Easy Rental Property Comparison Calculator
Compare up to three UK rentals on true monthly cost, up-front cash and price per square metre, with a clear winner.
Calculator Inputs
Property A
Only the rent is required. Leave a field blank if you do not know it.
Property B
Enter a rent here to run a two-property comparison.
Property C (optional)
Leave the rent blank to compare only A and B.
Side-by-Side Breakdown
| Line | Property A | Property B |
|---|---|---|
| Rent a month | Enter a rent above | Enter a rent above |
Scenario Analysis
| Scenario | Cheapest | Gap to Dearest | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| As entered | - | - | - |
| Rent rises 5% | - | - | - |
| Travel costs +20% | - | - | - |
| Bills +£20 a month | - | - | - |
| Rent only (no bills or travel) | - | - | - |
Rental Comparison Timeline
View and shortlistCollect the rent, the bills the tenant actually pays, the floor area and the deposit asked for each property.
Apply and pass referencingReferencing usually checks identity, income and previous tenancy. Fees for it are banned in England under the Tenant Fees Act 2019.
Holding depositA holding deposit to reserve the property cannot exceed one week's rent in England, and the default signing deadline after taking one is 15 days.
Sign and pay the depositCheck the deposit against the England cap for your rent before it leaves your account, and keep the inventory.
Deposit protected within 30 daysThe deposit must be protected in a government-backed scheme and the required information given within 30 days of payment.
Move in and check the meter readingsRecord meter readings on day one. The bills you enter above only stay accurate if the opening readings are right.
What Is a Rental Property Comparison?
A rental property comparison puts two or more lets on the same set of numbers so that the cheaper advert can be tested against the cheaper home. It takes the rent, adds the bills the tenant pays, converts a weekly commute into a monthly figure, separates the cash needed on day one from the money that is actually spent, and then reports the gap. The output is a ranking with a margin, not a single number, because a £40 a month difference and a £400 a month difference call for different decisions.
Why the Advert Rent Is Not the Cost
Adverts quote the rent and stop there. A flat advertised at £950 a month with £140 a month of council tax, gas, electricity, water and broadband costs £1,090 before anyone travels anywhere. Add a £45 a week commute and the true monthly figure is £1,285.00, because £45 a week is £195.00 a month once it is converted at 52 ÷ 12. The competing flat advertised at £1,050 with £80 of bills and a £10 a week journey works out at £1,173.33. The flat with the higher rent is £111.67 a month cheaper, and the adverts never say so.
Council tax is usually the largest single extra and it moves with the band, not with the rent, so a cheaper flat can carry a higher bill. Ground rent and service charges matter for leasehold flats. Parking, a permit, a storage unit and a broadband contract that cannot be transferred all belong in the same box.
Up-Front Cash: Deposit and Rent in Advance
The deposit is money you must have, not money you spend, so this tool keeps it out of the monthly figure and puts it in its own row. In England the Tenant Fees Act 2019 caps a tenancy deposit at five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, and six weeks' rent where it is £50,000 or more. At £950 a month the annual rent is £11,400 and the cap is £1,096.15; at £1,050 a month it is £1,211.54. The Act stops applying only when annual rent exceeds £100,000, and this page says so rather than inventing a limit.
For new private assured periodic tenancies in England, do not accept, request or encourage rent before both parties sign. After signing and before the start, the usual maximum is one month’s rent for monthly payments or 28 days’ rent otherwise, with specified housing exceptions. Enter the agreed advance separately: £2,250 of up-front cash against £2,046 is a £204 difference that a monthly comparison would hide entirely. Whatever you pay, the deposit must be protected in a government-backed scheme and prescribed deposit information given within 30 days beginning with receipt, not move-in.
Price per Square Metre: Paying for Space
Two flats with similar monthly costs can differ sharply in what they deliver. A £1,310.00 a month studio of 45 m² is £29.11 per m²; a £1,461.67 a month two-bedroom flat of 58 m² is £25.20 per m². The studio is £151.67 a month cheaper and £3.91 per m² more expensive, so you are paying more for less space, and only one of those two facts appears on the advert. Treat advertised areas with care: they are frequently rounded up and sometimes include a shared entrance or a balcony.
