How to increase rental application completion rates: lessons from online shopping checkout
Think about the last thing you bought online. You tapped Apple Pay, your phone filled in your address, and the order went through.
But for most renters, the online rental application is the opposite experience.
E-commerce has spent two decades studying what makes people finish a checkout and there is a lot we can learn.
The same people who shop online are filling out your rental application.”
Let applicants apply without creating an account
Stripe's checkout guidance recommends offering a "guest checkout" option and encouraging shoppers to make an account only after the purchase.
Picture a prospect who finishes a showing. They're already prescreened and the property manager has their contact information. When they click "Apply" the first page should already be prefilled with this information.
Once they see there are additional steps and they need to create an account, it becomes much easier to just say "I'll do it later".
Ask fewer questions before the application fee
Baymard found that the average checkout in 2024 had 11.3 form fields, while most purchases need only 8. Rental applications typically ask for more.
The leasing teams with the highest submission rates split the application in two. Before payment, they ask for contact details, move-in date, household size, pets, current address, income, ID, and screening consent. After payment, they ask for pay stubs, landlord references, vehicle details, and emergency contacts (but only if it truly matters for their requirements).
Doorby Property Management, a scattered-site manager in Chattanooga, Tennessee, designs its application for the least tech-savvy applicant it can picture.
"Every single question and every single next screen reduces completion rates dramatically. So we want to get to first principles and say: do we absolutely need to have this? And reduce the total number of clicks." — Mark Silvestro, CEO, Doorby Property Management
After Doorby moved to RentEngine Applications in May 2026, the team went from 2 submitted applications a day to about 4.5.
Once an applicant has paid, they're bought in, and in our experience they're far more likely to send the extra documents.
Accept Apple Pay and Google Pay for application fees
Stripe reports that people using wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay complete checkout three times faster than people typing in a card.
Placement matters too. In a separate test, Stripe found that showing Apple Pay at the start of checkout, instead of at the end, performed about twice as well.
Most applicants are on a phone, often standing outside the home they just toured. Typing 16 digits, an expiry date, a CVV, and a billing ZIP code on a small screen is a common point to give up.
Keep income verification on the same page
Stripe's guidance to retailers is to cut unnecessary redirects from checkout. Each handoff puts the shopper on a new page with a new logo and often a new login.
In rental applications, the same handoff usually happens at income verification.
Many applications send the applicant midway through to a third-party site with a different logo, which then asks for their online banking login. To an applicant who has never heard of that company, the request looks like a scam, and that's a common point to stop.
Build your rental application for mobile
Stripe's mobile checkout guidance recommends large buttons, as little typing as possible, and clean layouts on every screen size.
The best-performing applications we see also tell applicants up front how long the application takes ("About 5 minutes") and show them where they are ("Step 3 of 5").
They flag a problem on the field itself, as the applicant types, for example "ZIP code is too short" gives the applicant one thing to fix. With a red banner at the end that says "Please fix the errors above," the applicant has to search the entire form for the error.
More ways to reduce rental application drop-off
Track your application completion rate.
With weekly counts of Applications Started and Applications Submitted for each listing, your team can find the exact step where applicants drop off.
Show the cost upfront.
In Baymard's research, unexpected extra costs are the top reason shoppers abandon a checkout. In a rental application, the equivalent is a fee the applicant first sees at the payment step.
Strategic follow-ups.
Online stores send a reminder when you leave something in your cart. The leasing version is a text within an hour of an unfinished application.
RentEngine Applications offers coupon codes for application fees that work the same way. With an abandoned-cart code, your team can text applicants who started but didn't submit, telling them a discount is waiting if they finish that day.
And with a time-based code, you can incentivize a prospect to apply within a few hours after a showing to receive a discount on the application fee.
Renters already know what a fast checkout feels like.
Leasing teams with the highest submission rates build their applications the same way: no account to start, fewer questions before payment, wallet payments, verification on the same page, and a layout made for a phone.
The quickest way to check your own application is to open it on your phone this week and time it. The goal should be submitting in less than 5 minutes.