What Is ClickPay? The Rent and HOA Payment Platform
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Short answer
ClickPay is a payment platform that landlords and HOA management companies use to collect rent, dues and other property charges. It is legally NovelPay, LLC doing business as ClickPay, and it has been owned by RealPage since 2018. Your property manager is ClickPay's customer — you are not — which is why the invitation came from your building and why ClickPay itself cannot tell you what you owe.
What ClickPay actually is
ClickPay is a billing and payment platform for real estate. Landlords, condo boards and HOA management companies use it to send bills and collect money — rent, monthly assessments, maintenance charges, amenity fees, security deposits, parking.
Your property manager is ClickPay’s customer, and you are not. ClickPay sells software to buildings. You are the person the building points at that software. Almost everything that confuses residents follows from that one fact — why the invitation came from your management company rather than from ClickPay, why the payment page carries your building’s logo, why the fee is different from your friend’s fee in another building, and why nobody at ClickPay can explain your balance.
It is not a bank. Its user agreement says so directly: ClickPay “is not a bank and does not offer any banking services,” is “not an agent in connection with the leasing of your property,” and has “no control whatsoever” over your lease. When you pay, it is acting as your property’s authorised agent for the limited purpose of collecting money, and your payment counts legally as a payment made directly to your landlord or association.
Who owns ClickPay
The company you are actually dealing with is NovelPay, LLC, doing business as ClickPay. That odd-sounding name is a fossil: ClickPay started in New York around 2009 and merged with a rival called NovelPay in December 2013. The NovelPay entity survived the merger, so it is the one that still appears on the legal paperwork.
In April 2018, RealPage announced it was acquiring ClickPay for approximately $218.5 million — a deal also documented in RealPage’s Form 8-K filing with the SEC. At the time ClickPay served about 2.3 million units and had roughly 100 employees.
Three years later, RealPage itself was bought. Thoma Bravo completed a take-private deal worth about $10.2 billion in April 2021. So the ownership chain today runs: you → your property manager → ClickPay (NovelPay, LLC) → RealPage → Thoma Bravo.
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</g>How you ended up on it
You almost certainly did not choose ClickPay, and you generally cannot switch away from it. The association or management company picks the processor.
Your building most likely sent you an enrolment link, because ClickPay sells property managers an “Invitation Wizard” designed to set new residents up in seconds. That link usually lands on a white-labelled page shaped like this:
https://www.clickpay.com/custom/<your-management-company>/login.htmlThose pages carry your building’s own branding, wording and sometimes its own support number, so many residents never register that they are on ClickPay at all. To finish signing up you link your unit using your street number and ZIP code, and often a unique account or access number printed on your statement or payment coupon. That number comes from your property — which is another reason ClickPay support cannot help you find it.
What you can pay with
| Method | How it works | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| E-check / ACH | Pulls from a checking or savings account | Often free, but not always |
| Credit card | Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express | Fee, set per property |
| Debit card | Visa, Mastercard, Discover debit | Fee, set per property |
| Paper check | Mailed to a ClickPay lockbox for scanning | No portal fee |
| Your bank’s bill pay | ClickPay sweeps it electronically instead of waiting for a mailed cheque | No portal fee |
| Cash at retail | MoneyGram locations, only if your property enables it | Varies |
Cash deserves a caveat: ClickPay’s own support material states it “does not offer cash payment option for all properties.” You will only see a Cash Payments tab if your building turned it on. MoneyGram independently lists ClickPay among the rent billers it supports, alongside Entrata and Bilt.
ClickPay's own resident page tells people who do not want to register: "Don't want to register? Pay through your bank or send us a check!" Whether your lease permits that is between you and your property manager — but the platform itself does not force registration.
What it costs
There is no ClickPay price list, and that is the honest answer rather than an evasion. Fees are configured per building, and they change.
The user agreement says ClickPay “reserves the right to assess a convenience fee” and processes fees “in accordance with your lease and the Payee’s resident portal policies.” In practice that produces real variation: one HOA’s ClickPay FAQ in June 2022 advertised free e-check and a 2.95% card fee, while in July 2024 a Virginia association announced ClickPay had introduced a $3.00 charge on one-time e-check payments while keeping recurring e-check free.
So treat any number you find online — including in older articles — as a snapshot of one building on one date. The only fee that applies to you is the one on the Fee Chart in your own Pay Now screen. We go through the card side of this in more detail in our guide to what ClickPay charges for credit card payments.
Timing: when your money actually moves
The current user agreement sets these cutoffs:
- ACH / e-check received after 7:59 pm Central are processed the next business day.
- Card payments received after 11:59 pm Central are processed the next business day.
