Terms of Service

Effective: 2026-10-22. Last updated: Oct 29, 2026 ($3.00 ceiling on the platform fee; one platform fee on every payment method, credit card surcharge capped at 3% of rent, Stripe processing rates, card type checks and payment methods offered, autopay and co-tenants).

These terms apply to Lockstead, a property operations product operated by Lockstead LLC, a limited liability company formed in Kansas, USA. By creating an account or using the service you agree to them. If you accept them on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind it. How we handle personal information is described in our Privacy Policy.

Lockstead is available to landlords and property managers for properties anywhere in the United States.

Your account

You are responsible for keeping your credentials secret and for what happens under your account. You are responsible for the records you enter, including having the right to hold the contact details of the people you add and to send them the messages the account is set up to send. Tell us promptly if you suspect someone else has used your account.

Each person needs their own login. Seats are not transferable, and one login shared by several people breaks these terms.

Messages sent on your behalf

Lockstead sends transactional email to your tenants and owners on your behalf, and text messages where that feature is enabled. These messages carry your name and the contact details you give us: they come from "your name via Lockstead", and replies go to your reply-to address if you have set one. If you turn on automatic resends, a reminder is sent again to a recipient who has not yet viewed the message.

You confirm that you are allowed to contact these people for property-management purposes.

You can turn off messages to your tenants in your workspace settings. While they are off we do not send them, and you are responsible for delivering any notice you are required to give your tenants yourself. We keep the messages we did not send in the app so you can pass them on. Sign-in links to the tenant portal are still sent.

SMS Terms

Lockstead sends text messages to the mobile numbers entered in an account, once the recipient has agreed to receive them.

• What we send. Rent reminders, late rent notices, lease renewal reminders and maintenance updates. These are service messages about a tenancy or an account. We do not send marketing texts.
• How often. Message frequency varies by account activity: it depends on your rent schedule, lease dates and the maintenance work in progress.
• Message and data rates may apply.
• Opting out. Reply STOP to any message to stop receiving them. Reply HELP for help, or email [email protected].
• Carriers. Mobile carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
• Agreeing to receive text messages is not a condition of buying anything from us.

Lockstead may earn a commission when you screen through SmartMove.

Acceptable use

You agree not to use Lockstead to:

• send messages to people who have not agreed to receive them, or who have opted out;
• send anything unlawful, harassing, deceptive or fraudulent;
• break into, overload, probe or disrupt the service or the accounts of others;
• scrape data beyond the rate limits, or reverse-engineer the service;
• upload content that infringes someone else's rights or breaks the law;
• resell or redistribute the service without our written agreement.

We may suspend or close an account that is used this way, and we will tell you why when we can.

Plans and billing

Paid plans are billed monthly in advance through Stripe. Annual billing is not offered at this time. You can change or cancel your plan from your workspace billing settings. Cancelling stops future renewals, and your access continues to the end of the month you have paid for.

New workspaces start with a 30-day free trial of Lockstead, and you don't need to add a payment method for your subscription to start it. To keep using a paid plan after the trial, subscribe from your workspace billing settings. A trial arranged with our sales team may be a different length, which we will confirm to you in writing.

A plan renews automatically each month until you cancel it. If you move to a higher plan, the change takes effect right away and you are charged the prorated difference for the rest of the current month. If you move to a lower plan, the change takes effect at your next renewal. The Pro plan includes 100 units; each unit above that is billed at $2.00 per month, up to 300 units. If you subscribed while founding pricing was offered, the monthly price you subscribed at is kept for your first 12 months on that plan. Fees already paid are not refundable, except where the law requires it.

Rent payments

Rent collected through Lockstead is processed by Stripe. To collect rent you must connect a Stripe account, and you accept Stripe's own agreements directly with Stripe as part of that. Each of those payments is charged directly on your Stripe account, so the payment is made to your Stripe account's balance and not to a balance held by Lockstead. Lockstead's platform fee is collected by Stripe as an application fee on that payment. Lockstead is not a party to the rent transaction and does not hold rent.