How Rent Can Rise Once You Are In
For private assured periodic tenancies in England, rent rises only through a Section 13 notice on the official form, with at least two calendar months' notice, and subject to the first-increase and tenancy-period timing rules in Form 4A. There is no fixed percentage ceiling, so a rent-rise row is a what-if rather than a legal limit. The scenario applies the percentage to the rent alone, which is exactly how an increase lands: your council tax and your season ticket do not fall when the rent goes up. A 5% rise on £950 is £47.50 a month, and on £1,050 it is £52.50.
Method and limits
The true monthly cost is rent + extras + (weekly travel × 52 ÷ 12). The 52 ÷ 12 divisor, 4.3333, converts a weekly figure to a monthly one; using a four-week month instead would understate a £45 weekly fare by £15 a month (£180 a year). Up-front cash is deposit + rent paid up front, and it is never added to the monthly figure because a deposit comes back. Cost per m² is true monthly cost ÷ floor area and is suppressed when no area is entered. The England deposit cap is weekly rent × 5 or × 6 depending on whether annual rent is below or at least £50,000, and is suppressed above £100,000, where the Tenant Fees Act does not apply.
The cash-buffer illustration divides extra up-front cash for the cheapest property, compared with the dearest, by their monthly cost difference. At £204 extra and £111.67 a month it takes 1.8 months to set aside an equivalent sum, assuming every pound saved is retained. This is not economic payback: deposits are refundable and advance rent pays rent already included in running costs. If no extra cash is needed it reads No extra cash needed. Winner confidence compares the cheapest with the next-cheapest, not the dearest; the 1% and 10% bands are descriptive heuristics, not guarantees. Fractional-penny rent conversions are accepted; annual rent is rounded to pennies before deciding the deposit-cap band.
- Assumes bills and fares stay flat. Standing charges, council tax and season-ticket prices usually rise, so a margin under 10% can disappear in one year.
- Assumes the deposit is returned. Deductions for damage or unpaid rent are not modelled.
- Does not model income, benefits or affordability. Entering rent figures here does not test whether a landlord or a lender will accept them.
- Does not model Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish caps. The deposit check is England-only and says so on every row.
- Does not read a tenancy agreement. Permitted payments, break clauses and notice periods need reading in the document itself.
Figures checked .
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the deposit part of the cost of renting?
No. A tenancy deposit is refundable money held to cover damage or unpaid rent, so this tool counts it as up-front cash rather than as a monthly cost. It still matters: the cheaper property in the worked example needs £204 more to move into even though it is £111.67 a month cheaper to run.
Is there a limit on how much deposit a landlord can ask for in England?
Yes. Under the Tenant Fees Act 2019 the deposit for an assured periodic tenancy in England is capped at five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, and six weeks' rent where it is £50,000 or more. The Act does not apply above £100,000; exactly £100,000 stays in the six-week band. Scotland caps a deposit at two months' rent, Northern Ireland at one month's rent, and Wales sets no statutory cap.
How much can a landlord raise the rent once I have moved in?
For private assured periodic tenancies in England, rent rises only through a Section 13 notice on the official form, with at least two calendar months' notice, and subject to the first-increase and tenancy-period timing rules in Form 4A. There is no fixed percentage limit, so the rent-rise row on this page is a what-if rather than a legal ceiling.
Should I include my commute when comparing two rents?
If the two properties are not the same distance from where you need to be, yes. A £45 a week commute is £195.00 a month, which is more than most single household bills and often more than the rent gap between two similar flats. Enter a travel figure for each property and the tool converts it for you.
What if the two properties work out almost the same price?
Then the decision is not really about money. Look at the up-front cash row, the price per square metre row and the rent-rise scenario, then weigh the commute and the tenancy length. An amber close-call assessment means the margin is under 10% of the monthly cost, so treat the two as equals.
Does this work for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?
The comparison works anywhere, because it only uses the figures you enter. The deposit cap check does not: it applies England's Tenant Fees Act limits. Outside England, read the cap row as an English reference point and check your own nation's rules before you treat it as a limit.
Sources
- GOV.UK: tenancy deposit protection
- GOV.UK: Tenant Fees Act 2019 guidance for tenants
- GOV.UK: rent increases for assured periodic tenancies
- Shelter: tenancy deposits in England
- Citizens Advice: deposits when renting a home
- Office for National Statistics: private rent and house prices, UK
Last updated: 2026-10-12. This page gives an estimate from the figures you enter and is not legal, financial or housing advice.
About this tool
Created and maintained by CoryVu. Read how we check our tools and consult the sources and assumptions on this page.
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