ask them for one — which is itself the most useful fact on this page.
The RentPassport model, and what “free” buys
Canopy's design is genuinely different, and worth understanding rather than dismissing. Instead of a landlord ordering a reference on a tenant, the tenant builds a RentPassport themselves and reuses it across applications. For a renter applying to five properties that is a real improvement on filling in five sets of forms.
The catch for a landlord is where verification sits. Canopy's free Pre-Qualification tier is self-certified — its own small print says details a user has entered are verified only when the applicant is upgraded to a paid reference. So the free tier tells you what the applicant says about themselves. That is useful as a first filter, and it is roughly what any free application form gives you — including ours. It is not a check.
Where Canopy is the better fit
If you are a letting agency rather than a landlord, Canopy is aimed squarely at you: CRM integrations, agent partnerships at scale, and a tenant profile that follows the applicant and cuts re-keying across a pipeline. Its Comprehensive tier adds employment and landlord verification, and Priority adds a dedicated case handler for chasing — both things that matter when you are processing references in volume rather than one at a time.
RentFig is not built for that. It is built for the landlord managing their own properties, who wants to know the price before starting and doesn't want to open an account to run one check.
FAQ
How much does Canopy referencing cost?
Canopy does not publish a per-reference price. On its plans and pricing page, the Essential, Comprehensive and Priority tiers each show “Let's talk” rather than a figure, so the cost is quoted on application. You may see £5 or £6 per reference quoted for Canopy elsewhere on the web — treat that with care. That figure was the UKALA member rate on a Canopy page footed “All Prices valid until Dec 2024”, and Canopy's own standard rate on that same expired page was higher. We previously published £6.00 for Canopy ourselves and removed it once we re-verified against their live site on 1 August 2026. (Disclosure: RentFig is our product.)
Can a private landlord buy Canopy referencing directly?
We could not find a route. Canopy's referencing is sold to letting agencies — it advertises partnerships with over a thousand estate agents, integrates with agent CRMs, and sign-up runs through a request form rather than a checkout. The “Landlords” link in its own navigation points to a page that no longer exists. If you self-manage, that puts Canopy's referencing effectively out of reach, whatever it would cost an agent.
Is Canopy's free tenant referencing actually free?
The free Pre-Qualification tier is free, but it is self-certified. Canopy's own footnote is explicit that it only verifies details a tenant has entered once the applicant is upgraded to a paid reference. So the free tier tells you what the tenant says about themselves, which is roughly what a free application form gives you — the verification is the part that costs money. That is the same underlying economics as everywhere else: a real credit, income and fraud check has a cost that someone has to pay.
What is a Canopy RentPassport?
It is a tenant-facing profile the renter builds themselves and reuses across applications, rather than something a landlord orders per tenancy. That is genuinely useful for a tenant applying to several properties. The distinction that matters to a landlord is that the RentPassport is the data-collection step, not the verification step — an agent or landlord still pays to have it checked before it means anything.
Is RentFig or Canopy better for a self-managing landlord?
For a self-managing landlord the question mostly answers itself, because Canopy sells through letting agents and RentFig sells direct. RentFig publishes its prices (£9 credit, £19 full, no account or subscription) so you know the cost before you start. If you are a letting agency rather than a landlord, Canopy's proposition is different and worth a conversation — a tenant-built profile that follows the applicant is a real advantage at volume.
See every UK provider in one table in our cheapest tenant referencing guide, or compare the other agent-channel providers: Goodlord and HomeLet.
Disclaimer:This comparison is general information for UK landlords, not legal or financial advice. RentFig is our own product; Canopy is an independent company (Better Renting Limited, trading as Canopy) and its details are summarised from its public website and may change — always confirm current pricing and what's included directly with each provider.