Lockstead's platform fee. Lockstead charges a platform fee of 0.36% on every rent payment, capped at $3.00 per payment, whether it is paid by credit card, debit card or bank transfer (ACH). The fee is the same on every method, so no method costs more because of it. Your current rate is shown in your workspace payments settings, alongside a worked example. We will give notice before increasing it, on the same terms as any other material change to these terms.

Stripe processing. Stripe also charges for processing each payment, at its standard US pricing: 2.9% + 30¢ for a card payment (the same for debit and credit cards), and 0.8% capped at $5 for a bank payment. Stripe sets these prices and can change them.

Who pays. You choose in your payments settings who bears the platform fee: you, or the tenant, added on top of the rent as a separately identified amount. You also choose who bears processing. If you choose "tenant pays processing", the bank processing fee is added on top of a one-time bank payment so you receive the full rent (together with the platform fee, if the tenant bears that too). On a credit card payment, Stripe's card processing cost (2.9% + 30¢) is added on top as a separately shown credit card surcharge, never more than 3% of the rent. Stripe charges the same price on debit and credit cards, but on a debit card the processing fee is borne by you, taken by Stripe from the payment in your Stripe account before it is paid out to your bank. Lockstead never surcharges debit cards. A card's type is checked with Stripe before it is charged, so a debit card is charged the debit price whichever option the tenant picked, and the tenant sees that price before confirming. You also choose in your payments settings which payment methods your tenants are offered: bank transfer is always offered, and credit cards and debit cards can each be turned off. A card of a type you have turned off is declined before it is charged. A change to these settings takes effect immediately: the amount a tenant owes is calculated when they open the payment request, so a request you have already sent will show the new total if it is opened after the change. Payments already made are never altered. The amount a tenant will pay, including any fee, is shown in full before they confirm the payment.

You are responsible for whether passing a fee on to your tenants is permitted where your property is, and for whether your lease allows it. Some US states restrict or prohibit surcharging rent payments, and the rules differ by state and by whether the charge is characterised as a convenience fee. Lockstead provides the setting; it does not advise on whether you may use it.

Where a rent payment is refunded, the amount returned to the tenant counts toward the rent first. Anything the tenant paid on top of the rent (a platform fee you passed on, and any credit card surcharge) is returned only for the part of the refunds that goes beyond the rent, so a partial refund up to the rent returns none of it and a full refund returns all of it. Lockstead's platform fee is refunded in proportion to the amount refunded, whether you or the tenant bore it. A refund is taken from the balance of your Stripe account, because the payment was made there. If that balance does not cover the refund, a card refund is held as pending by Stripe until your balance has enough funds, and a refund of another payment method, such as a bank debit, can fail.

A tenant who pays by bank debit authorises the debit in Stripe's checkout, which shows the authorisation in your name as the landlord, for the amount shown at checkout. Bank debits are not instant: they typically settle within two to five business days, and a debit can be returned by the tenant's bank after it first appears to have succeeded. A returned payment is recorded as failed and the rent remains outstanding. Lockstead never automatically re-presents a returned debit.

Co-tenants. A lease can have several tenants, who are jointly liable for it, and any of them can pay. A payment is recorded under the tenant who made it. Notices and receipts go to every tenant on the lease, each according to their own message preferences. We suggest that every adult occupant be on the lease; Lockstead does not enforce an age rule.

Your payout schedule, bank details and dispute responses are managed in your own Stripe dashboard, and Lockstead cannot change them on your behalf. Separately, if your Stripe account supports instant payouts, you can ask from your payments settings for a one-off instant payout of the funds that are already available to pay out instantly. Stripe charges its instant payout fee for this, deducted from the payout, and it does not change your payout schedule.

If a tenant disputes a payment with their bank or card issuer (a chargeback), the disputed amount and Stripe's dispute fee are taken from your Stripe balance while the dispute is open, and you respond to it in your Stripe dashboard. If you win, Stripe returns the amount. Lockstead's platform fee on a disputed payment is not returned.

Because rent is paid into your own Stripe account, Stripe may issue you a Form 1099-K for the payments you receive. Lockstead does not issue one for rent.