- ClickPay tells residents to schedule at least one business day before the due date, and disclaims responsibility for late fees if you schedule too late.
An ACH authorisation can be cancelled, but only inside the portal and only at least one business day before the processing date. Card payments can take three to four business days to settle depending on card type.
The cutoffs above mean a payment entered on the 1st can process on the 2nd. If your lease charges a late fee on the 2nd, the platform's terms put that on you, not on them.
What ClickPay will not do for you
Most resident frustration comes from here, and it is contractual rather than accidental. Section 16 of the user agreement states that ClickPay “is not responsible for providing customer service and support directly to you relating to any payment transaction,” and that questions must go to your property manager, who escalates to ClickPay if needed.
Practically, that means ClickPay cannot tell you why your balance is what it is, cannot waive a late fee, cannot change your fee, and cannot override your management company. It also means the platform’s terms include a binding arbitration clause with a class-action and jury-trial waiver.
You can still reach them. Official channels are the help centre at support.clickpay.com, email to support@clickpay.com, and the phone number 1-800-533-7901, which appears consistently in the current user agreement and on the company’s BBB profile. Expect to be routed back to your property for anything about what you owe.
Things people commonly get wrong
“There’s a ClickPay app.” There is not. No ClickPay rent payment app exists in either major app store. The two apps named “ClickPay” you will find are unrelated companies — a Nigerian airtime and utility top-up app, and a Bolivian payments app. Neither has anything to do with rent. ClickPay’s mobile experience is a web page.
“ClickPay is the same as Zego / PayLease / RentPayment.” They are three separate companies with three separate owners. Zego was PayLease, and is now owned by Global Payments. RentPayment sits inside MRI Software. Only ClickPay is RealPage’s.
“ClickPay Property Pay is a ClickPay product.” It is not — Property Pay is a First Citizens Bank product, and the two get confused constantly. We untangle that in what ClickPay Property Pay actually is.
“RealPage’s rent-pricing lawsuit is about ClickPay.” It is not. The widely reported RealPage antitrust litigation concerns its revenue management and rent-pricing software, not its payment processing. We cover that distinction properly in is ClickPay legit.
The marketing site is out of date
ClickPay’s public marketing site is noticeably stale. Its “by the numbers” statistics render as empty placeholders, its integrations page still lists banks that no longer exist independently, and its security page cites SSAE 16 — a standard superseded by SSAE 18 back in 2017. There are also two different terms documents live simultaneously: the governing ClickPay User Agreement hosted on realpage.com, updated December 2024, and an older legacy page still reachable on clickpay.com with materially different provisions.
If you are checking a term that matters to you, use the RealPage-hosted agreement. That is the current one.
What to do next
- Find your actual fee. Log into your own portal and read the Fee Chart on the Pay Now screen. Ignore every number you have read anywhere else, including here.
- Check whether e-check is free at your building. It usually is. Switching from card to e-check is the single biggest saving available to most residents.
- Schedule early, at least one business day before the due date, to stay clear of the cutoffs above.
- Send balance and fee disputes to your property manager first. That is not us being unhelpful — it is what ClickPay’s own terms require, so going there first is faster.
If your question is about whether the platform is trustworthy at all, that is a fair question and we answer it separately in is ClickPay legit and safe to use. And for the record on what this site is: we are independent of ClickPay and RealPage, and we explain exactly how that works on our disclaimer page.
Frequently asked questions
- Is ClickPay a bank?
- No. ClickPay's own user agreement states it "is not a bank and does not offer any banking services." It moves money between you and your property on your property's behalf, but it holds no account for you and is not a party to your lease.
- Who owns ClickPay?
- RealPage, Inc. acquired ClickPay in April 2018 for roughly $218.5 million. RealPage itself was taken private by the private equity firm Thoma Bravo in April 2021, so ClickPay's ultimate owner today is Thoma Bravo. The operating legal entity is still NovelPay, LLC.
- Can I refuse to use ClickPay and pay another way?
- Often yes. ClickPay's own resident page tells people who do not want to register that they can pay through their bank or mail a check. Whether your lease or your association's rules actually allow that is a question for your property manager, not for ClickPay.
- Why can't ClickPay tell me why my balance is wrong?
- Because it does not calculate your balance — your property does, and ClickPay displays it. Its user agreement explicitly says ClickPay "is not responsible for providing customer service and support directly to you relating to any payment transaction" and directs you to your property manager first.
- Is there a ClickPay app?
- Not a real one. There is no ClickPay rent payment app in the Apple App Store or Google Play. The two apps named "ClickPay" in those stores are unrelated foreign companies with no connection to rent. ClickPay's mobile experience is a web page at clickpay.com/m.