Autopay. The primary tenant on a lease can turn on autopay in the tenant portal, by card or by bank debit (a bank account linked through Stripe Financial Connections). Autopay charges the monthly rent only, at the scheduled amount; a month with a prorated or different amount is skipped and the tenant is emailed. Late fees, utilities and other charges are paid manually. An autopay charge, by card or by bank, adds the platform fee on top only if you have chosen that the tenant bears it, and the tenant agrees to that exact total before turning autopay on. A tenant who authorises autopay by bank debit is emailed a copy of that authorisation. If an autopay bank debit is returned for insufficient funds, the charge stays due; a return for any other reason turns autopay off. The portal shows the amount before autopay is turned on, and a tenant can turn it off at any time from the same page, and it stops before the next charge.

Screening

Tenant screening reports are ordered and delivered through TransUnion SmartMove, under SmartMove's and TransUnion's own terms. Lockstead does not receive or store the reports themselves. You are responsible for using screening only for a lawful purpose, with the applicant's consent, and for meeting your obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, including sending an adverse action notice when a report contributes to a decision against an applicant.

Your responsibilities as a landlord

You are responsible for complying with the laws that apply to your properties and your tenants, including fair housing laws, consumer reporting and debt collection laws, and the rules on notices, deposits, fees and late charges where each property is. Lockstead provides tools; it does not give legal advice and does not decide how you use them.

Your data

The records you and your team enter belong to you. We process them on your instructions, as your service provider, to run the service for you, and we do not use them for any other purpose. You can export your data while your account is open. When your account closes, we keep its data in a restricted archive so it can be restored, and we delete it permanently when you ask us to, as described in our Privacy Policy.

If you connect a third-party AI agent or application to your workspace, it receives the data you authorise it to access, under its own terms. You can revoke that access at any time from your workspace settings.

Stead, the AI assistant

Stead is an assistant inside Lockstead that answers questions about your workspace. It uses AI models provided by Anthropic to write its answers.

Stead can only read. It sees the same records your account can see, under your role and property access, and it cannot create, change, send or pay anything. When you ask, it can read documents stored in your workspace. It treats the text of a document as information, not as instructions.

Answers from Stead are generated by AI and can be wrong, incomplete or out of date. Check anything important against your records before you rely on it. Stead does not give legal, tax, accounting or financial advice, and you remain responsible for the decisions you make and the actions you take.

If you use read aloud with a studio voice, the text is sent to Google Cloud Text-to-Speech to produce the audio. If you dictate a question, your browser's own speech recognition turns your voice into text, under your browser provider's terms. Files you attach to a conversation are deleted after 30 days. Use of Stead may be limited per workspace.

Indemnity

You agree to defend and indemnify Lockstead LLC against claims brought by a third party, including a tenant, an owner or a regulator, that arise from the records you enter, the messages you send, the fees you choose to pass on, or your use of the service in breach of these terms or the law.

Service provided as is

The service is provided as is and as available, without warranty of any kind. Features may change or be withdrawn, and the service may be unavailable without notice. Do not rely on it as the only copy of a record you cannot afford to lose. To the extent the law allows, Lockstead LLC is not liable for indirect, consequential or punitive loss arising from your use of the service, and its total liability under these terms is limited to the fees you paid in the twelve months before the event that gave rise to the claim.

Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. When we do we will post the new version on this page and move the date at the top, and we will tell account holders by email before a material change takes effect. Continuing to use the service after that means you accept the new terms.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Kansas, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Where a dispute may be brought in court, it will be heard in the state or federal courts located in Kansas.

Resolving disputes

This section applies to disputes between Lockstead LLC and its customers, the landlords and property managers who hold Lockstead accounts. It does not apply to a tenant who uses Lockstead only to pay rent or to use the tenant portal.

• Arbitration. Any dispute arising from these terms or the service will be settled by binding individual arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act, administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules.
• No class actions. Claims may be brought only on an individual basis, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective or representative action.
• Small claims. Either party may instead bring a claim in small claims court if it qualifies there.
• Intellectual property. Either party may ask a court for an injunction to stop the misuse of its intellectual property.
• No jury. Where a dispute is heard in court rather than in arbitration, both parties waive the right to a jury trial.

Contact us

[email protected]
Lockstead LLC, 12644 S Benedict St, Olathe, KS 66061, USA.